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Clap For Our Carers organiser: 'Tonight is the last time I will clap for the NHS and key workers'

Annemarie Plas
Annemarie Plas
Coronavirus Charity Appeal - compact puff to donate page - article embed
Coronavirus Charity Appeal - compact puff to donate page - article embed

Grab a saucepan, wooden spoon, glass of wine, and a painted lockdown smile. It has become a Thursday evening ritual, just before 8pm: scrambling to the front door to join neighbours you met for the first time 10 weeks ago for a few minutes of applause. Let out the fears and frustrations of lockdown; celebrate the workers who have kept the country healthy and safe.

First, we clapped for the NHS, the doctors and nurses on the Covid-19 frontline. Next, we applauded the postal, supermarket, waste disposal, and transport workers. People set off fireworks, donned fancy dress, and composed streetwide singalongs.

And then, perhaps wearying of clapping, the judgement started. “I haven’t seen Sue from number 10 for two weeks, has she fallen ill?” “I heard she hates the NHS.”

Now, after more than two months of Clap For Our Carers, organiser Annemarie Plas is applauding tonight for the last time.

“For me personally, on behalf of Clap For Our Carers, it will be the last clap I give,” says Plas. “We want to maintain the positive impact it has had. We’re really proud of our NHS workers and now want to turn it into something that lasts after coronavirus.”

The 36-year-old yoga instructor and sales representative is at home in Streatham, London, where she lives with her partner, a technology worker, and their two-year-old son (we are speaking over Zoom because the toddler won today’s fight for her mobile phone). It is from there that she founded Clap For Our Carers, inspired by a similar movement in her native country, The Netherlands.

For the first clap, Plas worried that she would be one of the only people on her street at their front door, so she took a wooden spoon and pan to the front door with her. But there was such popularity in her neighbourhood that she soon downed tools and clapped with her bare hands.

“You hear a wave of sound coming from a few roads back, then start clapping,” she says. “The guys across the road would shout to one another, the people to our left would hang out of their window, and we would check on our elderly neighbour from two doors down. It’s nice to know you’re not alone. You wave and smile, make a connection.”

People clap for key workers outside Chelsea and Westminster Hospital  - Barcroft Media
People clap for key workers outside Chelsea and Westminster Hospital - Barcroft Media

Plas has befriended people on her road whom she had never spoken to before the coronavirus pandemic. “Before, I would maybe collect a package for them,” she says. “Now, I check in to see how they’re doing and say hello on the street.”

One neighbour, who has lived in the area for decades, has been teaching her the history of Streatham. They tell stories of how 25 years ago it was a quiet area and after 10pm there would barely be a sound.

Does her son join them too? “No, it’s past his bedtime. In the beginning, when I used a wooden spoon, I would hear him cry.”

Plas is looking forward to sending him back to nursery from next week. “There are limits to the time when he can go but it will be nice for him to see people his own size,” she says. “He lights up when he sees his friends from nursery on the street. Then I explain that he can’t go and play with them. As a parent, it hurts your heart.”

But, she adds, “if that’s my biggest worry, then I’m lucky.”

should this be the last clap for carers
should this be the last clap for carers

Plas has seen one friend for a socially distanced walk since lockdown measures were eased, and hopes that before too long she will be able to visit her family in the Netherlands. “It hasn’t been easy for any of us to follow these guidelines,” she says, when I ask what she thought about Dominic Cummings’ trip to Durham. “We did it and I’m really proud of those who did.”

Clap For Our Carers has had its own sprinkle of controversy. Plas widened the scope of the applause after people complained that the public should be thanking all key workers, not just medical staff. Then, it drew criticism for becoming politicised after abstainers said they felt pilloried by their communities.

You are not alone - in article puff - compact version
You are not alone - in article puff - compact version

But Plas swerves negativity and focuses on the good it has brought to her life. “It’s overwhelming to see how many people in my position responded positively to it and come out to connect once a week,” she says. “It warms you on the inside.”

In other countries, such as the US and Canada, people clap every evening. In Europe, the clapping continues.

Plas is now focused on organising an annual Clap For Our Carers in Britain, which will take place at the end of March. If the clapping in the UK continues, it will be without her direct involvement.

“People who want to continue, because it’s nice in their communities, should do so,” she says. “I’m not the owner of the applause, and if there’s another great initiative, I will get behind it.”

Is her street likely to continue clapping? “If all my neighbours are out on a Thursday night, then I’ll definitely peak my head out and check on everyone,” says Plas. After all, “there’s still a crisis going on.”

Should tonight be the last Clap for Carers? Tell us in the comments below