The Queen made a rare public address on Sunday evening about the current pandemic.

I don’t know what I was expecting when I switched it on, (I am not a big fan of the royal family and have never before watched the Queen speak) but I certainly didn’t think it would move me the way it did.

I felt, comforted, seen, relieved, for the first time since the lockdown began.

The monarch said: “I am speaking to you at what I know is an increasingly challenging time. A time of disruption in the life of our country.

“A disruption that has bought grief to some, financial difficulties to many and enormous changes to the daily lives of us all.”

It is true, this pandemic is not something to be taken lightly. The death toll in the UK alone now stands at almost 5,000.

It is unfathomable to me that so many lives have been lost, so many families have been left battling with unimaginable grief.

And, yet, in this war against Covid-19, we are united. We are all in this together, we have all suffered and still are suffering in one way or another. We have never been closer.

Nobody is thinking about the colour or ethnicity of the doctors and nurses that are saving our mothers and fathers and grandparents.

Nobody is looking down on those who are stacking shelves or driving delivery trucks or cleaning hospital floors.

Nobody is going through this alone, every one is checking in with neighbours they have never spoken to, relatives they rarely see and friends they have drifted apart from.

One thing we have learnt from Covid-19 is what really matters; isn’t race, religion, gender,age, social class, status, power or money.

Nobody is untouchable.

The only thing that will save us in the end, is love, kindness and acceptance.

If this doesn’t show us that we are not divided, we are equal... we are human, then I don’t know what will.

The monarch continued: “While we have faced challenges before, this one is different.

“This time we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavour, using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal.

“We will succeed...and that success will belong to us all.”