Whilst in Year 6 at her primary school, Tilly and her classmates had the opportunity to do an account all about ‘My life in lockdown’, and they were all given the option to send them to BBC Radio 4, as all chronicles received were going to be archived in the British Library in London.

A few weeks later Tilly’s parents received a phone call from a producer at BBC Radio 4 asking if they would be willing to record her chronicle for it to be played live on the radio, it was then aired on the show in May 2020.

BBC Radio 4 also contacted Tilly’s parents again, to ask permission for her ‘Covid Chronicle’ to be published in a book called ‘Letters from Lockdown’.  She was recently sent a copy of the book from Radio 4, which was released in November.  A donation from every book sale is going towards BBC Children in Need.

Tilly said, “I felt excited, happy and proud that I was going to be a mini author in a book of many chronicles by all ages.   I felt special and lucky to be chosen to have my chronicle speech played on BBC Radio 4.  And the fact I was chosen out of lots of people, made all my hard work worth it.”

Tilly’s Covid Chronicle - My Lockdown Life

How I feel about lockdown!

I feel okay about being in lockdown except the part that we cannot go out and see our friends or go to school.  This is a big thing for my year 6 friends and me.  We have missed lots of school trips, and activities and our first ever residential trip to Heatree has been cancelled!  We have not had the chance to say goodbyes / good lucks because we cannot see each other until lockdown is over and then hopefully, we can meet up.  Lockdown is also fun at the same time because you get to spend more time with the people you live with.  I get more time doing no schoolwork because we do it up until lunchtime in our house nearly every day, then enjoy some family activities and games, or go for a cycle or play outside.

My daily routine

First in my daily routine I get out of bed and I go downstairs and have some free time on the Nintendo, iPad or my iPhone.  Then at about 8.30am we have breakfast (normally a bagel).  Then we go back in the lounge and do ten minutes of numbots and times tables rock stars. When this learning is finished, we go upstairs and brush our teeth, brush our hair, get dressed, make our bed, turn off our lights and open our curtains.  And that is my morning routine.

Different celebrations

First, we celebrated Easter which my mum and dad made an Easter hunt for me and my sister and at the end was an Easter egg and a stuffed animal (a bunny rabbit) we also had a nice surprise lunch.  Next was VE 75 day which we made a lot of drawings and banners for that we hung up on the outside of our house we also had an amazing lunch.

After that was my 11th birthday which I got a lot of nice presents from my family and friends many of which were delivered through the post.  My birthday was Hawaii themed, so I dressed up as a hula girl. I played a lot of party games like a llama piñata, pass the parcel, lucky dip and limbo.  I had an amazing birthday thanks to my wonderful family.

Arts and crafts

Whilst we’ve been stuck at home, I have done lots of different crafts such as drawing competitions for my school, we made rainbow pictures to display in our windows to show thanks to keyworkers and the NHS we have also done a lot of baking and cooking.  I have also made a fairy garden, a bird box, a lettuce garden, made a pond.

I have also had to do 6 activities to earn a very special Mayflower 400 Badge for my Guides Division.