A heartbroken grandmother has confronted a Tory minister for "playing with her grandchildren's lives" - while she is still barred from seeing them.
Lyn from Redditch, Worcestershire, sounded close to tears as she asked Robert Jenrick why he was sending children back to school, but not letting them see their family.
In a phone-in on BBC Radio 5 Live, she told the Communities Secretary - who denied "playing with anyone's lives" - "I have a 60ft garden full of children’s toys where they could play.
"But I'm not allowed to do that and it’s breaking my heart."
Primary schools are due to reopen in a "socially distanced" way from June 1 at the earliest, starting with Years R, 1 and 6 and with other primary years due to follow by July.
But everyone must still stay two metres away from each other for the foreseeable future unless they live in the same household - even close family.
The government is looking at letting two households join in a permanent "bubble", but there's no date or firm plan for this yet. And Health Secretary Matt Hancock warned people may not be able to hug each other hello until there's a vaccine.
Lyn told BBC Radio 5 Live: "As a heartbroken grandmother who has had everything to do with bringing up and helping with her grandchildren.
"Why when everything is being eased, children sent to school, people mixing, even at a long distance, [is it] I cannot or will not be able to cuddle and hug my children or grandchildren, as Matt Hancock said, for six or maybe 12 months or even more if a vaccine is not found?
"I have a son who lives in Redditch. He's in a flat with two little children. These are shielded. He's got nowhere he can go.
"I have a 60ft garden full of children’s toys where he could bring the children and they could play. But I'm not allowed to do that and it’s breaking my heart not to see my children and grandchildren.
"And there must be many, many mothers and grandmothers feeling exactly the same."
Mr Jenrick came under fire himself for driving several miles to visit his parents in lockdown - though he insisted he was bringing them food and medicine which is within the rules.
Mr Jenrick said: "Well, Lyn, I've had similar conversations with my mum who would like to come and put her arms around my children.
"But the medical advice is that's not the right thing to do at this moment in time.
"Because we need to try to prevent the spread of the virus, control the virus at the moment.
"So I think we're just going to have to ask you, I know it's really tough and every family in the country is going through this, but just to hold off a little bit."
Asked how much longer he said: "We don't know."
Most lockdown restrictions remain in place as hundreds of people continue to die each day with coronavirus. More than 40,000 in the UK have died.
New rules in England allow one person from each household to sit in an outdoor open space together as long as they are two metres apart.
But Lyn told the Tory minister: "That's not the thing.
"You’re willing to play with our grandchildren and children’s lives by sending them back to school with no real proof they will be safe.
"But the families we're talking about, your families have been isolated, keeping them away from each other."
Mr Jenrick insisted: "We will never play with anybody’s lives. The risk to children is extremely low from the virus.
"We need to proceed cautiously. That's what the government is doing. We appreciate how difficult this is for everybody's lives.
"And we want to begin to get all of the country - our economy, our livelihoods, our lives - back to a semblance of normality."
It comes as teaching unions stage a mounting revolt over plans to send children back to school.
The government has ordered schools to up cleaning, stagger break and finish times, introduce one-way corridors and limit children to classes of 15.
But government advice also accepts those 15-strong classes won't be able to be kept socially distanced.
Instead, each class will be a self-contained unit, unable to mix with other classes or teachers, and if one person tests positive for Covid-19 the whole class will need to isolate at home for 14 days.
In the same phone-in a headteacher, Mark, said schools were willing to reopen “cautiously” but blasted the government’s plan.
He said: “This isn’t cautious. This is going from 25 to 400 in a matter of four or five weeks. Science tells us this is unsafe.”
Mark said numbers in his school would increase at a “staggering rate”, from 25 children of key workers now to more than 200 in two weeks, and 400 in July if things “go well”.
“What does going well mean?” he said.
“Does that mean no deaths? And how safe is this for pupils and staff?”
Mr Jenrick said it was important to get children back to school but insisted: “We are not rushing this.
“We’re working with the trade unions, teachers and other experts, taking advice from Public Health England, to ensure that not only is it safe but that teachers headteachers like yourself feel comfortable being back in the classroom.”
He said each stage of the reopening plan for schools will only happen if the previous stage does not push the reproduction rate of the virus too high.
