T
here will be no fireworks at the stroke of midnight this New Year’s Eve but wander out on to the doorstep, cup an ear against the night and you might just hear an echo of a familiar sound. Was that a whoop? A cheer? Was that the distant whack of wooden spoon against saucepan?
There have been terrible mistakes and epic failures with abysmal consequences. But they weigh scarcely a feather in the balance against a great accumulated mass of quiet, stubborn indefatigability.
“If you can fill the unforgiving minute with 60 seconds worth of distance run,” wrote Rudyard Kipling. And if you can’t run, well, you can walk a hundred laps around your garden and raise £33m for charity. That will more than do.
