The coronavirus lockdown has wrecked holiday plans and put social lives on hold. But while the parties may have been postponed, birthday celebrations have continued in earnest and people across the UK have forged unforgettable memories.
Still, there have been sacrifices. Even for the Queen, who cancelled her customary birthday gun salutes on Tuesday, her 94th birthday, for what is thought to be the first time in her reign, as “she did not feel it appropriate in the current circumstances”.
In Manchester, Elsie Wilson and her two housemates transformed all eight rooms of their student house into a different pub, each with an individual theme, for her 21st birthday.
“My housemates and I were thinking about the things we’d like to do when lockdown was over, and we wanted a pub crawl, so we made one at home,” she said. “We were originally supposed to have my birthday in a pub, so we decided to recreate it in the house.”
They put up pub signs on doors and changed clothing before going into each room, which each featured a designated cocktail.
“The bathroom was ‘dress to the nines’, the garden was ‘British summertime’, the kitchen was 70s, and the living room was pyjamas. And in each bedroom, you had to dress like the person whose room it was,” Wilson said.
In south-west London, Stephen Kelly turned 48 on 31 March – two weeks after spending a week in hospital with coronavirus. On his birthday morning he enjoyed a lie-in at home before he opened the blinds and to his surprise found an enormous “happy birthday” banner across his back garden, prompting his neighbours to wish him well.
“My son and his mother, who is an art teacher, told me not to get up, and I thought they were making a cake or something,” he said. “They were very crafty about it.”
In the town of Bromsgrove, in Worcestershire, police officer Nicola Moore had planned to have a party at a nearby bar for her 40th birthday but instead camped in her garden with her partner and her daughter before friends dropped off presents o in her driveway.
“I was extremely grateful to have a few friends, on their daily essential travel, take time to pass by to wish me a happy birthday and leave gifts,” she said.
“I didn’t want people coming round, but it was out of my control. For them it was like taking exercise and you’re having your present whether you like it or not.”
In Walton-upon-Thames, Surrey, 80-year-old Anna Clements spent her birthday picking vegetables on her allotment to serve as crudites for her fellow almshouse residents at a gathering on Tuesday evening.
Originally, she had planned to spend a long weekend away in the Derbyshire countryside with her family before the distancing rules came in. Clements had then looked forward to securing a “click and collect” spot at the local Tesco for her birthday, but thought better of leaving her retirement village due to the risk of contracting coronavirus.
“It was going to be spent rather grimly at Tesco’s but not any more, it’s too risky” she said. “I’ll be drinking lots of cider and everyone else will be drinking wine. We are very careful, though. Everyone is terrific about keeping distances.”
Back in the capital, 11-year-old child actor Naya Luena had four consecutive Houseparty calls on her birthday last week – with her classmates, fellow actors in a West End production of Lion King, one with family around the world and one with her closest friends.
“It wasn’t a bad birthday,” she said. “It was something to get used to, but it was still really fun because there were lots of things you usually wouldn’t do on your birthday.”
The candles were blown out on the cake away from the video calls, however, in order to not make anyone jealous. “That’s one of the advantages of the lockdown, that you don’t have to share the cake with others.”
