Stories from the Northampton neighbourhoods pulling together to help each other through the Covid-19 crisis

"It's no surprise to me that Northampton has rallied together. It's in our blood."

This is the sterling endorsement from the founder of just one of Northampton's dozens of support groups that have stepped up during the Covid-19 crisis.

Northampton's neighbourhoods are looking out for one another. They are checking in the elderly couple on the corner and noticing when that single mother has been in isolation for weeks.

The evidence is in the long list of support groups that have appeared all across the town.

The Chronicle & Echo was able to speak to just three of these dozens of new groups to hear how they have been helping one another.

Bianca Todd started the Abington Covid-19 Support Group on Facebook last month and it has now grown to 400 members ready to volunteer their time.

She said: "We're making sure people aren't feeling alone. I like to think we're touching people's lives without touching them.

"It's led to so many things. We had a family contact us after the food banks had already shut one day. They were down to just a packet of biscuits in the whole house.The group clubbed together and bought them a week's shopping.

"We had a family with a young person with disabilities when the store had run out of adult nappies. So another family donated half of their nappies to them.

"These sort of things are priceless. It's no surprise to me that Northampton has rallied together. It's in our blood."

In Hardingstone, a support group was launched to help during Covid-19 - but now it looks like it will become a permanent part of the village.

"In some ways, the lockdown has been a good thing," said one member, Michelle Lewis. "It's got the community going again. We're all saying hello to each other in the street and smiling more, we're all looking up.

"The Facebook group is just full of ideas every day. We've got people walking dogs for one another and fetching shopping. We've got someone designing clips with big buttons for doctors and nurses that goes behind their heads to take the stress of wearing masks off their ears. The school is organising cakes and cards for Age UK.

"I don't know if it will continue after the coronavirus but I certainly hope so."

The Far Cotton and Delapre Community Support Group began by helping residents secure food during the weeks of panic-buying last month and is now pulling together for its isolated and vulnerable neighbours every week.

Councillor Julie Davenport, who has been working with the group said: "It's a very well oiled machine now with everyone working together for residents. The community spirit will see us through.

"We've helped dozens of people with emergency food and aid. There was a single parent who was struggling after being scammed, who we bought food to see her through. There was a homeless person who moved into a flat with no cooker - Andrew Lewer MP secured him a gas cooker so they could stop buying instant food.

"Every isolated resident has a volunteer for the duration of their isolation period for shopping, prescriptions, chats. This builds trust and friendship."

These are just three groups in Northampton that have pulled together to help one another - and a new online map shoes how there are dozens more just like them across the town.

Let's hope the warm community spirit that's been found in these troubling times will carry on well after the current crisis is over.