Opinion: ‘No More Heroes any more’, no longer

Shortly before the world turned upside down, I was lucky enough to be at BBC 6 Music event in Camden, where Tony Visconti, the great producer behind David Bowie’s Berlin-period albums, and The Stranglers’ JJ Burnel were interviewed by Liz Kershaw.

A mischievous Burnel claimed that in writing No More Heroes, his band were telling David Bowie “he was wrong”.

I think Bowie won that one, as we’ve seen over the last month.

In the coming weeks we’ll be profiling some of the local heroes doing great things in our community.

Since this the pandemic hit these shores, it has been heartening to see people coming together, often putting aside their differences.

Among the lovely stories we’ve come across is that of a 16-year-old “saint” delivering food and medicines to the vulnerable and elderly.

This really cheered me up.

When I was 16 I was mainly focused on beer, finding the courage to speak to girls and becoming more like Bowie.

Tell us about your own Local Heroes so we can tell readers.

As many people will have experienced, it can take a coronavirus to get old school friends back in the same room together, virtually.

Video technology has advanced so much since I last checked. I can only assume that if the pavements melt, our hoverboards will be ready for us.

While lives may have taken different directions, there’s comfort in a shared history. It’s nice to know a chemistry remains.

We shared festival memories, and bemoaned this year’s cancellations (Iggy Pop and Kraftwerk are the big ones for me); and geeked out over tv and movies.

We discovered a shared disgust at people who fail to respect social distancing. That’s a new one since our school days.