During the first months of the coronavirus lockdown, Claire Foster-Gilbert, director of Westminster Abbey Institute, wrote twelve weekly letters to Britain’s public servants. Intended to strengthen their response to the rapidly changing needs of an increasingly unfamiliar world, these letters chart a heroic journey through initial uncertainty and crushing trials toward unprecedented unity and transformed resolve. Rather than bunker down, she asks us to consider: what might we discover, imagine, and change for the better as a result of the pandemic?

Letters from the Lockdown presents the twelve original letters alongside new, deeply personal accounts from public servants on the job. Together, this collection provides an opportunity to reflect on how public values meet practice as the global crisis unfolds.