WE have put up over 2,000 miles of bunting, served two million lunches on the street and gathered in our hundreds of thousands in the cold and wet along the Thames to watch a record-breaking river pageant.

And as our coverage today shows (and it will be illustrated even better tomorrow in our 28 page pull-out special), local communities have come together in a show of unity, good humour and downright neighbourliness. Sometimes we need an excuse for a party and the Diamond Jubilee was the perfect one. But the togetherness it has engendered ought to remind us just how important this is in normal times. One of the biggest curses of modern life is loneliness. Surveys continually tell us this. For some pensioners, it is their biggest fear. Younger people are not immune either. We should harness some of that Jubilee spirit to keep an eye on those who may not have anyone else apart from their community.

It would be some legacy.