How the little things can sometimes have a big impact on our lives - David Blunkett

I've always thought that when we talk about ‘resilience’ and commend people who stand strong in the face of adversity we should look most approvingly at those men and women where multiple problems hit at once and they find themselves pretty much alone.

Perhaps with three or four small children in a high-rise flat, or a small damp and miserable terraced house, where they are desperately struggling to make ends meet, yet determined to be self-reliant.

Bringing up children alone, without the support of a spouse or partner is difficult enough at the best of times, but when you're completely strapped for cash and everything around you starts to go wrong, the tendency to despair must be enormous.

Many people described as ‘single parents’ don’t have to be bringing up children alone.

For some single parents, and my mother was one of them, the father of the household has died. Others find themselves coping alone because their spouse has walked away.

But for the vast majority there could be - and in my view there should be – two parents, even when they're living separately and where their relationship may be extremely difficult.

I was fortunate: the breakup of my first marriage was, as far as these things can be, amicable: looking after the children was the top priority, not just in terms of shared responsibility in finance, but the most important thing of all: love.

So, as we approach Christmas, my thoughts have been with those who are endeavouring not just to put food on the table but also trying to make the holiday time a joyous one for little ones who see their friends with expensive toys or the latest gadgets, and who can't understand why things aren't quite the same for them.

It is why, coming up to Christmas, reaching out to family and friends, even when there's been a fallout, really matters. Sometimes an individual can be on the edge of despair and no one knows it.

Thirty per cent of people in England live alone; it's a staggering 40 per cent in Scotland. Loneliness is something we don't think about until we experience it.

Most of us can cope with one major challenge at a time.

It is when everything starts to go wrong that you thank your lucky stars if you have the financial resources, the comfort of a decent house or the strength of those around you to help you through.

I'm imagining, again, that single parent when the washing machine breaks down, the cooker gives up the ghost and the electricity is finally cut off. Where do you turn? What do you do?

What, you may ask, has brought me to this slightly mournful set of reflections?

Well, the ups and downs in my own health over the last months, which, by comparison, seem to be slight.

Slight, because none of them is a ‘knockout blow’, and I am in an incredibly fortunate position that doesn't stop me being fed up, but certainly prevents me from being ‘depressed’.

Firstly, a heart attack in Italy. Lucky to be in a very nice place, and even luckier that the local hospital had a cardiac unit. Their immediate treatment was excellent and the stent, which opened up one of my arteries, was sufficient to keep me going for the time being.

On return to Sheffield, it was discovered that two other arteries were treatable in the same way, and as I await an MRI scan in the New Year, I'm optimistic that what the consultant describes as ‘plumbing’ is doing the job.

Then, I managed to get my leg trapped between the platform and the underground train in London.

That was nearly six weeks ago, and with the excellent treatment in a specialist unit in Sheffield, I'm gradually healing again.

But it was a chest infection that really cheesed me off. I just literally needed to get back on my feet.

I ought to confess that recently, I had really started to think that Christmas had turned into a commercial jamboree with artificial bonhomie, but I've shaken myself out of this gloom and doom.

For many people, having something uplifting to look forward to, even contact from those they haven't heard from for months or even years, can be genuinely uplifting.

So, I have put Ebenezer Scrooge behind me. I'm genuinely hoping that 2025 turns out to be a year when clouds start to lift, when we rejoice every time the sun comes out, and when in the spring, the birds sing again.

Here in Yorkshire, just saying ‘good morning’ as you walk past somebody in the street, the park or the local woodland can make such a difference.

It might, after all, be the only time that day that someone has had a genuine human connection.

So, here's ‘cheers’ to the little things that make life worthwhile, and to wishing each other what we would hope for ourselves.

David Blunkett is a Labour Party politician, and served as the MP for Sheffield Brightside and Hillsborough.