RESIDENTS of a Dorset village took part in some ‘social distancing singing’ to raise spirits in their community.

Several residents of Child Okeford took to Homefield, where more than 20 locals joined in with a good old fashioned sing-a-long.

Villager Sarah Jack said: “We put leaflets in all the doors down that street and gave them notice because we weren’t sure if we would be in lockdown. Everything had to be done at the last minute. It was very spontaneous.

“I thought it would be a nice idea to do something for people in self-isolation because there are a lot of elderly residents in the area. I’m one of the younger ones and I’m 57.

“I thought it would be nice to contribute. People are volunteering to take dogs for walks and doing people’s shopping for them and this is my way of contributing.

“There was a really good community spirit and the group kept getting bigger until we had about 24 people by the time we finished.

“People opened their doors if they didn’t want to come out if they were too shy and listened from there.”

“It was wonderful for those of us feeling a little bit down with everything going on, it was really uplifting.

“We were going to do it again but I’m not sure if we can now. None of us were getting too close, just the couples who were in the same household sharing the same song sheet. There is a residential home in our community that we would have liked to go and sing on the street outside.”

Rob Adams, caught the community spirit on video, said: “There’s a lot of musical people in the village and there’s a lot of people who are at risk. We all stood a large distance away from each other and there was quite a few people. It was a beautiful day and I hope we can do it again but I assume there will be tighter restrictions.”