For the past 42 years Peter Chivers has been a local painter and decorator in and around Midsomer Norton.

But last Tuesday, as he finished up his last job painting the outside of a local house, he thought that with the phone no longer ringing, that would be him hanging up his paint brushes.

But then the owner of the local Jacarandas restaurant, who had been asking him for months to come and re-paint the popular cafe, perhaps as a job overnight, got in touch.

With Peter able to walk to work, and working solo and, obviously, the restaurant free of customers, could this be a good time to redecorate ?

Pete as he is known, welcomed the work and said: " I knew that it was probably it my last job. No one wants me coming into their home now. But here I am on my own working, so if I can do it safely, why not? "

Pete says his sole trader status means that he is used to a lonely existence anyway, He said: " If someone says I can't carry on. I will stop. But right now it is keeping me busy and it is getting the cafe painted."

Pete says he is also lucky in that, unlike many small businesses, he doesn't have any overheads. He said: " A lot of people will suffer with this (the coronavirus lockdown) I am very worried for them. Goodness knows what will happen at the end of it all."

One thing that does make Pete smile. It seems from the sales of paint and brushes that with the lockdown many Midsomer Norton residents are doing their own decorating.

" Well I wish them good luck," said Pete. " But its a bit like hairdressing, everyone thinks they can give it a go, but when this is all over and we have all been cutting our own hair, there will be a lot of people arriving at the hairdressers and they will look at people's hair and say 'Well who cut that then!!'....it's never as easy as it looks."