The weary team of nine care staff recently walked out of Court House Retirement Home in Cheddar and were able to be reunited with their families for the first time in 12 weeks.

Manager Christopher Dando has now shared his thoughts with Cheddar Nub News, looking back with pride at how his retirement home managed to stay coronavirus-free by keeping the staff locked in with the residents.

They had taken the decision to lock themselves into the care home in mid-April as coronavirus was starting to take hold in the country and, although they had only planned to be in for two weeks, they were still there three months later.

Christopher had, together with his management team, taken the decision that the only way they could guarantee keeping the residents of the care home alive and well was to lock themselves in, pull up the drawbridge and live in their own bubble away from the rest of the world.

Christopher said: "We were well supported by a great team on the outside, James Dando decided to stay on the outside and ensure that supplies could get to Court House including food and prescriptions, and this was invaluable.

"Also my daughter Chloe Dando did an amazing job with social media connecting us with the outside world, I would just send pictures to Chloe and she would do the rest. This also ensured that residents and staff were connected with their families.

"It soon became apparent after watching the news on a daily basis that care homes were suffering really badly.

"This was awful to watch, it just made us even more glad that we had taken the tough decision that we had to leave our family is behind to protect our residents.

"We had absolutely made the right call. This bad news seemed to just keep coming, we were hearing of multiple deaths across the country and even at local care homes.

"One of the local care homes was on the news having lost several residents to the virus and had 30 staff who tested positive for it.

"Hearing this news made it impossible for us to make the decision to come out of our safe bubble.

"Then we heard the news that Western General Hospital was closed due to being overwhelmed with coronavirus cases and staff testing positive for the virus.

"From when we came in to lockdown to the time we eventually felt safe to come out, the landscape has changed considerably.

"We are now able to get consistent supplies of personal protective equipment, originally this was very difficult to get hold of and had been redirected to the front line of the NHS.

"Testing was unreliable and an obtainable at the start, and now we are able to test all of our staff on a weekly basis and have the results back within two or three days.

"The whole world has learnt an awful lot about the virus in that time too, different medications are known to help fight the virus and its symptoms.

"We felt that we were able to plan for a safer future from a stronger position at the end of the 12 weeks."

Christopher said the hardest thing about what they did was being away from all of their families.

"I myself have Chloe a 22-year-old daughter and a wife Alison and our young four-year-old daughter Edith who I was unable to go home to join the whole three months," he said.

"I missed cuddles with all of them, it was hard not being able to be there for bath time or storytime with Edith every evening although fortunately FaceTime did make it possible to be there in some form.

"I missed going out for dog walks along across the Somerset Levels with my lovely collie dog Stanley.

"Many staff missed birthdays and anniversaries at home with their loved ones, Tina missed her 26th wedding anniversary.

"There were definitely times when certainly after about eight or nine weeks we felt like a lost Amazonian tribe, the rest of the world seem to be getting back to normal while we were still locked in doing everything we could to carry on keeping coronavirus out."

There were happy times, though, as the staff found that being at Court House every day and every night meant they got to spend a lot more time with the residents they are so fond of.

Christopher said: "Although there was not a lot of time for fun and games we did try to snatch the odd half an hour here or hour there.

"We had a badminton set and a swing ball set which was set up for the staff to grab a bit of exercise now and again, although the belly laughing while playing them was probably the best bit of exercise from this.

"We did have film evenings, board game evenings, a socially-distanced disco along with takeaway evenings which we turned into themed suppers.

"We celebrated a few staff birthdays all with wonderful cakes made by Gary. In fact having Gary our chef there was very important in helping us get through as he was serving up delicious treats for the whole time.

"Having had a little bit of time to reflect on our experience, I think we all look back in pride at what we have achieved.

"To sacrifice what, in the scheme of things, is a relatively short amount of time, to help protect and save the lives of our residents was definitely a sacrifice worth making.

"As a manager I am so very very proud of what the staff have achieved, our plan was to ultimately save the lives of the residents and I feel that is exactly what we have done.

"We will look back, knowing that this was a once in a lifetime experience and feel that we were privileged to be able to do what we did.

"We do realise that on leaving Court House after 12 weeks the struggle is not over, we have managed to steer the care home through what could have been a very difficult time.

"We still very much have to be on our guard and do everything in our power to continue keeping our residents as safe as possible."