If anyone had told them what the year ahead was to bring, they wouldn’t have believed them. “I would have laughed in their faces!” Jenny said.

Yet within weeks, John was fighting for his life in hospital after contracting a mysterious new virus. Jenny also caught the virus. Their lives were overturned.

The pair first heard about a new virus in China early in January. “We just thought it would be another SARS,” John said. “It seemed so far away.” Then, on January 31, it was confirmed that a Chinese student and another person, who had been taken ill at York’s Staycity aparthotel, had tested positive for the virus.

“We thought ‘We’ll have to be careful’,” Jenny said. “But we still didn’t worry unnecessarily.”

In mid-March, however, just a few days before the UK went into lockdown for the first time, John developed a tickly cough. He didn’t think anything of it. “Then I woke up at 2am one morning trembling all over,” he said. “It was as though my whole body was jumping inside.”

He also started having hallucinations. Jenny called an ambulance and John was taken to York Hospital.

It turned out he had a high fever. Doctors tried different intravenous antibiotics in a desperate attempt to bring his temperature down. At one point Jenny heard doctor saying 'I don't know what I'm going to do'.

Eventually, John's temperature was brought under control. He was tested for coronavirus. And when the results came back from Leeds, a doctor told him: "You've got pneumonia, E.Coli and coronavirus."

John was isolated on his own in a four-bay ward at the hospital. And while he was there, Jenny also became ill, with sickness, diarrhoea and 'terrible headaches'. She collapsed twice. Jenny, who was herself treated for breast cancer 11 years ago and is now on herceptin injections, said a nurse later told her it was likely she had had the virus, too.

After eight days, John came home. But the couple's ordeal was far from over. Both were still feeling ill and weak. "We each spent nearly three weeks lying on the sofa!" Jenny said.

They were helped by 'lovely neighbours' in their Holgate cul-de-sac, who cooked meals for them and left them on their doorstep.

They are both now much better - though John occasionally still gets breathless. John, who completed three sessions of chemotherapy for his prostate cancer before lockdown, had to have further sessions cancelled, although he has been receiving hormone injections. But he says his cancer is now 'under control'.

The pair, whose younger son Peter has also had coronavirus and recovered, have spent much of the last year shielding. Jenny said they had kept themselves busy through three lockdowns. They exercise in the garden, and John, a retired joiner, has spent a lot of his time in his shed doing 'projects' - including repairing a 17-foot-long canoe for a friend. Jenny took up painting.

The pandemic has affected their family in other ways. Peter, a self-employed joiner, was unable to work during the first lockdown. And their older son Adam, who works for a brewery, was furloughed.

But Jenny said the thing they had missed most was being able to see their 13-year-old granddaughter Freya. "I haven't had a kiss or a cuddle for over a year now!" she said.

They cancelled plans for a family get-together at Christmas, and instead just met up briefly in the garden to exchange presents.

Jenny says the Government should have made it clear much earlier that large family gatherings at Christmas wouldn't be allowed. And she is angry at people who continue to deny that Covid is serious. "They are talking rubbish!" she said.

She has nothing but praise for NHS workers, however. "They're marvellous!" she said.