The beginning of the end of Britain’s lockdown — one of the longest and most stringent in the world — came with a pint at a pub.

Just past the stroke of midnight on Monday, a few select establishments in England served their first drink since being forced to close in January, and more than a year after the first of three national lockdowns were imposed to limit the spread of the coronavirus.

Later in the morning, thousands of gyms, salons and retail stores opened their doors for the first time in months, bringing a frisson of life to streets long frozen in a state of suspended animation.

Thousands more pubs resumed business at noon. Friends reunited, families shared a meal at an outdoor cafe together for the first time in months and as Britons basked in the late afternoon sun, the morning chill seemed faded, replaced by a collective smile and sigh of relief.

With the return of one of Britain’s most cherished institutions — even if pubs were limited to outdoor service — the country took its first major step in a phased reopening that is scheduled to culminate on June 21, when the government has said that it hopes to lift almost all restrictions in England. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland are following separate but similar timetables, under which some restrictions that eased on Monday in England will remain in place a while longer.

Despite chilly weather with occasional snow flurries, the moment was greeted with an enthusiasm born of more than a year of deprivation — as the once unimaginable notion of conscripting to government decree has become a way of life.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson called it “a major step forward in our road map to freedom”.

In the first weeks of the global health crisis — when the WHO was still debating whether to call the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic — a new word entered the popular lexicon. Lockdown in English. Le confinement in French. El confinamiento in Spanish. But first came fengcheng in China, literally meaning to lock down a city.

New York Times News Service