A POET captured the nation’s hearts at the beginning of lockdown in March last year as he penned a tribute to the country’s response to the Covid-19 pandemic.

After the success of Our Heroes, which was read aloud on BBC Radio 5 Live and BBC One’s The One Show, Matt Kelly, of Eccleston, has just released his latest prose entitled Rainbows.

The 44-year-old is no stranger to having his work read by celebrities, with Johnny Vegas doing a voiceover for one of his poems and raising £22,000 for a local homeless charity.

England national rugby league team head coach Shaun Wane, Manchester DJ Mike Sweeney and comedian Justin Moorhouse have all read Matt’s poems and Swindon film-maker Tom Woodward has created videos to accompany the moving words.

It was during the first lockdown at the end of March last year that Matt decided to put pen to paper and write a tribute to the nation, having only written small poems inside birthday cards in the past.

Matt said: “I remember being inspired to write Our Heroes after coming up with one line and, late one night, the rest just flowed in about ten minutes.

“My partner Jill, who is a district nurse in St Helens, shared the poem on social media and it went viral.

“Radio 5 Live rang me to ask me if I’d be on their show at the end of the week to discuss the poem and they also asked if I’d like anyone in particular to read it aloud.

“I said I imagined Christopher Eccleston’s northern accent reading it and they made it happen.

“It still gives me goosebumps when I think about the first time I heard him saying the words I’d written.”

Our Heroes has been viewed more than a million times on film-maker Tom’s Youtube and Facebook pages and now Matt’s work is due to be published in a book.

His latest poem Rainbows was released to coincide with Freedom Day in England where restrictions in most settings have ended due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

Matt said: “It’s a message of hope and has a sense of cautious optimism.

“We’ve all been on a journey and had the chance to grow but now it’s time to reflect on the past 18 months as we start to emerge from lockdown.”