AN 84-year-old poet has written hundreds of poems since the start of the pandemic, creating a time capsule reflecting the unprecedented time the world faced.

It all started when Celia Ellis, dubbed ‘The Lockdown Laureate’, wrote a poem at the beginning of the pandemic and posted it on Facebook on March 17, 2020.

It received such a good response that she was asked if she could do another.

Never imagining it would go on for so long, she said she would write and post a poem each day until it was all over.

Now, more than 500 poems later, Celia, from Riddlesden, and who owned and ran Keighley Fuel Services, is still going strong and has even managed to compile them in a book, with a second one in the pipeline.

Even though both her and her husband Geoff suffered from Covid, she continued writing and posting.

The poems are both humorous and serious, touching on life through Covid and stories from Celia’s past and her family life.

One of her favourites was posted on April 14 last year and touches on having to stay at home.

Her friend even sent a book to Prime Minister Boris Johnson when he caught Covid for him to read while in isolation.

Celia said: “Whether he did or not, I’ll never know, but she sent him it.”

She said the comments she had received about the poems have been “wonderful” and people don’t want her to stop

“I think we’ve reached out to so many people during the pandemic, it’s done so much good,” she said.

“Some of our friends, we haven’t seen for 18 months now and with putting the poems on each day we’ve been speaking every day.”

And when the Prime Minister brought in ‘bubbles’, Celia created her own online version.

“I said we’ll start a bubble and it’s Celia’s bubble and there’s no limit to this one and we can have as many people as we want,” she said, adding the book is a "record" of the time for people to look back on in years to come. 

Funds raised for the book go to the Line Dance Foundation, which will soon pass the £2,000 mark.

To buy a copy of the book, email geoffellis@talktalk.net