Clare Balding ‘hopes pandemic will make people more forgiving and kind’

Claire Balding has said she hopes the coronavirus pandemic will encourage people to become more “forgiving, kind and grateful”.

The sports broadcaster told the Good Housekeeping magazine that she would like people to show more concern for each other and think how they can help others as a result of Covid-19.

She said: “I do hope this pandemic has made us more concerned for each other and more forgiving, kind and grateful.

“Think about what more you can do. Can you help more and can you offer more? It doesn’t matter what age you are.”

Balding added that the message behind her new children’s book The Racehorse Who Learned To Dance, which was released this month, is to “be kind”, adding: “It’s something you cannot say often enough.

“If you are given the choice, choose to be kind. It will never be the wrong choice.”

Balding also discussed the mass cancellation of sports events for this summer.

She said that with the Olympics, it was “the only decision they could have made”.

“That uncertainty, particularly for the athletes, would have been difficult.”

Balding said she had been “sanguine” about the disruption, adding: “I can’t change it and you just have to be a bit more creative.

“You have to adapt. It’s going to be such a great relief and celebration of everything that’s lovely about sport when it returns.”

Read the full Clare Balding interview in the August issue of Good Housekeeping, which is on sale on Wednesday.