Childhood sweethearts Eddie and Annie Goodall grew up opposite each other, went to school together and got married. Last year they celebrated their diamond wedding anniversary, 60 happy years of family life, hard work, parties, children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

Then Eddie got coronavirus. He was definitely in the vulnerable category: 83 years old, an ex-smoker, and diagnosed with the lung condition COPD after a working life that started down the pits and ended transporting silt for a water company.

Eddie Goodall begins his last journey from the mortuary.

At the end of last month, Eddie had gone into hospital in Edinburgh because his breathing was bad. Despite his family’s pleas, he was put in a bed in the coronavirus ward because there was nowhere else for him to go. Twice he tested negative for the virus, and after a couple of days he was sent home.

But within a few days he was back. This time his test was positive. Annie and their son Edward, who lives with them, were told to self-isolate for 14 days. Jennifer, the couple’s daughter, was caring for her own daughter Nicole, 29, who was recovering from major surgery to remove a cancerous tumour on her liver.

The funeral director Paul Brown along with operatives Chris and Robert load Eddie’s Goodall’s wicker coffin into a hearse.

No one in the family could visit Eddie. But Annie and her three children, including her other son, David, talked on the phone and made the heartbreaking decision to tell the doctors not to ventilate him if his condition worsened.

Daughter Jennifer sees Eddie’s coffin in the hearse.

Brown drives Eddie’s wicker coffin to Musselburgh, where he lived, for isolating relatives, friends and neighbours to say goodbye from their doorways and windows, as they were not permitted to attend the funeral.

“Dad had had enough, and we knew how short they were of ventilators. We told the doctor that if there’s someone younger who hasn’t yet lived their life, it should go to them,” said Jennifer, 52. “We knew Dad wouldn’t make it through and we just wanted him to go peacefully. But it was the hardest thing we’ve ever had to do.”

Greeted by a lone piper Eddie’s coffin arrives at the crematorium.

Soon they got a call from the hospital telling them Eddie was deteriorating rapidly. If you can get here in an hour, you can see him, but there isn’t a lot of time, the doctor said. Annie and Edward couldn’t go as they were self-isolating, but Jennifer and her elder daughter, Sarah-Jayne, rushed to the hospital. They were kitted out in full PPE and told they could hold Eddie’s hand.

Physical distancing between households is maintained at the funeral.

“He said to me: ‘Am I dying, hen?’ I asked him if he felt if he had one last kick at the ball left in him, and he just shook his head and turned away,” said Jennifer. Sarah-Jayne got Annie on the phone for the couple’s last words to one another. Eddie died the next day, 5 April.

In a different time, Jennifer reckons there would have been 300 or 400 people at Eddie’s funeral. “Everyone would have been there.” But first they had to wait for Annie and Edward’s self-isolation period to end, and then they had to keep the ceremony to the immediate family.

“To look at all the empty pews, it was devastating. You understand why it has to be like that, but you don’t want it to be like that,” said Jennifer. “And now I can’t even go and give Mum a cuddle – imagine that, your own mother, grieving and greeting, and you can’t comfort her.”

Family members including Annie (centre) comfort each other after the service.

Andrew Purves, a director with the local firm William Purves which organised Eddie’s funeral, said the pandemic restrictions had been hard on families. “Most people accept this is the way it has to be at the moment, but some people are frustrated and angry. Your parents have done everything for you, and now it’s your turn, but relatives feel: is this all I can do?

“There are some people who feel they haven’t been able to do their best, they’ve done a half-baked job, and that is going to have an emotional impact for some time to come.”

Jennifer covers up the coffin, saying her last goodbye to her father.

For Jennifer, the grief over her father’s death, her fears about Nicole’s cancer and worries about her own health are at times overwhelming. Because of the lockdown, Nicole’s father, Gregg, who is separated from Jennifer, is unable to help care for his very sick daughter or even see her.

“I’m not going to lie, there are days when floods of tears come,” said Jennifer. “I feel I have to wake up with a smile on my face and keep going for Nicole. Where will she be if I fall apart? But there are times when I feel that might happen.”