As the autumn weather has turned back and forth from wet bluster to sunshine this week, so news in the town seems to have followed much the same pattern.

How do I begin to reflect on seven days where the contrasts are so great? Well I'll try by beginning with a low point as after that hopefully the only way is up.

The story of what's been happening to the van belonging to the German organ builders working on St Mary's Church in Maldon is pretty sickening. If you haven't already, you can read the whole sorry tale here.

For me, it brought to mind a lovely little trip I took with my husband two Christmases ago to the German town of Lubeck, home to marzipan and all things festive. After enjoying the picture postcard market and feeling the warmth and sweetness of a glass of gluhwein, we took a tour of the beautiful church off the marketplace.

Beautiful and atmospheric as it was, I was stunned at the sight of two vast church bells, lying in the rubble where they had fallen during a Second World War bombing raid. Fully open to view, a sign next to them tells of how they are left as a reminder of the role that Germany played in that conflict and how that must never be repeated.

My husband's father was a member of Bomber Command in that war, the only survivor of a crew of five when his plane came down after many missions and then a prisoner-of-war. He lived to be 92 and yes, he would be appalled if he was alive today at the hatred shown to the German organ builders in our lovely town – of that we can be sure.

The time to move on and build a better future came a very long time ago and I feel that whoever is responsible for this is not only sadly misguided, but most likely deeply unhappy and perhaps the most useful thing for them would be to hold a mirror up to themselves and take stock of their own value and contribution to the local community – or maybe not.

At a time when we are all dealing with the awfulness of this pandemic, compassion and kindness is much more welcome. And if I had thought at any point that I needed to search far for that in Maldon this week, I was of course wonderfully wrong.

Among the positives too numerous to mention here – the week's news tells all of those stories – I must refer to two.

First, there was the amazingly courageous story of local couple, Dave and Abby Ridgewell. The loss of their beautiful baby son Max is heartbreaking and yet, from their experience they have reached out to others and commemorated all those little lives lost with colour and light.

As parts of the town centre are lit with pink and blue lights in the evenings for Baby Loss Awareness Week, the message goes out to every parent who has suffered bereavement that they can be free to talk about it – and that they are not alone.

You can find the full story here.

At the end of the week came a wonderful piece of news when Sarah Troop was given a British Empire Medal in the Queen's Birthday Honours List. I could only think that rarely has anything been more well-deserved. At a time when many of us were stunned, shocked and, quite frankly, scared at the start of the pandemic, as director of Maldon District CVS (Community Volunteer Service) Sarah was co-ordinating the efforts of a small army of local organisations and helpers to bring help to those who needed it most.

You can find out more about what this amazing community champion did here.

And if that isn't an inspirational, sunshine moment to end the week on, then I don't know what is.