Well, that’s it! The year 2016 is nearly over and what a year it has been.

It started as it meant to go on, with celebrities falling like flies.

We thought the list had ended with ZsaZsa Gabor last week. But that was not so.

We’ve now had the tragic double deaths of Carrie Fisher (always Princess Leah to the Star War fans) and her mother, Hollywood superstar Debbie Reynolds, a day later.

I had a quick look on the internet to remind myself who had died and was shocked all over again.

I had completely forgotten some of the most famous deaths of this year. I remembered David Bowie but forgot Prince.

There were some real shockers apart from those two. For me the deaths of Terry Wogan, Victoria Wood and John Glenn hit home the most.

Then there was Dan Haggerty. I didn’t know who he was until they said he was Grizzly Adams. No! I loved him! Nancy Reagan and Brady Bunch mother Florence Henderson were two others.

George Michael, Alan Rickman, Arnold Palmer, even R2D2 (Kenny Baker) died. So did Gary Marshall who gave us such wonderful feel-good moments through Happy Days, Pretty Woman and Runaway Bride.

Then, of course, there was Harper Lee – I have read her second book, Go Set A Watchman, twice and am still trying to decide how I feel about it. But I do know the unqualified pleasure she gave me and millions through To Kill A Mocking Bird.

Leonard Cohen! Thank goodness I was spontaneous for once in my life. When a friend suggested one Sunday that we head down to London to see him I went. He was fabulous and I am so happy I saw him live.

It is incredible how many well-known people died and what an impact these people had on us when they were alive.

Many others have died, too, of course, and we will never know their names or what they meant to the people they knew. They died in war-torn Aleppo, they died trying to escape to freedom and they died in terrorist attacks and in earthquakes and natural disasters.

It is easy to look back on 2016 with some kind of despair. When was the last time you picked up a paper or turned on the news to find it packed with tidings of joy?

On the home front we have had our own horror with a rise in racist abuse and attacks after the Brexit referendum. Signs telling “Polish vermin” to go home were disgusting, frightening and far too reminiscent of the people who followed Adolf Hitler’s philosophy of a blond, blue-eyed Ayrian nation.

We are also now facing an uncertain future. What will leaving Europe actually mean? Will we lose jobs? Will prices rise? can we continue to fund the NHS?

But 2016 has not been all bad. Some of it, in fact, has been truly wonderful. Some of it gives us hope for the future.

Among the bloodshed of war and famine and natural disasters there are people working tirelessly to help.

The doctors who remained in, or travelled to, Aleppo to help the sick are greater than the sum of all those celebrities put together.

Searchers and rescuers who never gave up until they ensured everyone who could be saved from earthquakes and storms was saved are an inspiration to us all.

Politicians such as Jo Cox, who tried to spread a message of tolerance and died because of it, are the people we want to emulate.

I don’t know what is going to happen in 2017 – especially with Donald Trump as US president.

But I firmly believe that, no matter what happens, we will survive because we will stand on the shoulders of those giants for whom compassion, humanity, good neighbourliness and ethics will prevail.

Whether they are finding a cure for cancer or looking after an elderly neighbour; whether granting millions to a project to eradicate malaria or giving £10 to Children in Need, we thank them all – and because of them, we will have a happy new year.