Category Archives: Op-eds

I haven’t attended a ballet class since I was 12 years old – until yesterday, that is.

I have discovered (via another Lib Dem in isolation) that, in normal times, the Royal Academy of Dance runs classes across the country for ‘Silver Swans’, that is, people over the age of 55. They have been posting weekly online Silver Swan ballet lessons during lockdown that are suitable for complete beginners. There are seven sessions available now, so I tried the first one yesterday, and repeated it today, and I am planning to revisit it several times before moving on to the next one.

I have to admit that my legs are aching a bit. They do warn you not to do anything that causes pain, but some muscle ache is almost inevitable as I try movements that I have not practiced for most of my life.

And, it seems, I am in good company, because the Duchess of Cornwall joined the Silver Swans 18 months ago. Here she is discussing how much she values it, especially during lockdown, with Angela Rippon and Darcey Bussell. Put simply, “Dancing makes you happy,” she says.

We have been working through boxes and filing cabinets full of old documents – some going back 50 years or more – and shredding them. Do we really need life insurance reminders from 1988, or pay slips from 1971?

Years ago we bought the cheapest shredder we could find, but we spent more time detangling it than actually shredding paper. We replaced it by a larger one, until that caught fire. Finally we purchased our current more robust shredder, which works for about 10 minutes before the red light comes on. During lockdown it has taken up permanent residence in the living room, with a bin bag underneath, and we feed it as often as we remember.

Of course, what I am shredding are memories.

This morning I was feeding in insurance papers that related to when our Cortina was stolen from our front garden in 1993. The car was recovered about a week later near Littlehampton, because – bless it – the engine had seized up and it was stuck on a hard shoulder. Two men were desperately trying to hitch a lift, and pretending the car was nothing to do with them, when the police appeared. The police couldn’t believe their luck because attached to the back of the car was a brand new stolen caravan that they had been looking out for.

The police arrested the men for the theft of the caravan, then noticed one small detail about the car – we had engraved the original registration on the headlight. When the thieves fitted a new number plate they replaced the window glass, which also had the registration engraved on it, but had missed the headlight.

So we got a phone call from Littlehampton Police asking us to retrieve our car. They forgot to tell us that it was undrivable and a write off. It took ages to get it home with the help of the AA and it then stood outside our house, ugly and unloved, for weeks before the insurance company finally decided what to do with it.

There have been a number of reports of coronavirus spreading rapidly through choirs and other musical groups before lockdown.

On March 10th – during that period when no-one was quite sure how serious the threat was – one choir met for a rehearsal in Washington state. They used hand sanitizer when they arrived and avoided handshakes and hugs. In spite of the precautions 45 of the 60 people who attended developed the virus and two died.

The choir I sing with, Kingston Choral Society, was rehearsing as late as 12th March and, at that time, was still planning to go ahead with a concert on 21st March. I had already dropped out a week or two before, concerned about my vulnerability. By the weekend of 15th March there was enough concern to cancel the final rehearsal and postpone the concert until June. That, of course, was over optimistic and a June concert is not now going to happen. Fortunately my choir does not seem to have been a hotbed of infection.

I had also spotted a curious story on the BBC about two choirs in Yorkshire that, in retrospect, may have suffered from coronavirus back in January, long before the first recorded case in the UK. The two choirs had members in common, and the partner of one member had recently returned from Wuhan, with a hacking cough.

So does that mean that people project droplets more widely when they are singing?

My home was built in the 1930s, along with thousands, if not millions, of others. The standard three bed semi has become an icon of suburban life, and can be found outside the town centres of most UK cities.

When new, the homes offered comfortable living within easy reach of countryside and town, and indeed nearly a century later they are still much loved. They were built to high standards and often survived much better than the skimpily built post war housing. Most of them have two double bedrooms and a small room, often referred to as a box room, though commonly used as a single bedroom.

In my case, my house is still just 200 metres inside the Greater London boundary, and beyond that is protected Green Belt, which in my case means farmland, riding stables, travellers sites and a golf course. And yet we can get into London in just 15 minutes from Surbiton Station, which is a couple of miles away.

Did I mention Surbiton? Before we go any further I need to make it clear that although The Good Life was set in Surbiton it wasn’t actually filmed here. But it has cemented the idea that Surbiton – once known as the Queen of the Suburbs – is very upmarket. In fact, Surbiton, and its poorer relation Chessington (where I live), are fairly typical of the outer London commuter belt. These areas are socio-economically and ethnically mixed, with some parts that score quite highly in deprivation indexes.

It seems there are now 2.5 million people in the UK on the Government’s list of those who are extremely vulnerable, all of whom will have received the letter above. When you add in people like me who are not on the list but are living with and shielding someone else, that must mean that well over 3, if not 4, million of us are staying at home for the long term.

On Monday I wrote that at least 1.5 million people were being shielded. The first tranche of about 900,000 were sent letters from the Government soon after lockdown was imposed on 23rd March. They had been identified from NHS records because they were receiving chemotherapy or dialysis, were transplant recipients or had a limited number of other specific conditions.

Over the next couple of weeks, GPs were invited to identify others who had conditions that were not on that limited list but who would be seriously at risk if they were to catch the virus. This process added a further 600,000, hence the figure of 1.5 million.

But it seems it didn’t stop there, and GPs have been gradually adding others with complex conditions.

It has not been a simple process. For one thing we don’t yet have a unified medical records system in the UK. Consultants still send letters by post (or even by fax – remember that?) to fellow consultants or GPs. On top of that, people often have several medical conditions which impact on each other.

My favourite Gertrude Jekyll rose has just come into bloom again in my garden

Garden Centres opened again yesterday. I was pleased to spot my much-loved local one, Chessington Garden Centre, in news reports. Photos of the coronavirus testing centre next door to it at Chessington World of Adventures keep cropping up in the media, so I guess one or other is putting Chessington firmly on the Covid-19 map.

As soon as lockdown was imposed Chessington Garden Centre started online sales for the first time. Last month the BBC noted that it was livestreaming gardening advice on Facebook. In fact, it is an independent family run business that has always been innovative, experimental and deeply wedded to the local community throughout its 60 year history. It has a laudable environmental policy, which includes an onsite reed bed system for re-using water, a green roof, and an 81% waste recycling rate. As local councillors committed to sustainable working we held them up as an example to other local businesses. What is more, each year they run the best Santa’s grotto for miles around.

Now I’m quite happy to confirm that I am not a gardener. In some ways I wish I did enjoy weeding and seeding, because I can see what pleasure it brings to people. Gentle exercise in the open air, surrounded by beautiful blossoms and scents, not to mention the pleasure of eating food you have nurtured from seed – what’s not to like?

Today is our younger grandson’s 11th birthday and we have been invited to his Zoom party – in fancy dress. I have been challenged to go dressed as my son, his father.

Luckily, I still seem to have a lot of things in the house that belong to my two sons, even though they both moved out over 20 years ago, and I have managed to unearth an old school tie and blazer. The blazer is rather small and would fit my grandson now, so I will have to sling it across my shoulder instead of wearing it. But a white shirt and tie will help me to look the part. My hair will be the big giveaway, of course, but I’m not going to dye it.

I have also discovered how to do backgrounds for a Zoom call. And the BBC has been enormously helpful in releasing some wonderful photos of empty sets that you can download and use. And joy! – I have found one of a classroom at Grange Hill, which will provide a suitable backdrop to my schoolboy efforts. It also brings back happy memories of the days when my sons were young and deeply in awe of a member of the wider family who played one of the teachers in Grange Hill.

You can brighten up your Zoom meetings by relocating to the Strictly ballroom, the Queen Vic, Fawlty Towers or the Ab Fab champagne fridge.  And – for Lib Dems everywhere – there are six, yes six, different Tardis interiors.