Category Archives: Op-eds

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I was born a few weeks after VE Day, but before VJ Day which marked the end of global warfare in 1945. At the time my father was in India serving as an Army Chaplain with the Gold Coast regiment and he didn’t actually get home to see me until the following summer.

My parents rarely talked about the war, and it was years before I learnt anything at all about my father’s time in India and Ghana. In fact, their generation just wanted to get back to normal life and protect children from information about the atrocities. We weren’t taught anything about the two World Wars in school, either. It was a shock, many years later, to learn about the Holocaust and the Blitz in the Second War, and about the slaughter in the trenches in the First War.

We were to have happy childhoods, unlike the generation just before us. Things didn’t get back to normal straightaway, though. There were still food shortages and ration books.

I used to hate Remembrance Sunday in those days.  I started writing to a German penfriend in my teens (and we are still very much in touch), so I was uncomfortable with its latent anti-German sentiment.  It was left to my generation to build the bridges with our former enemies, and that included the European project.

Theatre is one of my passions. Last week I wrote about the development of the Rose Theatre in Kingston, and I will return to that subject again, no doubt.

I am no longer on the Board of the theatre, but I am an Ambassador, and I do still get involved in several ways. As a volunteer I turn up at least once a week in my natty uniform for Front of House duties – ushering, looking after the cloakroom or selling programmes. For many years I have also attended one or other of the many drama groups that come under the Rose Participate umbrella, along with over 1000 other people. In fact, we have the biggest Youth Theatre in the country. And, of course, I get to see all our in-house productions, plus many of the visiting companies.

So I am rather missing all that.

My drama group has continued to meet each week via Zoom, mainly to talk about and recommend productions and box sets to view at home. We all make a point of watching the National Theatre at Home offering for the week and review it together. Our tutors have also set us some simple tasks – last week we each selected and read a poem that we loved.

The Rose, like many other theatres, is trying to find ways of creating content, and giving work to actors and other creatives during lockdown – theatres expect to be shut for many months to come. Every day it posts a new contribution to Readings from the Rose, which have so far included poetry readings by Niamh Cusack, Anton Lesser, Arthur Darvill, Christopher Eccleston and others, including my favourite by Paterson Joseph.

Like many of you I had banned single use plastic from my kitchen.

The public campaign to reduce plastic shopping bags had been highly successful. We had all got into the habit of taking our own fabric, jute or reusable bags with us when we went shopping – although I tried not to acquire long life plastic bags, because they do fall apart eventually. But I wanted to take it further.

Clingfilm was the first to go. I tried bees wax wraps, which can be used to cover anything kept in the fridge in a bowl or cup. They are also a useful way of wrapping leftovers, although they do need to be lined with greaseproof paper.

I had gradually acquired a pile of stackable boxes in two sizes and I used those to store leftovers in the fridge. I often cook enough for 4 or 6 servings and freeze the remainder in two portion sizes in the boxes.

Next to go were the tear-off bags provided in the supermarket for loose fruit and vegetables.  Instead I sourced some washable drawstring mesh bags which I took with me when I went shopping.

I then turned my attention to packaging, which can be more of a challenge. Much of it ensures that food reaches the home in a healthy state, and these days a good proportion is recyclable. I do wash and save any plastic that can’t be put in the household recycling and store it. Some of the supermarkets encourage us to return anything like that, so I dutifully take it along with me, hoping that they have found some way of recycling it all. At the moment I am storing packaging in my spare room (along with the shredded paper and other items destined for the charity shop or tip when all this is over).

The Government is exploring the options for easing lockdown and will be announcing their plans next Sunday. The lifting of some restrictions will no doubt be welcomed by most people and we can expect some slightly late, but exuberant,  VE Day celebrations.

However, no-one should forget that, whatever the new normal is, it will make no difference to a large number of people.

Everyone over the age of 70 was told to self-isolate for 12 weeks from 21st March, which takes us up to 13th June.

In addition 1.5 million people have been ask to take the more stringent shielding precautions for 12 weeks. The first wave of those letters were issued during the week when lock down began, and a second wave was sent out around 2 weeks later. So those people can expect to be shielded in self-isolation until the end of June, at the earliest.

Before lockdown Stephen Fry gave some advice on managing anxiety during self-isolation.

Anxiety and stress are almost as virulent as this awful coronavirus.

Take a deep breath and allow time to take on a different dimension, taking more time to do everything.

He says that we would be wise to redefine our sense of time. To do that he suggests drawing up a timetable for each day and allow plenty of time for all the tasks.

We should also turn off notifications so we are no longer constantly being bombarded by headlines, and then decide on a time during the day when we will look in on the news. Some weeks ago a friend advised me not to watch any news reports in the evenings – and I have found that really has helped my sleep patterns.

To reduce anxiety Stephen Fry says that we need to cut out the noise. He makes one very salient point: the real experts, such as scientific advisors, tend to qualify their statements with phrases like “We think” or “It’s possible”. Anybody who claims to know what is going on, with great certainty, probably doesn’t, and we should blank them out.