Category Archives: Op-eds

Many readers will have received the April Newsletter from the party. It begins promisingly:

Our teams in Westminster, Holyrood, the Senedd and Council Chambers across Britain have been doing their best to help their communities through this crisis and to hold the Government to account. You can read more about their work in this newsletter.

Except I can’t – read, that is, about what our devolved assemblies and local councils are doing.

We are given some news about the leadership election and the election review, followed by articles from four of our MPs – on the Labour leadership, NHS workers, homelessness and the needs of students. These are all worthy causes, but where are the voices from Holyrood, the Senedd and from over 400 local councils?

In fact, local councils are another front line in the coronavirus emergency. Not only are they directly responsible for social care to their most vulnerable residents, but they are also stepping up as community leaders to co-ordinate the responses to self-isolation and lockdown.

In my own (small) London borough of Kingston upon Thames, the council has worked with local charities and organisations to set up a volunteering hub, which has already attracted over 1200 volunteers. There is a dedicated helpline for anyone who needs support, and they are proactively contacting people like my husband who is on the extremely vulnerable list.

Council officers are doing a fantastic job keeping essential services going, such as bin collection, and providing support to people with financial challenges at the moment.

I hadn’t heard of boxty until my son and his wife took us to Holohan’s Pantry in Belfast, a restaurant that offers traditional Irish food with a modern twist. Boxty of the day appears on every menu.

It’s appears quite simple really – a pancake made with grated raw potato, fried in butter, crispy on the outside and soft within. I was expecting a new veg and fruit box today, but still had quite a lot of potatoes to use up so decided to have a go at making it yesterday.

Boxty presents a few challenges – I’m sure I must have a gadget somewhere in the cupboard that would make the process of grating a lot of raw potato easier, but if so I couldn’t find it. Then the potatoes have to be placed in a tea-towel and squeezed to get out as much liquid as possible. The liquid is left to stand until the unwanted water separates from the starch, which is then added back to the potatoes with flour, salt and buttermilk.

Ah yes, buttermilk. Not something I usually have in my house, and I can’t pop down to my local Sainbury’s to get some even if they stocked it. But what I do have is quark – some of you will understand why I always have some in my fridge. Quark is a soft cheese made from buttermilk, so I mixed a spoonful or so with some ordinary milk to get a good approximation to buttermilk.

The last time the country mobilised thousands of volunteers was for London 2012 Olympics and Paralympics.

The weather wasn’t so good yesterday so I went back to the cupboard in the spare room that I am gradually clearing and I came across a bag full of Gamesmaker kit. It brought back some wonderful memories.

I was in Event Services for the Paralympics, based in the Excel Centre  – so I am fully aware of how unbelievably vast that building is and why they could set up 4000 hospital beds inside.

My task was essentially Front of House, which meant I was greeting people as they arrived at the venue, answering questions, showing them to their seats and guarding pass doors, though not all at the same time.  I was a Team Leader, so I was allocated a new team of about 12 volunteers each day, and I then scheduled them for the shift, rotating people between the tasks and making sure they got mealbreaks.

Of course, preparations started years before and the Gamesmakers were recruited around two years before the event. We were issued with everything we needed, including a watch and umbrella, and were put through some excellent training (organised by McDonalds).

I have been in self-isolation now for four weeks. During that time I have only been out of my home once, and that was to take a walk on Box Hill on Day 2.  Even before the national lockdown started we realised that trips out were no longer an option, and that has, of course, been confirmed by the daily texts my husband gets from the government.

Of course, we are very fortunate, for many reasons.

Firstly, we have plenty of space in our house. It was our family home and we have never downsized. Our sons both live some way away so we like to have room for their families to stay. Also, both us have been self employed and working from home, so we each have our own study to retreat into.

I worry about people who are living in cramped conditions, like this family. I understand why the Government was loathe to introduce the lockdown too early because of the intolerable strain it would put on some people.

Secondly, we have a garden, too. It’s quite small but we like it. I’ve never really enjoyed gardening, and neither of us is very knowledgeable about plants, but we have a lot of things that we like – a cherry tree, a Japanese maple, camelias, hydrangeas, roses and several shrubs and dwarf conifers. Two years ago we planted a laurel bush with lovely variegated leaves and a rhododendron. Both are slow growing but are beginning to take over the spaces we had allocated to them. And the rhododendron is coming into bloom right now, as you can see.

I worry about families, especially those with young children, confined to flats with no outside space of their own and not within an easy walk of a park or open space.

Earlier in the week Hina Bokhari reminded us that major festivals of the three Abrahamic religions – Passover, the start of Ramadan and Holy Week – almost coincide this year. (I have never properly understood why Passover and Maundy Thursday don’t coincide every year.) And thank you, Hina, for a beautiful post about Easter this morning.

All three festivals include periods for introspection and reflection of the origins of our faiths, and all involve symbolic meals.

Today I would normally be enjoying a church full of colour. It is always devoid of flowers during Lent (apart from a burst of daffodils for Mothering Sunday) but on Easter Day Spring returns to the building. The flowers include many white lilies given in memory of family members who have died and a list of their names is placed by the font. This year the list has been placed there as usual, in a darkened church, but also published on the church website so all can view it and remember.

For me Holy Week, culminating in Easter Day, is not just about recalling the historical events. It is also a replay of a human journey. It starts on Palm Sunday with light-hearted celebration which darkens as the days go by, and ends with betrayal, extreme violence and death. Then comes a lull followed by resolution and new beginnings. At the still centre of the week is the warmth of a meal together, final words are said and the inevitable is faced. It speaks to the deepest human emotions.

In the last few weeks we have all seen enough memes, videos of clever/cute pets, animated gifs and inspirational verses to last the rest of our lives. All, of course, are sent with the very best of intentions – to lift our spirits with a bit of comfort or laughter.

One friend reminded me of the best ever clip from a children’s TV show. If you ever need cheering up this is the one:

I love sacred choral music – both singing it and listening to it. For me, it’s an integral part of Christmas and Holy Week. I realise that is a bit of a niche choice, but if that’s not your cup of tea (mine’s redbush, by the way) just humour me for a few moments.

Handel’s Messiah is often performed around this time of year, especially in Wales where I spent some of my childhood. My family used to put the record on during dinner and we’d belt out the main choruses. My grandmother, who lived in Aberdare, told me that she always imagined the sheep running on the hills behind her home when she heard “All we like sheep”.

The section of The Messiah that covers the events of Holy Week ends with a huge climax in the Hallelujah chorus. Another of my Welsh grandmother’s anecdotes was about her friend who was known as Mrs Jones Hallelujah, because she sang an extra hallelujah during the electric silence just before the end of the chorus.

Back in 2016 I went to hear the first performance of Stabat Mater by James Macmillan at the Barbican. The Stabat Mater is an ancient poem in Latin about Mary, the mother of Jesus, as she stands watching her son suffering and dying on the cross. It has been set to music by many composers. I must admit it doesn’t usually attract me because, in any version, it is inevitably full of anguish, though often touched with moments of tenderness.

However I was at the Barbican on that occasion because my niece was playing violin with the Britten Sinfonia. I have been to many concerts given by that chamber orchestra simply to support her, and I have heard a number of works that I would otherwise not have considered – some astonishing, some hilarious and some indecipherable. On this occasion they were joined by The Sixteen, probably my favourite choir of all time.

On 24th March everyone who owns a mobile phone, ie 99.99% of us, got a text message via their network provider which read:

GOV.UK CORONAVIRUS ALERT. New rules in force now: you must stay at home. More info & exemptions at gov.uk/coronavirus. Stay at home. Protect the NHS. Save lives.

My phone identified it as suspected spam. Some thought it was a scam. It was neither, as was soon obvious when people caught up with the day’s news.

Since then a number of scams have been reported that have shamefully exploited that initial text. In one case a text that looks very similar to the one from the government tells you that you have been fined for going out too much during lockdown. Another offers you a payment. Both, of course, are phishing scams and are after your bank details.

The consumer magazine Which has a good summary of all the types of coronavirus scams that have been spotted.

Those scammers have done more than con people out of money, bad as that is. They have also confused the messaging, so that people are being sceptical about genuine messages from the government or their health providers.

A statue wrapped up for the winter – but where?

During a Zoom call the other day someone asked me what I most missed while being stuck at home. I actually couldn’t come up with an answer on the spot.

Ever since we decided to self-isolate (and long before the Government told my husband that he should isolate for 12 weeks) I was determined to enjoy the experience. I could see many benefits to our enforced holiday at home.

Now I suppose I am lucky – I have always been a glass half full type of person. I can’t claim any credit for that, and I do understand how challenging it must be for people who are naturally pessimistic or anxious. But the practice of counting your blessings is part of every recovery programme and is especially relevant to all of us now.

So I am looking, with a real sense of achievement, at the piles of things in the spare bedroom that are destined for the charity shop or tip – eventually. Both places are going to be inundated when this is all over!

I still have my sights on the many other boxes and filing cabinets of documents that we have accumulated in the 35 years we have been living in this house. The other day I was shredding bank statements from 1997, and there are plenty more to clear. And although I have made a start on the cupboards in the spare room, I still have to deal with the chunky old desktop computers dating back 30 years or more, not to mention the defunct electronic toys and memorabilia of long forgotten events.

Another blessing for me has been the large number of conversations we have had with friends and family. They have been far more frequent than in our previous busy lives. We have added Zoom and Houseparty to the familiar channels of phone, Skype and Facetime. I have learnt that the first 20 minutes of any Zoom conversation is spent sorting out the technology, and then asking about whatever is on the wall behind participants.