Coronavirus exploded into our consciousness less than three
months ago, and we have seen the different ways that various countries around
the world have dealt with it. What has fascinated me more, I have to be honest,
is the way that individual people have managed to live in this enforced
lockdown period, and what I have been able to reflect and understand personally
about that.
Let’s take two men: one is in his mid-eighties, a retired
medical consultant, married, living in the north. The other is a few years
younger, has had some health issues of his own, never married, lives in the
south, has had two or three jobs in his lifetime, but has worked most of his
life on a farm. Before we go further, both of these men are dearly beloved of
this family so all that I say is said with love and respect, but also with
honesty. Both are living alone as we go into the pandemic lockdown, and yet
they are each reacting quite differently to the situation.
P, our consultant, used to spend his mornings playing golf,
having coffee with some other retired gentlemen or doing some shopping. His
afternoons were largely spent visiting his wife, who now resides in a care
home. He largely eats ready-meals, or simply prepared suppers. Evenings were
spent at home, perhaps reading or watching some tv, unless there was a church
event on, and once a month, he attended the history society talk. He lives in a
flat, because the couple downsized some years ago, so he has no outside space
to worry about.
A, the agricultural worker, would potter in the garden and
greenhouses whenever the weather was fine, but he would amuse himself reading,
watching some tv, doing jigsaws, baking, preserving his produce and preparing
his meals from scratch, largely using fresh produce from his garden in season,
or previously frozen when not. He went to the bell-ringing group once a week,
attended church some Sundays, and a pensioners’ lunch group on Wednesdays. He
has a large house and about half an acre of garden to manage: he has lived in
the house for over 50 years now.
Who is facing the biggest challenges in the lockdown? To
whose life has it made the most changes?
A’s life goes on, pretty much as normal. Yes, he can’t go to
church, nor the other activities that he did on a weekly or month basis, but
day to day life has always been based around the home, and so he potters on.
He’s glad of the phone calls from the church members and family each week, but
he has plenty to do, as ever, and keeps himself busy. It’s spring and there is lots
to do on the garden at this time of year.
P is struggling. He can’t play golf, he can’t go out for
coffee with his friends, and very sadly, he is now unable to visit his wife. Meals
don’t take long to prepare, and nothing else is happening that he counted on
for regular connections. The neighbours are all quiet in their respective flats
and he sees few people. He goes out for a walk most days, but there are limited
opportunities around his area, and he is bored of them, even having done them in
both directions!
Having married P’s son in 2018, I can actually see that our
retirement years are going to be challenging to me. I am A’s niece, and the
different ways in which P and A are getting through this lockdown is mirrored
in our home here. Many things which my husband does to relax have been barred
from his life now – golf, badminton, swimming, Costa/Greggs coffees, the gym,
outings to NT houses, for example. Holidays have been cancelled and it is all
quite sad for him. He is grieving these losses and they have hit him quite
hard.
A and I come from a working class background, what one
commentator has called “Northern” this week, which I find a deep honour as so
many positive qualities emanate from the north, but the truth is that my
husband and his father both have greater claims to that moniker than do I.
However, what I do lay claim to is to thriftiness and frugality, which A has in
spades. We have no history of leisure activities that cost money – Heaven
forbid – we play draughts, we play whist, we read, we bake, we create with yarn
and fabric and plants and seeds, we work in the garden for exercise and we take
pleasure in our rest. There is a contentment in this that is inexplicable.
P and his son have had no need of such frugal ways in the past,
and find it hard to adjust to them now. P is too old to want to learn to cook
at his age with any great challenge, for example. They have expectations of
having the finances to maintain this lifestyle, and that is not now their
problem – the lifestyle is as unavailable to them as it would be to anyone,
whatever their pecuniary fortune. It is just not possible to do the things they
love because of the lockdown and the social distancing rules.
If your background is one of financial challenge, as mine
is, I think that we have been blessed for such a time as this, when all that we
know is a bonus, that our time can be filled with simple pleasures that cost
nothing and can easily be done at home, that we are content with relatively
plain joys, with no great expectations.
I spoke with both P and A yesterday. I love them both, and
we will continue to ring them both regularly. For P, our phone calls are a
lifeline to relieve his boredom and to keep his morale at least tolerably high,
because his world has been turned upside down in these past few weeks. His
separation from his wife just now is particularly troubling and he is very
concerned for her. In that, he has my greatest sympathy. For A, this different way of living is a bit
of an inconvenience, but he has weathered numerous storms in his lifetime and
there is within him an admirable depth of resilience that recognises the
seriousness of the pandemic but that says this too shall pass. Let’s hope he’s
right!
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