Fear of Lockdown is worse than Lockdown itself

It all started to get a bit weird around early March. Up until then, Coronavirus (as it was then known) was buzzing around the outskirts of the news agenda, mildly on the radar but not really an issue for concern.  Hailing from Liverpool, I probably picked up more than most that the passengers returning from Wuhan, the centre of the outbreak, had been sent to the Wirral to be quarantined. Jokes were circulating online (that guy in the Hazmat suit sitting next to the bus driver), and on Whatsapp. In fact, for a time, I switched my Facebook profile picture for a retro image of bottles of Corona lemonade. I thought it was cute and funny. An estate agent came round to value my flat and joked with me that I had the virus when I said I'd been a bit unwell, pretending to step back in faux fear. My mum was particularly worried, but I believed it was hype, kept reassuring her of the stats - more people died each year from regular flu, from road traffic accidents, from a million and one other things. 

The decimated toilet roll shelves in Burgess Hill Tesco on 06.03.2020

I remembered the SARS crisis from the spring of 2003. My friend Annie was due to be coming back from China to join me on a backpacking trip around the Lake District. I had to sub in another friend because she was unable to fly. I think at one point she may have got SARs. But it blew over. This would too. 

However, as February rolled on I started to notice a bizarre trend  - mass stockpiling of toilet paper. At that time I had a consultancy project working with a client based in Burgess Hill which required me to spend quite a bit of time onsite. During lunchtime on the 6th March I went to the large Tescos to pick up groceries and some loo roll, only to find the shelves completely decimated. A flummoxed Andrex representative was standing in the aisles, trying to crisis manage customers who were asking for more. She had said that they had restocked only that morning. In fact, from that point on, supermarket shelves became scant, certain products: paracetamol and hand sanitiser impossible to procure. 

I can pinpoint the exact date that I started to take the virus seriously. It was the 10th March, when I received a Whatsapp from a close friend who is an anaesthetist. "This is your family medic speaking. Corona is about to hit us hard. If the stats are to be believed we are 13 days behind being in the same position as Italy. Which is terrifying. The government are trying to play this down. But the NHS is not going to cope with this if everyone gets sick at the same time. We have a similar demographic and less resources". The message pinged in my pocket as I was entering the revolving glass doors to the Mayors Parlour in Victoria, where I was about to attend a business networking event. For the first time, something resonated and I started to feel slightly scared. I passed the message on to my family and went inside. 

The event was about the future of leadership in the PR and communications industry, chaired by the industry body PRCA (of which my agency business is a member) and Westminster Council. Upon arrival, a couple of fearless members were giving out hugs and the bisou much loved by our profession; others were cautious and held back. I allowed myself a nervous hug with someone I knew. This was the second time in a week that I had been to a business meeting where we were actively discouraged from shaking hands. There were bottles of hand sanitiser on every table and the organisers told me that one of the delegates had refused to attend without it. As always with PRCA events, it was a thought-provoking evening, although the agenda (hitherto billed to be about technology and AI) was soon taken over by Coronavirus. 

Dr Neville Bolt, an expert in strategic communications, a research director in the field of conflict, security, politics, policy and society and advisor to NATO delivered a fascinating, foreshadowing insight. He said that the Coronarvirus showed how a "bio contagion" could become an "info contagion", ultimately leading to an "infodemic" (this was to manifest as the virus rumour mill would unravel over the forthcoming weeks). He talked about how postmodernism can lead to a crisis of self doubt - in a world where uncertainty becomes a sense of being - it can become a way of life. He suggested that, in this new climate, the old set of metaphors are not relevant and our leaders are not equipped to communicate. Prophetic words which we would come to see play out time and time again, as world leaders, not least the UK government, have failed to provide clarity and reassurance.

The following day I needed to travel into London again . As I arrived at the Institute of Directors for my business meeting there was an awkward moment when, instinctively, my colleague went in for an embrace or handshake and I shrunk back, apologetically. We all styled out the awkward moment, before agreeing that it was the right thing to do. Still, it was business as usual, a positive meeting and a request for a proposal followed. At this point, we believed that life would go on. In fact, they were very keen to get underway with work and asked me for dates for a kick off workshop. Afterwards I met a guy I had met on a dating site for a drink. He had just arrived back into London from a Buddhist retreat and was feeling antsy about being back in the City. We didn't touch, hug or kiss like we had last time I'd seen him. Instead, he worried every time he touched his face. At the time, the government guidelines instructed us to avoid this. His friend arrived, we had a couple of beers and a laugh in a microbrewery then went our separate ways. I pondered the future of dating in this climate and how different life would be for single people. 

I was glad to be getting back to Brighton that evening. I had one other social event planned, an adventure film night at my co-working space PLATF9RM. As it was, I was distinctly uncomfortable about gathering in a public place and kept washing my hands obsessively for at least 20 seconds, as social media was telling us to. In the unisex toilets, I noticed that other people were doing the same. That night was the last social event I attended in public. As of the 12th March I began to spend 99% of my time in self isolation. 

By this point, I was beginning to feel that Lockdown was inevitable and began to grapple with the concept of being alone throughout the ordeal. I am a strong person and I have done some quite extreme things, such as a 10 day Buddhist 'Vipassana' silent meditation in the Himalayas. However, having had a horror show 2019, in which I'd endured a missed miscarriage and untangled myself from an abusive relationship with a narcissist; my resilience was low. I had already been in the grip of grinding loneliness for months and the suspended animation of having my emotional world turned upside down. 


As far as business goes, I'd had a hugely successful second year, but with the steep upwards curve of a startup, there had been learnings and I was considering a pivot. In fact, I was considering a rather big and exciting life change, which I had all cued up and potentially ready to go, as of the 19th March. By that point, the economic landscape had shifted so fast, it wasn't to come to pass. When the project I had worked on for months, one on which I was staking hopes and dreams, came crashing down, I hit a low. 

I'd had a tenant living in with me for a few months, and that was really fun, but he'd recently moved out. Another really good friend of mine was going to move into the spare room, but with the global crisis looming, on a last minute whim, he booked a flight to his native New Zealand and packed up, leaving his UK life behind. 

I am someone who tends to be able to see into the future and look ahead to a myriad of possibilities. It can be a wonderful, exciting tendency but it can also cause me stress as I fixate on and fret about the future. I also had some insight into Lockdown. A very good friend and colleague of mine who lives in Madrid was ahead of us by two weeks. The situation in Spain was serious - she was cooped up with her partner and her two year old and they weren't even allowed to go outside to exercise. To go anywhere - and they were permitted to go food shopping or attend medical appointments only - they had to have papers. Streets were being policed. I started to panic. I live in a flat, which although beautiful, is on the first floor. I have a small balcony but no garden. I feared imprisonment in my own home in the event. I knew that I was going into this with low resilience and a poor mental state. I was concerned for myself. 

I was still getting my car out and driving to Burgess Hill most days. Each day the traffic would seem slightly quieter, the office car park emptier. I became fanatical about hand washing and brainstormed many ways to "game" the impending Lockdown. I could self isolate in Brighton  for a week, then drive back to Liverpool stopping only for petrol, wearing masks and gloves. I could live with my sister and brother in law and help home school my niece and nephew. I could pitch a tent in the large garden of my parents' home - or stay with my cousins on the Wirral. I could move into a big AirBnb with other single friends in the country. Anxiety and problem solving gnawed away at me as I turned the permutations over and over in my head. I oscillated between being sanguine and strong and feeling abject terror. Not knowing what to do was the worst thing. I was tormented about being far from family and friends that I loved, yet I worried that if I went to them it would cause potentially fatal harm. I was in a Catch 22 - a living Gordian Knot. At this point: still no clear message, response or reassurance from the UK government. 

A happy day earlier in the year at the walk on Windover Hill, in front of the Long Man (or Woman?) of Wilmington

I spent a night with an old friend and, despite initial reluctance, we got physical. In fact we kissed and embraced with reckless abandon, like our lives depended on it. Furtive and behind closed doors - hugs were the new drugs. It was an unexpected episode but on some level we knew that it would be the very last time to be physical with another person for - who-knew-when? I gave in to my human need to be held. He put on a hand curated playlist of long forgotten 90s tunes. Melodic stuff, like Mazzy star and Joan Baez and Eddie Vedder. Music that took me to another time. A time of long nights, talking for hours on end. A time before the perennial pinging of social media, Whatsapp and time wasting. A time when nights were long and connections were real. When I was young. We chatted and sang and listened to 90s music wash over us. I wanted the fantasy to last forever - for those tunes to play into the night and for it never to end. Like those student parties when the sun coming up ruined it all. The night looped on, no phones, just us and the fantasy and the music and the prelude to the end of the world. But it didn't and I went home, to sleep alone and to wrap myself instead in the familiar embrace of my own solitude. 

With Cher at the performance of Windover Hill - we stayed over and made a weekend of it

I also spent time with a new friend, who I had been getting close to before COVID-19 started to interrupt everything. I met him on Windover Hill, on a walk that was a precursor to the launch of a new cantata written about the Long Man of Wilmington by Nathan James. 

Flouting rules that were not yet in place, we went to Brighton Marina village and sat on a bench drinking gin, watching the sunset and giggling like school children. We saw the most perfect orb of starlings from a distance as purple smudges dissolved in the sky. A group of guys went past and, for a moment, we all marvelled at the murmurations together. They stayed awhile to talk to us and lingered. As it we knew it was about to fall out of our grasp, an appreciation of intimacy between strangers. It was a lovely evening - perhaps the last 'normal' one that I had. 

On Windover Hill - seeing it performed for the first time

We spent quite a bit of time together in the build up to Lockdown. One night sitting on the beach, drinking beer and gazing into the inky blackness with bonfire smoke and salt in our nostrils, we wondered aloud how this would all play out. In moments we were able to be excited about it - discussing fantasy escapes and seeing the pandemic as material, as well as time, to work on our writing. In others, I fear that my simmering grief and the gin and the emotional confusion of our growing closeness heightened my - and his - anxiety. In those pre apocalyptic nights where secrets spilled onto the pebbles, I fear that we may have been just as much a bad influence on each other as good. 

Still, there was a pairing of brains and hearts and it was good to share the madness with someone in a similar situation and compare practical plans.  

As well as the emotional, there was the financial worry too. A number of client agreements had come to an end, and although my consultancy gig was secure for the time being, it had an expiration that was fast accelerating. Deals that had been looking hot to trot were now uncertain. I expressed anger at the government for not reassuring small business owners, freelancers and the millions of people in various industries who were about to be enormously adversely affected. At this point, nothing had changed, everything was still officially open although people were being told to Stay At Home and Work from Home Where You Can. The economy was becoming stifled, but with no legislation in place, no insurance for business owners who had to watch everything slowly start to fall apart as the public complied with the 'guidelines'. 

Behaving like school kids at the Marina 

I am a member of Brighton Unitarian Church. In brief, Unitarianism encourages intellectual and spiritual growth, rather than conformity. There is no imposition of creed or dogma. It welcomes all who believe that religion is wider than any one sect and deeper than any one set of opinions. I personally go to the church because I like to have an hour in my week where I can "drop in", sit in a sacred space, mediate, listen to beautiful music and be inspired. I'm also particularly fond of the Lay Leader, Jef Jones. Jef is an inspiring human. Services of his have ranged from dealing with the art of Barbara Hepworth to themes of animals and friendship,  interspersed with poetry and fossils. In the week before Lockdown, as I worried endlessly and broke down crying in Asda, Jef rang me every day. He rang me to remind me that I was loved and cared, he rang me to remind that I'm not alone. He rang me to reassure me that I had the spiritual resources to do this. We also brainstormed practical methods for how I would cope.  

That weekend was the first I spent in isolation. As it approached, and once I had been through my various meltdowns, I stopped fighting the concept of being in Lockdown alone. In 2012, I travelled India and Asia, on a spiritual quest inspired by one simple word: surrender. During this year I learned a lot about the concept of surrender - that it is not a weakness, associated with waving white flags and yielding to an enemy. In fact, to let go of control and to turn yourself over to fate is an act of power. I began, metaphorically, to loosen my grip. 

I realised that I could be alone. I had a wonderful home - and plenty of inner resources, as well as art, music and books. I began to see Lockdown as an opportunity to spend the time working on things that I'd previously procrastinated over. If not now, when? I understood that I was fortunate and blessed. 

First ever 'virtual pub' Zoom chat

On Saturday night I facilitated my first social event on Zoom, a 'virtual pub' that was attended from friends from all walks of life, most of whom had not met each other and it was great to bring them together. Attendees ranged from a former financial journalist and cold water swimmer, to a friend who is currently doing a PHD on Drag Queens and creative writing. It was a riot of a night that went on for nearly 4 hours, with me having to dial into Zoom again after the free version expired every 40 mins. It only added to the entertainment. As we decided not to dial in for the umpteenth time and bring the night to a close, squiffy on wine, I realised that I hadn't wanted it to end.

Attending Brighton Unitarian Church, virtually

Sunday dawned and it was Mother's Day. A day full of hope. Over the past twenty four hours I'd kind of settled into self isolation and realised that it was going to be a roller coaster full of highs and lows. I had a Facetime with my mum and dad and made a lovely breakfast. I attended my first ever virtual church service held by Jef. One of the nice things about this was that I could sit there in my PJs and listen to his voice (as was the ability to watch and listen again later, from the bath). It was an amazingly beautiful service that moved me so much. At one point in proceedings I broke down in floods of tears. I can't really describe what was behind it - because it was something more than sadness. I was just so profoundly moved - by how hard it was for everyone right then, and the poignancy of how people were keeping going and the knowledge that we hadn't even started yet. Grief, possibly, too, for everything we were about to lose.

Me, out walking, Mothers Day 2020

It was a glorious day and, painfully aware that my window for being in nature might be closing, I went for a long walk, with no particular destination in mind. I wandered along the race track and bumped into a good friend I hadn't seen for a while and his dog. We stood at the appropriate social distance of 2 metres and had a chat. Already I had been missing humans and it was good to see him smile and laugh. He told me about an orchard that I didn't know about and I ended up finding it and having a ramble around, taking it all in. I clambered through branches and wooded bits, skipping and jumping just for the hell of it, like a child. Simple pleasures.I walked all the way along Sheepcote Valley, a walk I've never taken before - and followed my nose down to the sea. People I passed were few and far between but everyone was friendly and said hello. 

As I had climbed up through the woods by my place earlier to favourite viewpoint looking over the city, I had a realisation. That maybe Lockdown would give me a chance - would give us all a unique chance - to heal. 

My inaugural, lone walk across Sheepcote Valley, Mothers Day 2020