Today, Friday 30 April 2021, is our 400th day of Covid-19 Lockdown. And not a lot has changed since my last report on day 365.
In 400 days I’ve been off the premises just seven times: three to the dentist (one just to have some paperwork signed), for a flu jab, twice for vaccination, and one for blood tests. It really has been all the fun of the fair!
Noreen and I have now had both our injections of the Pfizer vaccine. Noreen went again to the Town Hall, whereas I went to the centre in deepest Southall. My experience was that this was not as well run as the Town Hall, and I seemed to spend most of the time moving from one queue to the next. Even so I was in and out in about 30 minutes. And Southall itself was grid-locked (well it was some Sikh holy day) and still the same dump that it always was. We now just await out booster in the autumn.
In less good news, I’ve had a really annoying bladder infection (I know, TMI already!). Yet again I’ve been impressed with our GPs’ being able to work with patients over the phone rather than face-to-face. This infection has resulted in two rounds of antibiotics (turns out the nasty little organism was resistant to the first antibiotic I was given), three rounds of urine tests and a visit to Ealing Hospital for an armful of blood tests (most of which were overdue for my annual diabetic check-up anyway). Amazingly most of the blood tests turned out to be OK.
Ealing Hospital is the same appalling place it always was: a dismal ’70s concrete bunker which was never fit for purpose; badly signposted; and apparently staffed by the downtrodden. I hate the place and avoid it if at all possible; I just hope I never have to be treated there for anything serious.
Along the way I’ve also has two (different) Covid tests; both for research studies I’m signed up to. Luckily both were negative. Noreen has done one as well.
In good news the days are lighter, brighter and with longer daylight and the fruit trees and lilac are in flower. We’ve even had some warm sunshine, although it is still rather chilly unless the sun is out. The downside of this is that we’ve again suffered the daftness of changing the clocks. The garden was looking very ragged, but is coming under control now our friend Tom is allowed entry again and has done after several days work – although nothing much has been pruned over the winter.
Meanwhile the country continues to go to Hell in a handcart as our increasingly despicable government lies its way from one pathetic charade to the next. They keep getting caught out lying but seem not to care when any self-respecting government would have resigned long since and been banished.
Who knows what happens next?
I suspect the government will continue to ease the restrictions (regardless of the data) and I fear we’ll see a further spike in Covid cases over the summer and/or autumn when the great unwashed return from Costa Plenti. I can’t see us being clear of social distancing and mask-wearing this year. And we might even have another Christmas in lockdown – although I sincerely hope we don’t.
One tries to remain optimistic and cheerful through all the gloom, but as my father would have said “it’s hard to be optimistic with a misty optic”!
Some days ago, someone on one of the family history groups I follow posited the question of what our ancestors would have thought of our family history researches. Which in some ways amount to delving into their lives.
I don’t know what they would have thought. No! Wait! Actually I do: they would have wondered why we find them so interesting. It’s a bit like how Noreen reckons the medieval masons would wonder about why we spend so much time, effort and money shoring up our old churches and cathedrals: I’m sure their attitude would be “Why are you repairing it? Can’t you already do better than that!”
I’m also fairly sure that our ancestors would be astonished at our lifestyles. OK, so we live in a 1930s terraced house, which is really the 1930s version of a Victorian two-up-two-down. But we have more space, better amenities, and more money than most of them ever would.
One thing Noreen and I have been doing over the last year, during lockdown, is making sure that we eat well. Actually we always did eat well; just it got a bit better! Food and wine are two of life’s pleasures, so they help with keeping morale up and helping keep us healthy (maybe!).
Now our ancestors (both mine and Noreen’s) were in large part AgLabs, labourers (skilled and unskilled), mariners and fishermen. They would not have had a lot of money; nor good housing; and they may well not have had access to good or sufficient food, with the possible exception of bread and beer.
One of the comments Noreen often makes is to wonder what our ancestors would have thought of our food habits. We can (and sometimes do) have strawberries and cream in the winter; pheasant; decent sized pieces of good meat; fresh and smoked salmon; duck salad with asparagus (in season); wine with a meal; and at weekends a liqueur with our strawberries. As she says, they’d probably say we were living like the gentry.
But then compared with them we are the gentry! At least in terms of our disposable (and secure) income, secure housing, and easy access to good food.
The cottage in Rolvenden, Kent, in which my paternal great-grandfather,
Stephen Marshall (1849-1946) was born.
Top: as it was probably c.1900. Bottom: as it was in 2014.
It is salutary to think that my father’s maternal great-grandfather Jabez Hicks (so my great-great-grandfather; born c.1820, died 1905), a mariner in Dover, would likely not have had a very wonderful diet, or good housing – even after he became a coal & wood merchant and lived his last few years on his own means. He lived in a pretty ramshackle area of Dover, near the docks, for most of his life. His sons mostly did well for themselves: working on the railway; in a senior position for Dover Council; with a business as a fly-proprietor (the taxi/car hire company of the day). But then, largely due to two World Wars, things pretty much stagnated until our generation and the easier availability of good secondary education and universities.
Although we were born with no silver spoons in sight and we’d both say we’re working class (at the very, very best lowest middle class) by origin, yes, we’re privileged on many counts:
We’re white, cis, able-bodied, heterosexuals.
Our parents were married before we were born.
Although our families were never well off, they got by without state help or social workers.
We can read, write and think fluently.
Our parents engaged with us, encouraged us, and taught us many things outside school.
We had the last of the good, free, grammar school education in the 1960s.
We also had state funded university education (around 10 years between us) in academic subjects.
That enabled us both to have professional jobs for prestigious institutions.
Our jobs paid enough for us to buy our own house (despite stinging interest rates), without recourse to the Bank of Mum & Dad.
Our jobs also provided us with pensions; and our parents frugality with some money in the bank.
We’re our own people, with our own, considered, views and beliefs.
To our ancestors (in general) most of that would have been things to aspire to, and would certainly mark us out as at least solidly middle class. All basically thanks to our hard work and our parents’ thrift and foresight.
We may be privileged, but it is largely privilege of our own making. Thanks to the inexorable rise of capitalism (I blame a combination of Harold Wilson and Margaret Thatcher) sadly a lot of the younger generations today do not have many of those opportunities we had. I’m sorry to say that our generation of “boomers” forgot its (mostly hard-earned) privilege and we’ve buggered it up for the younger generations.
