Alison – eulogy.

Sharon and I, like many other friends and colleagues, were devastated to hear of Alison Lone’s death last week.

Another dear friend has passed on. And one so young too.

Alison and I first met and became colleagues when I joined NIACE’s e-Guides team (one of several ICT/e-learning-trainers who came along to represent work-based learning and to join the existing, successful, adult learning team) many years ago. We were both already established in different parts the then nascent e-Learning world.

We soon became fast friends and worked together on a number of projects both private and national. Alison had a wonderful sense of humour and every job we did together was a delight.

Over the years we travelled to India together on several occasions (representing City and Guilds) and had a great time there, both working with the wonderful trainees and when time allowed, with exploring the huge city of Bangalore.

And laughing – lots of laughing.

She always talked fondly of the people we met there and would have gone back like a shot, knowing that she would be welcomed with open arms.

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Crossing the road over there in India can be so dangerous that Alison and I once attached ourselves to two old ladies who were themselves crossing a very busy road. Without drawing breath or looking around, these two old dears simply stepped into the stream of traffic (still chatting to each other) and we just jumped in behind them, laughing all the time. The traffic simply gave way and drove around the obstruction we were causing.

There are SO MANY stories from our three visits to India together. Too many for here. Maybe over a drink some time? With friends that knew her? With other friends who accompanied her to India too?

Alison and her partner Andy also visited our apartment in Spain several times, usually to celebrate Andy’s birthday in December, and they enjoyed the area so much that they eventually bought our apartment, when we decided to move to a slightly bigger one. The last time I saw Alison was there, in their apartment in Spain, earlier this year.

We spoke on the phone a couple of weeks ago and agreed that there were some inadequacies in the way her illness was being dealt with but it’s not for me to detail the shortcomings of the NHS around Stourbridge. Yet someone should!

Last week, Alison had gone into hospital on Monday, after an eleven hour wait for an ambulance, and she then steadily declined over the week.

She will be missed by all who knew her.

“Such a lovely human being and can never forget our days with you two during our training” … “Never once was she strict or stern with us during our training but still always made us all perform with ease at the end. She will be missed by us all.”

Swarnambigai Mohan

“Om Shanthi”

Sreelatha

“May God give strength to her family to overcome this loss!”

Sarala

“May the soul rest in peace.”

Kavya

“Very sad news, we missed a great person. May her soul rest in peace”

Madhu

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Just for perspective

Just for perspective.

My Grandma (mum’s mum) was born on February 10^th, 1900.

Imagine the life she led.

She was named for a distant relative who was wounded in the Boer War¹¹, which ended when she was only two years old.  She was still a toddler when the Wright Brothers made their first controlled, powered flight¹; but before she died, Concorde had made supersonic passenger flights possible² and Neil Armstrong had walked on the moon³.

Born in a grimy mill town, she would have been forced into work just as ‘The Great War’ began and all the young men went off to the trenches. By the time that war ended, she was eighteen and had then to survive the Spanish Flu pandemic⁴.

She was married and had borne two children by the time the Great Depression hit the U.K. in 1929/30⁵. Unemployment in some parts of the north reached up to 70% and I can only assume that she and her young family survived because mills were (presumably) less affected than heavy industry and mining.

Next came the second World War, which saw her son enlisted in the Royal Navy; he served in the Far East. Once again, she will have had to work in the filthy, noisy mills to survive. I never really knew what my grandad did, other than ‘work with horses’. He died while I was still very young. Then, along with a variety of international conflicts which involved young British conscripts⁶, and two other significant wars in the far east, she saw the Iron Curtain come down and lived the rest of her life under threat of nuclear annihilation. She didn’t live to see the Berlin Wall come down, but she did read of its erection in those early days of the cold war.

She witnessed the final throes of the British Empire⁷, the birth of the NHS⁸, colour T.V., mini-skirts⁹, Teddy Boys¹⁰ and fighting on the south coast¹². During the 1960’s she even experienced and enjoyed holidays in Spain – having (I seem to remember) been driven there with my uncle’s family. I’d love to have seen Spain then, or even when my own parents flew there with my younger brothers in the 1970s.

I think my grandma (mam) had a remarkable life, living through most of a century of change and turmoil.

She died in 1972.

1 – http://firstflight.open.ac.uk/index.php

2 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Concorde

3 – https://www.nasa.gov/audience/forstudents/k-4/stories/first-person-on-moon.html

4 – https://www.cdc.gov/flu/pandemic-resources/1918-pandemic-h1n1.html

5 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Depression_in_the_United_Kingdom

6 – https://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/20/national-service-consctiption-britain-richard-vinen-review

7 – https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/india-and-pakistan-win-independence

8 – https://www.nuffieldtrust.org.uk/health-and-social-care-explained/the-history-of-the-nhs/

9 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1960s_in_fashion

10 – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Teddy_Boy

11 – https://www.britannica.com/event/South-African-War

12 – https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20140515-when-two-tribes-went-to-war?ocid=global_culture_rss&referer=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.google.com%2F

Thanks to all original owners of photographs – none are my own.

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Lockdown

Introduction.

I recently volunteered to fill in a survey by staff at Manchester Metropolitan – the basic question was ‘How do I feel about the current lockdown situation’. There were questions about home, community, relationships, health and activities included in the survey. The purpose was to create a record of the lockdown from a human, nationwide perspective. I thought it would be good for me too, to record these things for later, so that when I look back, I might remember and understand what I was thinking, doing and experiencing during these unusual times.

I have therefore saved the answers I provided for the survey and have now edited and arranged them here, for my blog.

The lockdown has changed the way we live, at least temporarily. There is much talk of a ‘new normal’ just now, but what that new normal is, remains to be seen. Only time will tell.

The virus.

The virus crept up on us very slowly – at first it was ‘just’ another thing that was infecting China, and then a wider area of S.E. Asia. By the time it reached Europe and Italy decided to lockdown, we began to see unimaginable numbers of people infected and increasing death counts. Sharon and I were in Spain as this began to unfold, but we were lucky enough to have planned our return to the U.K. before Spain was put into emergency measures.

We noticed very quickly that some early measures were being put in place: e.g. on a visit to a consultant in Rochdale in late February, I was asked if I had come back from Europe within the last 14 days. I had, but Spain was (apparently, at that time) okay. My mother is in a care home suffering from dementia and luckily, they saw the potential for disaster quite some time before our government’s isolation measures were introduced and they banned all visits to the care home at least one week before the U.K. was put into lockdown.

Lockdown.

Sharon and I started to self-isolate a week early because we had been with a group of friends’ mid-March and because Betony was due to give birth imminently.

The lockdown, and the fear that came with it (by now the news media had ramped up their facts, figures and warnings) changed life considerably. If we were regarded as vulnerable, over 70 or simply scared, we were not to leave the house for 12 weeks. Others should self-isolate and, if they had symptoms, they should stay inside for 14 days. As I write this early in June, I have friends who, because they fit the vulnerable or over-70 categories, haven’t left their homes for over 11 weeks.

At this point I stopped using public transport and used my once-a-day exercise period to explore the local countryside. Sharon rarely left the house as Betony was expecting her second child at any time (he was eventually born 14^th April) and didn’t want to get infected as she was to be the carer for Chester (#1 child) while Betony was confined.  This itself was different to any time prior. Previously, it would have been a grand family occasion and the father could have stayed with his wife throughout – but not this time, Josh had to wait in a car park (around midnight) until called. He only just made it back inside to be there when Hunter was born. He’s now over six weeks old and thriving.

Because of the self-isolation none of us were able to visit family. This has been especially difficult for my 92-year-old father. His inability to see his wife, my mum, in the care home has led to his complete mental breakdown.  He used to visit her twice a week but now cannot. He has said that it is much harder for him to accept than if she had died. He has had tremendous difficulty with accepting or understanding the situation that the country is in. For example, he was very surprised to find, during week nine of the lockdown, that his doctors were closed and that he could not enter the surgery. He phoned to tell me this and I had to remind him that most shops were also closed as well as all the pubs and all the cafes he might normally visit.

Community.

The small town I live in is usually a bustling, busy semi-industrial place that we call a village and during the first months of lockdown it became a wonderfully quiet place to live. The six or so real-ale pubs, the six or so coffee-bar/cafes and two Indian restaurants all closed. All the take-away shops stayed open but other than those, the hub of the village became a well-placed Aldi and the village Co-op. People queued around Aldi and along the road from the Co-op patiently, waiting for their time to be allowed entry. Two metres (or six feet) apart became the norm and even now, after eleven weeks, this distance is fairly well, but not universally, observed. Numbers inside the shops were limited too, something which even the take away shops adhered to.

During the last three to four weeks, the roads in and around the village have become much busier. Some shops have begun to re-open; one Indian Restaurant has opened for take away meals (although there are three other Indian take away’s in the village), the burger shop has re-opened and does deliveries now. More and more people are using the chance to buy hot cooked food and have begun to enjoy eating it al fresco along the canal side** and on other grassy areas roundabouts.

Locale.

We live in West Yorkshire, in a village nestled into the eastern Pennines. The countryside around us is beautiful, especially during this magnificent springtime. It has been a delight to watch the trees unfold, the meadows to bloom and the blossom to come and go. There are signs just now of summer; the brighter colours of spring are now beginning to turn to deeper shades. Our village is in a valley, so there are hills all around. What’s more, it is an old industrial mill-town through which both railway and Industrial Revolution canal pass.

The canal has become a pedestrian walking/cycling motorway over the weeks of lockdown, especially during the many bank holidays we seem to have had.

Home life.

At home, very little has changed. Sharon’s work has become more intense but as she works from home, online, over 22 hours per week, she has been able to spread much of that work out. She is the course manager for a company offering online Access Courses.  Much of her normal work has had to be postponed because of the changes required by awarding bodies, for those wanting to start university this autumn. My own (average 1hr per day) online work has been furloughed until the end of June. We have both been fine.

Not being able to see my father has led to problems, but my mother remains well cared for as before. I’ve kept in telephone contact with my own grown up children but still have Easter gifts we were unable to deliver for my grandchildren. I’ve made a point of calling retired or furloughed friends on the phone to see how they are doing, or passing by the end of their garden for a socially distanced chat. Other friends and I have regularly exchanged funny pictures, jokes and videos – all have helped me to stay sane.

Typical day.

There hasn’t really been a typical day in lockdown – perhaps a series of ‘differently’ typical days. One day for example, I started making a loaf of bread* at 07:00am and while that was proving I completed my ablutions before going to Aldi for some essentials. After that and while the bread baked, I read a little, did some quizzes and games (brain games) on my iPad, checked my emails and looked on Facebook. I am also following a Duolingo course, learning Spanish – it only takes up 15-20 minutes a day and my progress is slow, but I am enjoying it.

Lunch that day was a sandwich made with two slices of the newly baked bread and some left-over chicken pate. After lunch, I got out my jigsaw board and spent an hour or so working on that. About 15:00pm Sharon and I went out for a walk. The weather was gorgeous and we set off along the canal westwards, before heading up the hill (right up), and back around the other side of the village. We were out maybe 75-90 minutes. When we got back I made some fresh pasta (110g strong flour, 1 egg and a dessert spoon of pesto) for tea. To go with this, I’d defrosted some spicy tomato sauce which I’d made earlier in lockdown.

After our evening meal, as it was Saturday, we logged on to a Zoom-quiz hosted by a friend at 20:00pm.  He has up to 16 participants each week from all over the world. I also host a quiz for friends on Wednesday evenings – just six couples (which means we have to have 2 x Zoom sessions to overcome their 40-minute limit on free accounts).

* I suppose these activities haven’t really been new. Baking bread for example, I’ve done it before, but as we’re blessed locally with a superb artisan bakery I haven’t needed to bake for years. During lockdown however, I have perfected both my white and my brown bread skills. I thoroughly enjoy the kneading, the proving and the baking – it’s so rewarding. To do this I had to buy 16k of flour online as all the supermarkets were sold out. I’ve also spent the odd day bulk cooking, for the freezer, so that more of the other days can be enjoyed, rather than be spent preparing meals. Finding yeast became an issue, but I found some at a local farm shop.

Entertainment.

At other times, we’ve spent the evenings watching some of the theatre productions put out by various companies: Andrew Lloyd Weber, The National Theatre etc. YouTube has been a revelation! We’ve also started (and are presently 3/10ths of the way though) the entire series of Friends. We now have a login to Disney and have begun to watch the Star Wars films in order as well as The Marvel series (in some kind of order). We’ve finished watching the most recent series of Bosch and Outlander on Prime and the occasional film on Netflix.

Health.

I see myself as healthy, for my age (68). I am fairly fit, my walks involve distance (although not as far as pre-lockdown, because of the necessary solitariness), hill climbs (which have improved my recovery time) and regularity. I now walk more miles per week than pre-lockdown. I stopped eating fatty snacks EVERY day after a few weeks of lockdown and feel better for that. My own treatments have not been affected but those of my father have been.

Just before lockdown I went with him (he’s 92), to his doctors, and two hospital appointments were made as a result. One was exploratory and the other was to update his hearing aids as he is quite deaf.  Both were cancelled, so now over three months later, he still cannot hear and has still not been diagnosed.              

**

Remembering lockdown.

The thing I hope to remember the lockdown by will be the wonderful weather we have experienced. The trees going through their leaf-growing process during April, their unfurled colours in May, along with the spring flowers burgeoning throughout. And all the walks. Wonderful.

The thing I want to forget. My father’s suicidal deterioration.

 

Picture Credit. Not sure to whom the b/w photo belongs. All credit to them for that. Others, my own.

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Sixty

As another birthday comes hurtling towards me, I thought that I might indulge myself with a few observations and reflections: on the past and on the future. I don’t intend to be maudlin but may express a few personal naiveties. The economy for example!

I really don’t know what I’m missing, I pretty much know what caused the problem we’re in and realise that it can’t be easy to figure out a simple solution for recovery but why, if we need to encourage growth, do we cut funding to public services? Really – why?  When funding is cut, jobs are lost and the benefits bill increases. This then (the benefits bill), becomes the BIG talking issue.

We hear politicians, especially today’s motley crew, screaming to the press about feckless unemployed as if they, the politicians, had nothing to do with the fact that there is such huge unemployment. But surely (here’s a naivety) if the funding to public services hadn’t been cut (I’m thinking council employees etc.) then there would be less call on the national benefits bill, more taxes paid into the exchequer and more goods and services paid for by more people, which in turn creates work for private industry (manufactured goods and services).

I’m not clear how cutting the numbers of people who CAN spend money (along with increasing prices – 20% VAT, uncontrolled fuel prices etc.) helps.

Just saying.

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