Last time, in Sofia 137 I wrote of the Covid restrictions, of the privations. The first Lockdown saw me relaxing at home, not too upset in fact – with previously unknown freedom to read, write, paint and pay unaccustomed attention to my front garden. Emerging from that respite I was thrown into another, opposite scenario … obliged suddenly to work a 36-40 hour week running the Fair Trade shop at church, whilst the paid employee, Kieran, was furloughed so as to protect our cashflow. So I have experienced some of the ups and downs of others… To that extent we have been all in it together. I referred in the Summer to the ‘Blitz Spirit’.
And now we are in it together again. The news curtailed a ‘retreat’ at Wydale, Yorkshire; putting myself on ‘Gardening Leave’ again, Kieran once more into furlough. He was only back with us for three days, before being off the scene again for another month. But this time things are looking bleak for the shop. For the first time in my life I am placed at the sharp end; having to decide like other employers the world over that I cannot afford a paid employee; having to break the news to Kieran that after Christmas (and any seasonal ‘rush’ which that may bring … now reduced to under a month in any case), we shall have to make him redundant. Kieran, an excellent employee throughout his four years with us, has been informed. Covid, for him and us, has become personal as it has for so many, in various ways.
Delighting in my freedom, last time round, I was too dismissive of the very real and long term effects of the pandemic… too shallow in my response. Rather like the many officers and men who wrote home on their first landing in France for service in the trenches, seeing it as some sort of great team adventure, I was still in fairly high spirits. Covid, then and now is very real, has done and continues to do irreversible harm.
Already back in April, movement restrictions prohibited those with elderly relatives in care from visiting them in their last days. Things look little better now. Already in April, some in certain sectors, Travel, Hospitality, Retail predicted permanent closure, loss of livelihood for staff and managers alike. It’s happening now and things will get worse. Already in April, there were concerns for the poorer in society, particularly where Covid might lead not to their being put on Furlough but being made redundant. Already in April, there were concerns for children of less well-off families where the latter must face the loss of school meals over holidays in households where the main breadwinner had been made redundant.
Kieran is 22. Whilst it is feared that there will be large scale, long-term unemployment for young people, consider the 55-60 year old, made redundant with a precarious future ahead, possibly no job, a much reduced income, between now and his or her State Pension, workplace pension drastically reduced. Consider all those in the Arts, many who are/were self employed. A new shutdown threatens, once more months on little or no income. We really are in a bad way.
It is easy to point the finger of blame at the Government; acting too soon in some respects, too late in others. Personally I do not envy MPs their task; voting for courses of action which risk blighting the economy still further, either by strengthening or releasing constraints (opinion varies). Government advisers say to move things this way or that, but sometimes they disagree amongst themselves, and sometimes all they have to say now is ‘you should have acted sooner’.
Personally, though not a great fan of the present Government or its leader, I would not wish Covid on any Prime Minister of whatever party who, new to office, finds his political hands tied by a massive intruder preventing him, in the main, from enacting policies on which he came into power. How now, faced with such an enormous financial burden, can he implement any previously promised changes for good?
John Pearson is editor of Portholes and former chair of SOF trustees.