Charity – Skat's Chat

Coronavirus week 39 – Advent hope or Christmas cancelled?

It is 20 weeks since I did my last blog, or ‘CoronaDiary’ as it was named for the Swansea University project that it became part of. It seems a long time ago but serves to show how time passes quickly after I decided that the time had come to stop, with things apparently starting to ‘slow down’, ‘getting under control’, ‘living with the new normal’ or any number of ways of describing life in late summer/early autumn. There was also a possible vaccine in development.

I started several times to write another instalment as events and key points in the story of this year were reached, but each time my enthusiasm to finish them waned. Due in part I suspect to not wanting to repeat the same themes I had visited before, but mainly due to the fact that we too were doing some of the things we hadn’t been able to. We were fortunate to be in a situation where we could take a week away to each of the Norfolk coast, Cornwall and North Yorkshire. In addition we enjoyed days out walking around the Cheshire countryside and Alyson managed some open water swimming at a nearby lake in Shropshire. The project I am working on with the accountancy practice in Sale was reaching the critical ‘go-live’ point, and Alyson was getting more NHS 111 home-based call centre shifts.

Deaths – a change of measure but still increasing quickly..

I had set myself the target of writing another blog when the official figures for the number of coronavirus deaths reached the level they were at my last blog, as the government reassessed them, just after I published it, in light of some ‘mis-recording’. On 12 August, the total fell by 5,000 overnight from 46,706 to 41,329. Until then a death was recorded for anyone who had tested positive for Covid-19 at any time, regardless of the cause. So someone who had died of a heart attack or in a car accident but had a positive test 10 weeks before was added to the virus statistics. It would take another 11 weeks to get back to 46,513 at the end of October – an average of 71 deaths per week. Just over 7 weeks later we have surpassed the grim figure of 60,000 to reach 68,307 – an average of 3,113 per week. The other measure of all deaths where coronavirus is mentioned on the certificate is likely to be over 80,000 by the end of the year.

Key events I could have written about…

There have been some major issues and milestones in the time since my last blog. Ones I have had strong feelings about are;
– The exam results ‘fiasco’
– The on-going story of migrants drowning whilst crossing the channel, and my idea of requisitioning unused cruise ships anchored off the south coast to give them decent accommodation.
– Introduction of the tiers system of restrictions
– My (and many others) perception that GPs are hiding away
– Schools and universities returning to full-time teaching
– A study I read on how the virus circulates indoor via ‘aerosol particles’
– ‘Circuit-breaker’ or second national lockdown
– President Trump catching Covid-19, US Election & refusal to accept the result
– Announcing the vaccination program earlier than planned on the day the report into the Home Secretary Priti Patel’s bullying behaviour was published.
– The seemingly endless Brexit negotiations/deadlines and extensions.

So why now…

The recent excitement over the new vaccines, the hope that brings of a ‘light at the end of the tunnel’, allied to planning for a small family Christmas get together was shattered by yesterday’s Government Briefing. Our Prime Minister, the only one in the World known mainly by his first name, Boris announced a new ‘Tier 4’ for London and the South East plus severe restrictions on ‘Christmas bubbles’ and the time they are allowed to meet. It seems like another one of the many ‘key points’ in the pandemic, coming as it does with the fact that a ‘new strain’ of the coronavirus that is much more effective at transmission is circulating and spreading rapidly through the population. The disease is called Covid-19 because it was in late December last year that the WHO office in China reported a ‘new type of pneumonia virus’ being reported in the area around the city of Wuhan. Whilst there is still some dispute about where it originated, the virus has been traced back to cases in mid-November. The first anniversary of the discovery of what we now call SARS-CoV-2 seems like a significant event to record in my blog.

For those with an interest in the science, the new variant is being referred to as SARS-CoV-2 VUI 202012/01 and the more detailed description of the mutation is as follows;

This variant has a mutation in the receptor binding domain (RBD) of the spike protein at position 501, where amino acid asparagine (N) has been replaced with tyrosine (Y). The shorthand for this mutation is N501Y, sometimes noted as S:N501Y to specify that it is in the spike protein. This variant carries many other mutations, including a double deletion (positions 69 and 70).
US Centers For Disease Control and Prevention, Emerging Variants Briefing December 2020.

It is this variation in the ‘spike protein’ that scientists think accounts for its ability for increased transmission by better binding to cells in people who get infected by the virus. It remains to be seen if the symptoms are more severe or if it is resistant to the vaccine, but the early signs are ‘hopeful’. What will certainly be the case is that the number of infections will rise and given the pattern up to now, many people will need some treatment in hospitals. This is the factor that may lead to ‘Lockdown v3.0’ and more damage to mental health and the economy.

In recent weeks I have been leading four sessions on the season of Advent with our church Bible study group and there are some themes which resonate with the current situation. As we approach the end of an extraordinary year and try to look forward to 2021 it seems an opportune moment to write down my personal thoughts and feelings. This blog has always been for my own reference, but I continue to be grateful for all the comments it attracts as each one is published.

Advent – the season of waiting – 2020 theme ‘Hope’….

It is only in the last few years, after 50+ years of being part the ‘Methodist Tradition’ through my church membership, that I have understood the ‘true meaning’ of Advent. For many it is ‘just the few weeks before Christmas’ but it is so much more than that. It is a time of ‘waiting’ and ‘anticipation’ during which we are called to lament/repent for all that has gone before and wait for the arrival of the long-promised ‘Light of the World’ to arrive in the form of a small child. Our fellow Christians in the Church of England, or ‘the Anglican Tradition’ recognise this in a more formal way. In the build up to Christmas they don’t sing ‘traditional carols’ and for them Christmas starts on the eve of the 25th December. It lasts for 12 days until Epiphany on the 6th January.

This year in the ‘real world’, the commercial one and the one that the church has hijacked from the original pagan ‘winter festival’, after all the upheaval of Covid and the challenges and illness and death, there has been a desire to ‘go early’. When I worked in retail pharmacy we would have started to plan for all the Christmas stock arrival earlier in the year. Indeed, during my time as Managing Director of our ‘Pharmacy Sundries’ subsidiary company, January would see me and the sales team attending trade fairs in the UK and Frankfurt in Germany, to meet suppliers from all over the globe to purchase, and in some cases ‘design’, the gifts our stores would sell during the ‘Christmas Season’. Stock would be ordered, shipped from China or India or wherever the suppliers were based, duty paid, containers received and unloaded at the warehouse, and delivered to the shops by a small fleet of vans ready to fill the shelves. There was always a tension between the warehouse wanting to get stock out (and our small company to invoice the larger one!) and the shops saying it was ‘too early’. In the end together with the retail marketing team for the shops we agreed a rough policy that, whilst stock could be delivered during September the, ‘big reveal’ would happen after the solemn celebration of Remembrance had taken place on November 11th. After that it was ‘all hands on deck’ to shift as much as we could. On a really good year our shops would be calling the warehouse in the second week of December pleading for us to send more – the items we had chosen that they were sceptical of selling were flying off the shelves. In the last week it might get to the point that shoppers were so desperate for a gift that even the stock we had left from previous years would look like the ideal gift for a family member!

It seems that a lot of people after the year they have had decided to ‘go early’. There was a rush to put up Christmas lights and decorations not just earlier but in bigger volumes than before. Around our estate there are so many whole garden displays and inflatable characters they can probably be seen from space! Goodness only knows what the electricity bills will be like in January. Shops have sold out and many Christmas tree growers have shut as all the stock has gone. There is an understandable desire from people wanting to celebrate and have something to look forward to. I confess to liking it, but it can get a bit wearing listening to hours of the old pop Christmas favourites from the 70s and 80s.

The theme for the Advent study we chose this year was ‘Hope’ which seemed appropriate for the year and is one aspect of the season along with joy, peace and love. As churches we have readings about John the Baptist and the Old Testament Prophets foretelling the arrival of The Messiah, the story of Mary and the journey towards Bethlehem. Many of us light four candles (and many ministers refer to the classic sketch on The Two Ronnies!) coloured red in an Advent wreath of holly, lighting the fifth white candle in the middle on Christmas day to represent Jesus. .

In many of our times of study we referenced the difficult times we have had during the pandemic. We would lament people we have lost, pray for support for those going through difficult times, missing friends and family contact, particularly those who know people in care homes or have not been able to attend the funeral of a family member. We have given thanks for the key workers helping us through difficult times. More recently we have given thanks for the God-given skills of the scientists for developing the vaccines, the hope that brings and the ability to start ‘looking forward’ in anticipation of a better 2021. Many of the Christmas cards we have received, had a handwritten note to reflect this hope too.

Watching Boris, Professor Chris Whitty, Chief Medical Officer and Sir Patrick Vallance, Government Chief Scientific Adviser on Saturday evening announcing the new ‘Tier 4’ measures, and limiting even more the Christmas travel and bubble arrangements, it would have been easy to find a new low of depression, and lack of optimism. Sunday morning’s news headlines on television and in the print media could be summed up as ‘Christmas Cancelled’. During the summer and into the early autumn with infection rates falling, deaths levelling-off to a figure that we could probably live with, health services opening, people going back to work and children to school, things appeared a little brighter. Despite having to take a lot of measures on our holiday in Norfolk and again when we went to the lodge in Great Ayton, North Yorkshire, and the early figures for the ‘second wave’ seeming not to be as high as the first, my optimism was still there.

It was whilst ‘attending’ (via You Tube) the live streamed service from Methodist Central Hall Westminster (MCHW) on Sunday morning that I decided to write this blog. MCHW of course is now in Tier 4 so the chances of a few people attending the church physically on Christmas Day has gone. The reading was about Mary and her willingness to carry the child that would become our Saviour. We sang Joy To The World and O Come All Ye Faithful and accepted the challenge from Rev Gordon to take up whatever challenges we will face in the coming months. Both Gordon and Rev Tony who leads the service said that although we were in lockdown, Christmas itself wasn’t cancelled. Tony said he had received a humorous text about there being ‘only 370 more sleeps to Christmas’ but he wanted to state that wasn’t true. I posted the image below on my Facebook page on Monday and it attracted many likes…

The commercial ‘winter festival’ may have been curtailed and many would not be able to see family and friends, but nothing is going to stop Christmas being Christmas for Christians. It brought to mind this tweet from earlier in the week reminding us that other religions had their celebrations ‘cancelled’ at even shorter notice – in some cases the evening before the big family gatherings.

Admittedly, some replies pointed out that Easter was ‘cancelled’ at the start of lockdown and, as happens on social media these days, there were plenty of racist comments, but the point was the same one I had made the night before Eid. ‘Imagine the uproar if they cancelled Christmas…’

The most striking interview I saw on Sunday morning was with Rev Justin Welby, Archbishop of Canterbury on the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show. It appeared to me that the leader of our national church was shaken by the events of Saturday and, like many of us, struggling with an inner voice that was saying to him ‘I am really not sure that my faith is strong enough for this…’. But he found another inner voice and rallied to assure us that Christmas would indeed happen on the appointed day. He also talked movingly about the ‘hole in the celebration’ left by those who can’t be with us, either because they have died or are alone in a place we can’t travel to. He encouraged us all to celebrate the great festival by remembering those who have died, talking about them, and for those who are isolated to pick up the phone and speak to them. He encouraged the vulnerable not to attend church but to call one of the many phone numbers with services, carols or prayers being broadcast.

Some of the many people with a spare place at the table are the family of our school friend Clare who died in November aged just 61 from motor neurone disease diagnosed five years ago. Clare is the first of our contemporaries that we have kept in touch with for over 50 years to go. It is as much a sobering reminder of our own mortality as it is sad. It was also our first (and probably not last) ‘virtual funeral’, we watched the live stream whilst listening to the music chosen by Clare herself on You Tube.

As I sang along watching the service from Westminster to O Come All You Faithful I remembered the Christmas of 2016 when my dad died. We were celebrating at a cottage on the North York Moors with Alyson’s family. Dad was on end-of-life care in a nursing home nearby, and died the day we were leaving the cottage. You can read about that in the blog that I wrote at the time . I asked the minister if we could sing the hymn at dad’s funeral as he was a long-time member of the church choir and hadn’t managed to sing it that year. Rev Ruth said that it was a great idea and all we needed to change was the last verse usually sung on Christmas Day from ‘Yea we greet thee born this happy morning’ to …that happy morning..’. Alyson’s dad who was 90 and not in good health gave a short speech during Christmas Day lunch suggesting that this might be the last one he had with us. He died later that year in October.

So we had two Christmases in a row with spare places at the table. Such is the ‘circle of life’, we have lost Alyson’s mum since, but this year we have two small boys born to our nieces since. They represent the joy, love and hope of the Advent season.

Final thoughts and looking to the future…

There will be three households with us on Christmas Day, but only four people – Alyson and I, and our two sons who are single-person households. We will social distance as much as we can and maybe even eat outside. Other than that we have several ‘Zoom’ catch-ups planned with other family members and friends. We had one last weekend with my brothers and cousins (my older brother lives in San Jose California, 6 miles from the global Zoom HQ so was supporting one of his ‘local businesses’!). We have had one ‘virtual Christmas party’ with the head injury charity I am a member and trustee of. Ready-made meals were delivered along with a box of crackers, hats and gifts. We played charades, told jokes from the crackers and even tried to sing some carols. A great time was had by all who attended.

I heard from another friend that the company he works at had a ‘Zoom office party’ that started at 8pm and for some people went on until 6am. Apparently, the ability to drink and not have to drive home led to some problems with people saying and doing things that they would regret when reading the ‘chat’ the next day. So it seems a virtual party can be as good or bad as a real-world one!

I like to think I have always been generally an optimistic person, trying to see the positive in both situations and in people I meet. Alyson thinks I am a bit too laid back and even naive, and reminds me that earlier in the year I was still hoping that we would be able to get a sunny holiday overseas and was one of those who said it would be all over by Christmas. I try to find hope in the vaccination program but recognise that our governments record for ‘ramping up’ the testing capacity could induce pessimism that our ability to vaccinate the estimated 16.5 million people aged over 60. To get this done before Easter, considering the five weeks to achieve full immunity, will require an average of two million vaccinations each week. There have been half a million people vaccinated in the two weeks since 90-year-old Margaret Keenan became the first person on 8 December. We need an eight-fold increase in that rate if we are to reach the Easter target.

As I reflect on the end of a very strange and difficult year, my faith is strong, and my optimism remains at a high level. The hours of daylight are increasing from today, and I am looking forward to 2021

Coronavirus week 15 – the fine line between hope and crisis…

Did we go too soon?

Most of the week has been spent anticipating the 4th of July or ‘super Saturday’, ‘Independence Day’ when the pubs, restaurants and hairdressers were allowed to reopen. Also self-catering cottages, campsites and some B&B’s along with theme parks. We were waiting an announcement on which countries people will be allowed to visit without the need to quarantine on return. There were some concerns from scientists that we were going too far too fast.

For all of the above there were some who took it as a green light to start now. Airlines had passengers off to Spain, France, Greece and whole host of other places where they had second homes or were planning to be away for many weeks. Such people clearly had enough money to ‘self-insure’ against any eventuality. Street or ‘block parties’ continued and some pubs were open early. By the time Saturday came there were camera crews and reporters ready to capture the inevitable response to cutting a bit of hair or downing a pint.

The reports appeared to be mainly positive, but watching the crowds in Soho roaming the streets on a sunny afternoon there didn’t appear to be much social distancing going on there. As a reporter from the Associated Press put it

John Apter, chair of the Police Federation, who was on patrol in the southern England city of Southampton, said it was a busy shift, one that saw officers having to deal with naked men, “happy” drunks as well as “angry” drunks. He said the shift “managed to cope” but it was “crystal clear” that those who have imbibed one too many cannot, or won’t, socially distance.

I don’t usually use swear words but that last sentence is one to which my friend Gareth from the head injury charity might reply ‘no sh*t Sherlock!’.

A few days earlier the authorities decided that one place that the pubs and hairdressers would not be opening was the city of Leicester. Due to data showing the infection rate rising alarmingly in some post codes a ‘local lockdown’ was imposed. Many words were written about the possible causes, some speculating that the ‘hundreds’ of local small garment factories in tiny buildings that continued working were the main reason. Others said that it was the fact that the city is home to many people of Asian heritage where the culture is to live together in multi-generational households, some in areas of deprivation. It is well-known that two of the groups more susceptible to infection are minority ethnic and the elderly.

I am weary from hours of attending the Methodist Conference along with 300 others on Zoom, voting by virtually raising our hands or completing on-screen polls. I am emotionally drained by listening to speakers on so many topics that needed our action. They all seemed so relevant. We were diverted from our agenda on the first morning by several urgent ‘notices of motion’ that altered proposed resolutions around equality diversion and inclusion (EDI). I admit to being a little annoyed, but as speaker after speaker from the LGBTQI+, transgender, black and ethnic groups, those with disabilities both visible and hidden, spoke of injustice, hatred and, even worse – indifference, I couldn’t help but be determined that action is needed.

This is about justice and inclusion and the need to work more as a church to celebrate difference. Again I was challenged to look at the EDI learning kit – but it is so much more than that. It is easy to think that living as we do in a predominately ‘white European’ town, that I am not racist. But that falls into the example heard in church so many times, ‘well we don’t have any minority ethnic people in our church so we can’t be accused of being racist’! I would now be tempted to ask, so how many disabled, homosexual or ‘gender fluid’ members are in your church or even your circuit? Is the membership or attendance representative of the area you live in?

This focus on EDI may have influenced some representatives to elect our first BAME President elect for 2021. Rev Sonia Hicks also happens to be a woman. She has great experience having served as a Circuit Superintendent in three connexions: Britain, the Methodist Church in the Caribbean and Americas and the Methodist Church in Ireland (MCI). Sonia is quoted as saying;

As a Black person born in the UK, it is a great privilege to serve the church family I love in this new way. I will do all I can to honour this choice of the Methodist Conference and enable British Methodism to celebrate our God-given diversity.

Not for the first time, the Conference elected two women to the top posts as Sonia will be joined as Vice President for 2021 by Barbara Easton, a secondary head teacher from the West Midlands.

Next up at conference was Sam Monaghan, chief executive of our charity that provides services and care homes or living in the community Methodist Homes (MHA). They have been very visible on our news programmes as a case study for the problems in care homes. 400 residents have died so far. It was obvious that care homes were forgotten initially. I was in tears as Sam recounted the story of those losses and that of three members of staff. Our district team decided there and then that as well as EDI, MHA would be one of our priorities for the year. One of our group with homes nearby said that some church members had commented that it is more expensive to live in them. That’s partly because they are an organisation that pays its care workers the ‘real living wage’, decided by the Living Wage Foundation, rather than the national (minimum) living wage set by our government – something to celebrate not complain about.

After the main session of conference finished for the day attended (via Zoom again) a ‘fringe event’ about how our ‘bank’ Central Finance Board (CFB) were deciding which oil companies to divest themselves from, on the advice of the Joint Advisory Committee on Ethical Investment (JACEI) of which the Methodist Church is a member. There was some ‘controversy’ that we were still investing in three oil companies who were not meeting the measures set by the Paris Agreement on climate change. CFB explained that reduced returns and loss of income had to be balanced with a judgement about the companies ‘moving in the right direction’. There were also difficulties in the metrics of how to judge the companies. Change costs money, and whilst change needs to be worked through and company’s encouraged, it won’t happen overnight ( I know we don’t have time here, but I believe that science and technology will play a large part in solving climate change – it just needs investment and a push).

We spent many hours the next two days discussing long reports on important projects and issues for our church, but as time went on I got more worked up about the young people of our church who we call ‘3-generate’ pushing hard on the climate issue, and asking for CFB to overturn their decision to keep the three oil companies. This came to a head in a debate when, despite warnings from our treasurer and others that the loss of income and costs of doing so would be many hundreds of thousands of pounds and our own independent pension scheme trustees might decide to ‘disinvest from our own bank’ to seek better returns elsewhere, a notice of motion was agreed to overturn the decision. I resolved that I would speak up on the subject. Having spent many hours preparing carefully what I would say, by the time I was called to speak it was the very last part of the final session and due to overrun I had to quickly cut what I wanted to say from three minutes, to two and then one. I nearly didn’t speak but had ‘promised’ out treasurer that I would. At the last minute my printer also ran out of ink. I was very weary and tired so, instead of putting one negative point and one positive suggestion, I stumbled my way through one minute of the negative before being cut-off mid-sentence. I was shattered and devastated. The clip is on YouTube as the sessions are up there. This is a screenshot of me making my ‘speaking debut at conference’, looking distracted by trying to read what I am saying off the other screen next to my laptop.

It has only been seen by 2,734 people (mostly watching live at the time), and as far as I can tell no more since. Fortunately it is only up there until 1st August so not many more will view it!

Other news this week

As well as final details of the releasing the lockdown, the prime minister announced the ‘big spend’ infrastructure projects to get the UK moving again, a boost to the economy, and providing work for many of those workers who have lost their jobs in the last four months. This led to the inevitable calls to cancel the HS2 rail project to save money and the environment. People against this often quote that there is no need for people like us in Crewe to get to London 20 minutes sooner than we do now, particularly with more people working from home in the future. My response is that HS2 is not about speed but capacity. It is to get more freight off the roads and onto rail. To develop the current system to add another line or so next to current ones will take much longer, be even more disruptive and be more expensive. Just imagine the number of ‘back gardens’ you would have to destroy and the stations, bridges and signalling that would need to be altered. There are already lots of delays from upgrading the present system to current standards, not much of which does anything for capacity, but is making up for decades of underspending.
The list of countries we are able to travel to without going into isolation was published at the end of the week. There were 50+ on there but some confusion as some did not want a ‘reciprocal arrangement’ whereby we are able to travel to them.
We had one last ‘clap for the NHS’ to celebrate the 72nd anniversary of setting up the organisation. It was supposed to be for five minutes at 5 o’clock on the 5th, but there were only a few households out near us and certainly not for the full time.
The figures for deaths and cases kept falling, but were beginning to ‘flatten’. The average Monday to Friday official deaths were 124 this week down from 152 last. Daily cases are averaging less than 900 now. The total at the end of the week was 44,220 and average new infections are just over 500 per day.

How was week 15 for us?

Well the NHS finally appear to have got their act together and, using the new terminology, Alyson was ‘on-boarded’ on Thursday. She received her updated NHS email address on Friday, and has spent the weekend doing some final training on the system. Alyson completed the other modules around safeguarding and GDPR. Hopefully the last portion of the training will be done this week and she can arrange to choose some sessions from the roster in coming weeks.

During my time at conference Alyson did some Nordic walking at Delamere Forest having not done any since before lockdown. Normally she is part of a group but felt safe enough to go on her own and really enjoyed it. On Friday I needed to clear my head, so we spent a pleasant afternoon walking the forest tracks for 90 minutes.

Saturday saw us forming a ‘bubble’ with Michael as we went to his house to help put up a trellis for his climbing rose on the side of his shed. Alyson took the photo below and titled it ‘danger Skaife and son at work’. As I wrote a few weeks ago I am not known for my DIY skills and have not passed any on to my sons. It was a successful afternoon as Michael only hit his thumb half a dozen times with the hammer putting in the metal staples!

Michael had gone into his office in the centre of Manchester for the first time in more than 12 weeks to setup a new colleague with the IT equipment needed to work from home. He said it felt very strange with the added element of social distancing.

I will be going into an office on the outskirts of Manchester this week in order to meet Steve the director of the accountants I am doing the project for. This was the result of a Zoom meeting when I presented my report to the directors and it was agreed that rather than me try to go over all the systems and project plan remotely, it would be more efficient to be in the office, either side of a large table and share the various systems on a large screen on the wall. It will feel strange, but the company has spent a great deal of time putting ‘Covid-secure’ measures in so I am certain it will be as safe as it can be.

When I attended the weekly live-streamed service at Methodist Central Hall Westminster, I was confronted by my disastrous speech on Wednesday again. Three of the main participants had been at the conference and Rev Paul was part of the main organising technical team, and the person who probably pressed the button to let me ‘into the room’. Anthony, a local preacher and rep from the London District, had spoken well to another ‘notice of motion’ to persuade conference to do more about EDI.

Sunday was the first anniversary of Alyson’s mum’s funeral. Again we reflected on how different things were then. Not only the social distancing and the ability to at least hold some sort of tea and meet friends and relatives, but the weather a year ago was very warm too.

Stay safe, and we will see if the easing means we cross the fine line back over to the crisis side and a ‘second wave’.

Life & Death – Coronavirus week 8 – assessing risks, dividing the country

Tell us what we are supposed to be doing, don’t ask us to use common sense….

Looking back with the benefit of ‘2020 hindsight’ the week started with what Boris might have called ‘an inverted pyramid of confusion’ with lots of unanswered questions following his Sunday evening address to the nation. The well-trailed/leaked message of ‘we’re coming out of lockdown’, the ‘meat of the story at the top’ was followed by the fragmented uncertainty of what was actually said, and the shrinking detail of how that would work – the narrowing at the bottom of the pyramid.

‘Stay at Home’ was replaced with ‘Stay Alert’ and we were told that ‘coming down the mountain is sometimes harder than going up’. He announced a government plan to ‘ease the lockdown’ in the next few months. Some of the measures had been widely trailed in the media in a way that I don’t fully understand. All journalists have their ‘sources’ and back-door channels into government departments. Indeed it seems that some cabinet ministers are happy to ‘leak’ when it suits them, or perhaps to gain an advantage in the game of getting more power by a higher profile. The problem was that some people were waiting to hear that they could see more family members, start planning a late summer holiday or going for a beer at a pub that has an outside garden or space.

What we heard instead was ‘go back to work tomorrow’, ‘from Wednesday we can go out more, sunbathe or play sports’, ‘schools and some shops will be opening at the start of June’, ‘hospitality being open from 4th July’. The new alert system was underpinned by scientific advice and monitoring of the now infamous ‘R-number’. Monday morning brought more confusion when ministers didn’t appear to have details on some of the ‘rules’ and how they would be applied. Could we meet mum and dad in the park or was it only mum (presumably while dad sat in the car and waited his turn next). The situation was not surprising as the more detailed 60-page official document was not published until later on Monday and news programmes were full of traffic jams and crowded tube trains as the ‘rush back to work’ started.

By this weekend crowds were taking advantage of the warm weather to travel long distances to beauty spots in the countryside and on the coast. Some interviewed for the evening news expressed surprise at the number of people there and the lack of social distancing.

I mentioned a couple of weeks ago the need for careful planning of how workplaces could open with ‘social distancing’ and ‘re-engineering’ of processes. Any business or workplace that had wasted the last seven weeks of the lockdown and wasn’t planning how the changes could happen prior to the announcement, can’t complain if they fail in the future. Talking to Steve, an accountant friend of mine, about how his small business customers were coping, he said there were two groups; those who had panicked and taken short term decisions, and those who had changed. He mentioned restaurant businesses who had turned into takeaway services and were now making more money as they didn’t realise just how much customers liked their dishes. We agreed that the ‘good’ well-run businesses who treat their teams well will come out of this stronger.

Trade Union Leaders were calling for their involvement in helping businesses get back working in a safe way. They have many trained ‘Health & Safety Reps’ that can help companies and reassure their members that safe-working practices are in place. Although the TUC had been on a conference call with the Prime Minister on Sunday evening, no mention of help from the unions was made by ministers in the daily round of the breakfast news media organisations. The phrase ‘it is just common sense’ was often used. The government did produce some detailed guidance on workplace changes, staff shifts, social distancing and deep cleaning measures for eight areas of work from manufacturing, offices, restaurants etc. But I repeat, most businesses should have been thinking about these things before this week.

Wednesday was the day we could all begin to get out more and play sport, but we decided to stay home and see if the beauty spots, parks and garden centres became crowded with people, as had been the concern when it was announced. It was a mixed picture and the mood was captured by a cartoon in one of the newspapers of a golfer playing a round on his own whilst his wife took a towel to sunbathe in the bunker. On seeing the queue of 30 or more customers to get into a garden centre we decided that we weren’t that desperate to get some more plants for our garden.

Parents, teachers, and their unions were raising concerns about how social distancing would be in place for reception, year one and year six classes, the first designated to go back. For some it was literally a matter of ‘life and death’ with some parents accusing ministers of treating them and their children as ‘guinea pigs’ for an experiment and saying that they definitely wouldn’t be sending their children back until schools were ‘100% safe’. Of course there is no such thing as 100% safe statistics were quoted on the risk of being injured in a car journey or playing in a park. There is also a risk of harm if younger children see parents in a state of terror about letting them out for the ‘virus to get them’. We watched an interview with a head teacher from the UK and a teacher in a primary school in Denmark that had been open for a few weeks and put in place measures to help. They put the children in small groups of 4-5 and played a game whereby they had to keep away from the other groups in the school. Washing hands at the start and end of the morning and afternoon became a physical education (PE) class where children lined up two metres apart and did various exercises such as squats, jumps, stretches as they moved closer to the sinks and after washing their hands they went back to the classroom to do a paper exercise. The UK head teacher appeared to take an interest and be willing to learn some lessons from this. The Danish teacher stated that when they opened less than half the parents sent children but after two weeks it was over 90%.

Of course we shouldn’t forget that teachers and schools have been open during the lockdown, doing frontline work and teaching smaller numbers of key worker’s children. They will have learnt something from this experience. Some of the larger ‘Academy School Groups’ that have estates departments have been planning for opening and doing individual risk assessments for their varied buildings. Some head teachers in primary schools are not trained in risk assessments. This is not a criticism, it’s just not their job which became clear when they panicked about how to keep 4-year olds apart, and not to be terrified of teachers wearing masks and full PPE! They may be great teachers, but they also need help from local authorities and others. We have to hope that the large academy groups only motivation is education of their pupils but, as with some of the larger businesses in the commercial sector, it is possible that their Chief Executives are more concerned with lost profit than with the safety of their employees.

Speaking to Chris, a friend who has a daughter that teaches primary school children in a relatively deprived areas locally, I asked his view. He said he could understand the unions asking for guarantees on safety as that is their role. His daughter has identified vulnerable pupils who should be in already but haven’t been coming. Some of her children are not capable of being controlled in the way people would expect and their hygiene habits are poor as the result of the environment they live in. She is not worried about catching the virus as she is young, but Chris is concerned about her, as there is still much we don’t know about how the virus affects children.

The Danish comparison was being used as a ‘positive example of what could be done’ by the same ministers who said it was wrong to compare the way we handled the crisis, compared to other countries who appeared to be doing better. Is it that Danish schools and parents have a different relationship than ours?

As I write teacher unions and leaders have met with government scientific advisors, and doctors have backed the proposed way forward for a controlled opening in June. Anne Longfield the children’s commissioner for England has demanded that the two sides stop squabbling and get on with reopening ‘in the interests of children’, the many disadvantaged of whom had been away from education for too long.

The schools issue was just one area this week that shone a light on the growing division/diversion of the way the crisis is being dealt with both between the countries of the UK and within the regions of England. I wrote last week that Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland were sticking with the ‘Stay at home’ message. This week the elected mayors in Manchester & Liverpool went on record about the support they and their councils were being given from London. The Greater Manchester Mayor, Andy Burnham wrote two newspaper articles bemoaning the short notice they were given of the proposed ‘back to work’ message and not having the financial package given to the London Mayor to provide the extra public transport to maintain social distancing. The allowances given to local authorities to deal with the crisis had gone from ‘spend what you need, and we will reimburse you, to ‘we need to be sharing the cost’. It needs to be stated that he was a former Labour MP for Leigh, one of the constituencies that changed to Conservative in the December election. So the following statement needs to be read in that context.

For a government elected on votes in the north, and promises to “level-up”, it is surprising how quickly it has reverted to the default, London-centric mode in this crisis. Last Sunday’s package certainly felt more suited to the south than to the north.

His article refers to another issue I heard on Friday that seems to mark a change in approach. Many homeless people have been taken off the streets and put into hotels with a grant from central government. That funding is being withdrawn and put back onto the local authorities, many of whom have also had a large cut in the funding to give local support during the emergency. It seems that the poorest areas are having the largest cuts.

One of the most deprived areas in the country and one often shown on news bulletins is our ‘home area’ around Middlesbrough in the north east. Alyson & I lived and went to school in one of the more affluent areas from the ages of two and five. The area of Brambles Farm shown in Friday’s bulletins is one we know well and is where Alyson’s mum worked in a bookmakers. The interview with a mum and her child about the cost of living and the need to access support and foodbanks was a stark reminder of areas of poverty in our country.

Today’s statistics from the NHS show the following;

The North East region has the highest infection rate in the country with 358 people per 100,000
Within the region Middlesbrough is fourth highest for infection rates at 451 per 100,000
The James Cook University Hospital that serves the area is in the top third of deaths in the country with 316 to date.
One day in the last week there were 24 new cases in London and 4,000 in the north east and Yorkshire.

The regional mayor had been resisting the reopening of parks despite the pleas of an MP who is a member of the government and one who is the Labour MP for Middlesbrough. He is, however, in favour of reopening schools unlike his counterpart in nearby Hartlepool.

Other news this week

The daily death rates appear to be on a downward slope with today’s figure of 170 bringing the total to 34,636. But this week we had a figure of 50,000 for the ‘excess deaths’ for the period to 1 May.
Following the extensive coverage of the track and trace app on the Isle of Wight there has been little news on how the trial is going. I looked up the local newspaper and all it said was that less only about 33% of the population had downloaded it. Michael & David told me on our Zoom call tonight that the source code for the app had been released and there were lots of comments about functionality and not connecting with phones nearby. As per the blogger’s prediction last week there is talk of moving to the decentralised version of the app.
Tuesday 12th May was International Nurses Day and fell this year on the 200th anniversary of Florence Nightingale’s birthday. Florence died a recluse after many years of a ‘mystery disease’ which some scholars now think could have been partly related to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Much more is known about this today, and it could be that her reluctance to talk about the 21 months without a break looking after the injured soldiers in appalling conditions during the Crimean War, 30 years previously, was the cause. Many today are asking that our NHS workers and others on the frontline receive PSTD counselling in the coming years.
Belly Mujinga a Victoria Station ticket office worker died after being spat at on the day before the lockdown by a man claiming to have coronavirus, falling ill with Covid-19 two days later and dying in hospital a week after that. It is a shocking story.
The question I submitted to the group who choose ones from the public to the daily briefing didn’t get picked, but somewhat surprisingly one about the possibility of in the future of having a ‘Universal Basic Income’ (a subject I want to cover in a later blog) did, but was dismissed outright by business secretary Alok Sharma MP, who again was happy to use other countries as reference as ‘it had been tried and shown not to work’.

Thoughts at the end of week 8.

This week we were due to be on a cruise in Norway from Bergen to Kirkenes and back, on a small cargo boat calling at many ports and sailing up some of the very scenic fjords. A ‘first world’ problem I know, but we are some of the many trying to get a refund or rearrange for next year.

This week is designated Brain Injury Awareness Week and in the charity I am a trustee for it would be one of our main awareness and fundraising times. I wrote and hosted a Zoom quiz for our members to replace the events we would have had. It was a fun time of sharing. It has also been Christian Aid Week and the door to door collection I sometime do was cancelled. It raised over £8 million across the UK last year. I shared the preparation and hosting of another quiz for which we asked for a donation. We had 16 ‘screens’ with about 25 people joining in. This week’s appeal is to help victims of coronavirus in parts of the world less able to cope and where Christian Aid have projects. I encourage you to donate.

The advice this week from the government was to start wearing face coverings in some enclosed spaces such as on public transport and shops. Alyson had used a design from You Tube to sew some cloth ones for us all. We posted two each to Michael and David and I wore one for the first time to go to our small local Tesco. I only had it on for about 45 minutes, but that was long enough for me to have some understanding of how uncomfortable it must be to wear one for a ten to twelve-hour shift. And that is without the rest of the PPE needed to treat patients in ICU.

I read a blog from an academic at Swansea University who was recruiting people willing to take part in a ‘CoronaDiaries’ project looking at how people react in the crisis. I have been accepted onto the project so these blogs will be converted to PDF and stored in an archive for future researchers to use.

As usual on Sunday I attended a streamed service from Methodist Central Hall in London. The sermon and prayers related to a passage in Matthew chapter 5 where Christians are called to change ‘from just being, to doing’. This struck me as particularly apt for the events of this week, as did our prayer,

may the poor be enriched, the bereaved comforted and the hungry filled.

Keep safe, stay alert, manage the risk and let’s try to ease the lockdown.

Life & Death – Coronavirus week 6 – light at the end of the tunnel.

Two narratives, but which do you believe?

This week’s total deaths has risen quite sharply as it now includes all deaths in the community (including care homes) and not just hospitals. At the end of the week the UK total is 28,446.

As I have gone through the last few weeks in this series of blogs, I note down topics that interest me and jot them down on my computer with some initial thoughts. On the Saturday I just start to write my blog and usually an idea comes to the fore, sometimes I write too much or go off in a particular direction and have to scrap large sections or keep them for another time. Often I am up against my own ‘deadline’ of Sunday evening and end up ‘rushing’ the last part. As I sit here this Saturday I am conflicted.

I have one narrative of the week’s events and my thoughts which some would describe as the ‘mainstream view’ as reported by the BBC and some on-line articles or extracted from large circulation newspapers. This view is dubbed by users on social media as ‘MSM’ or Mainstream Media. MSM as a term is often used in a pejorative sense as either left- or right-wing bias, depending on the political view of the person passing comment. In that sense it could be described as ‘balanced’ given that some agree, and some disagree. Coronavirus has taken over from last year’s key word ‘Brexit’ as a topic that divides the nation. The division appears not to be the same extent, but there are plenty of people asking hard questions of the government, and much finger-pointing at individuals or institutions/organisations who they consider don’t represent their particular viewpoint or stance.

I am also preparing this weekend for our Bible study group on the sayings of Jesus from the Gospel of Luke, under the title ‘A New Society?’. One of the main reasons I value my faith is the way that Jesus offers a ‘counter-cultural’ challenge to the accepted norm, and is not afraid to take the issue to the ‘powerful’ in society. As it says in the introduction of the book we are using:

Roman, Greek and Hebrew societies were heavily stratified. Fine, if you were a healthy wealthy, educated, well-mannered, pure-blooded male of noble descent and free citizenship; beneath that you were second class or worse all the way down to worthless slaves at the bottom…Samaritans and Gentiles were scum, the poor, the sick and the deformed, the tormented, well, they must have offended God so you avoided them; prostitutes and tax collectors were beneath contempt.

Jesus not only ignores these divisions but takes special delight in raising the status of the poor…..all may come irrespective of their status. The parable of the great banquet reveals that the self-satisfied will be excluded while the poor needy, the rejects of society, will be welcomed in.

Jesus came to abolish the man-made divisions of race, sex and class.

My second version of the review of the week takes is an alternative more ‘radical’, some would say political angle.

The ‘accepted/acceptable’ view…

The week started with Boris Johnson giving a speech on the steps of Downing Street, addressing the nation on his health and the possible steps that would be taken. Apart from being a little breathless he was full of his usual optimism and stressing words and phrases like ‘good’, ‘amazing’, ‘can-do’, heroes and ‘pressing on’. He said that the government were working ‘full-tilt’ to protect the NHS and save lives. He mentioned that it had been 50-50 at one point but that he was back to lead. The analogy he used was of having been in an alpine tunnel to avoid the peak and we could see the bright sunshine and the green pastures at the end of the tunnel.

Lots of people said he was the best communicator that the government have, and it was good to see him back. Things would get better and later in the week he would announce the next steps.

On Tuesday we had a special one minute’s silence to remember the heroes who had died at work in the NHS and care sectors.

Boris didn’t appear at Prime Ministers Questions on Wednesday when Keir Starmer asked searching questions of Dominic Raab. The press and social media were full of posts stating it was good that ‘the other lot’ hadn’t won the December election, and imagined the chaos that a Labour party, led by Jeremy Corbyn, would have made of the current crisis. We learned that Boris and Carrie had a baby boy and Boris had been by their side all the way through. Again, there was great rejoicing and congratulations and many political opponents wished them well. MPs across the spectrum suggested this joyous occasion would give a lift to the country.

Meanwhile Captain Tom, the war hero, managed to raise over £30 million for NHS charities in time for his 100th birthday. He got an honorary promotion to Colonel along with his card from the Queen and 120,000 from members of the public. Boris recorded a special message. Keeping the war theme going he had a flyover from the RAF of two WW2 fighter planes. Tom was even number one in the music chart. Tom has inspired many other people to raise funds for the NHS and Virgin Radio DJ Chris Evans held a ‘garage sale’ of a huge amount of expensive memorabilia and items from his self-admitted ‘excess times’ over the last 25 years. This raised just short of £500,000. The money will be going directly to the ‘Scrubs Glorious Scrubs’ who are coordinating the voluntary efforts from seamstresses making much-needed scrubs for NHS frontline staff or, the ‘heroes’.

The daily briefings continued and there was focus on the promised 100,000 daily test target which, by a huge effort and extending the range of people who could get the test, was met when 122,000 were done on Thursday 30th.

That evening Alyson and I joined in the weekly ‘clap for carers’ with most of the people on our street. Drums, pots and wooden spoons, hooters, whistles were used. We talked in slightly derogatory terms about those who have not been out for any of the five times we have done it.

The daily briefings feature a new section whereby members of the public could write or record a question to be put to the briefing. This was welcomed as often these questions cut through the ‘gotcha’ questions often put by the press to try and catch ministers out or show up errors or misjudgements. The first one from Lynne in Skipton simply asked, ‘When will I be able to cuddle my grandchildren, who I am missing terribly’. The minister said he understood the question but reinforced the need to ‘continue with the measures in place’.

When the journalists tried to ask about PPE and a BBC Panorama programme that exposed a shortage in the national stockpile, and an emergency exercise from 2016, the minister said he didn’t believe any of that and that we just needed to carry on. The press wanted to know more about the R-number and what value it needed to be for lockdown to be released. Professor Whitty was asked when we would learn the lessons of what had gone wrong. He said that would happen, but you don’t start in the middle of trying to focus on fighting the current crisis. When asked why our death total seems to be so much higher than the other European countries and second in the world, he pointed to what he described as a brilliant article in The Guardian by a professor of statistics on the difficulty of comparing countries.

Jeremy Hunt, former Health Secretary was very defensive when asked about the lack of PPE and ventilators. He said that President Macron had apologised for the lack of preparations but that he didn’t think Matt Hancock should and ‘now is not the time for the blame game’.

Rishi Sunak, Chancellor of the Exchequer was praised for putting in place a compensation scheme for the families of NHS and other frontline staff who had died as part of their duties dealing with Covid-19 patients. He also increased the guarantee for business loans from 80% to 100%. The week before he announced help for charities including foodbanks. On Saturday, a package of £76million to support vulnerable children, victims of domestic violence and modern slavery who were ‘trapped’ at home during lockdown. Pharmacies, who had previously been given £300Million to help with extra stock and deliveries, were to use consultation rooms as save havens for victims of domestic violence.

The ‘alternative/critical view’…

I can only imagine the Daily Mail headlines if Boris was the head of a taxpayer funded project managing an emergency caused by not taking the advice of experts from a few years before. Finding out that he had now fathered at least six children during two marriages and one extra marital affair, was not married to his current partner and had to deny several other similar allegations. He wrote a piece for The Spectator in 1995 where he attacked single mothers saying it was “outrageous” that married couples “should pay for ‘the single mothers’ desire to procreate independently of men”. Not only that but in two months he had taken several weeks paid sick leave from his £150,000 a year job, and now was going on paid paternity leave. He went to his paid for country mansion set in 1,000 acres of Buckinghamshire countryside for a couple of weeks. His bluff and bluster of a ‘Churchillian’ speech with its talk of light at the end of a tunnel might have been turned on him, and the question asked, ‘are you sure it’s not just an express train coming towards us…’?

The NHS is not a charity and should be fully funded by the government, the clue is in the name. It shouldn’t need Captain Tom or celebrities to get the general public to raise money for it during a ‘special season’. Of course there may well be a need to have a few ‘extras’ like toys/video games for the children’s wards or special luxury equipment for people in rehab or entertainment packages, but not vital equipment or PPE. Well done Captain Tom – only another £320million to go in order to fulfil the Brexit bus promise of £350million for the NHS for a week. It needs long-term guaranteed funding.

The NHS staff aren’t ‘heroes’ they are professional trained people who are willing to treat people in a system that has been underfunded and cut during 10 years of austerity. Some of the work they do is extremely stressful.

Some people are asking the question whether, once this is all over will the government be willing to continue to give the funding needed, and will those people who gave their donation to Captain Tom still be happy if they have to pay an equivalent amount of increased National Insurance every year? Will celebrities who earn tens or even hundreds times more than a nurse or senior doctor be willing to buy less ‘trinkets’ and support their heroes?

Certainly the pharmacy contractors, something I know a little about, will have their £300Million ‘gift’ (actually a loan) clawed back out of future payments. The sunk cost of all the PPE and extra staff they have had to take on and the small profit lost from reduced counter sales, will not be recovered. No doubt they will have to go back to providing unfunded services for quite some time yet.

The minute’s silence last Tuesday was on the annual International Workers Memorial Day. An initiative setup by trades unions worldwide to fight for safe working for people whose employers make them work in dangerous conditions or with hazardous substances. The 28th of April is officially recognised by the UK government as a day of remembrance around the world. So should we have an official act of remembrance on the 28th of April every year, not just 2020?

Now is the time to be challenging the government on how it was that emergency supplies of PPE were not replenished after Exercise Cygnus in 2016. Now is the time to make sure the government sets up a suitable commission to investigate and learn the lessons. A good question to the daily briefing might be;

If now is not the time to start learning the lessons of this crisis, is now the time to commit to setting up a wide-ranging independent group to look at it and report 6 months after the crisis is declared by the WHO to have ended. And is now the time to commit to ‘getting done’ all the recommendations and to fund them ‘whatever it takes‘?

Those ‘Masters of the Universe’ the bankers, who don’t appear to have changed much since they were supported after the 2008 market crash, will continue to control the supply of much needed loans. Some managed to bring forward their bonuses paid early, despite the Bank of England asking them to delay. Despite being given huge guarantees by the government (again) they will charge huge fees and take a lot of security from the owners of small businesses.

Returning briefly to Jesus, there was a time when people wore badges emblazoned WWJD, meaning ‘What would Jesus do?’ I think the first thing Jesus might have done was to ask the question ‘who are the people that will suffer most from this crisis and the long-term aftereffects?’ He might have decided the following priority list;

Take the homeless off the streets and put them all in hotels not currently being used for tourists, give them health screening and mental health support.
Before panic buying, make sure the supermarket stocks of food and necessary essential supplies go to foodbanks. Or better still, miss out the food banks and give £5,000 to every person or family with less than £1,000 of savings in the bank, along with guaranteed delivery of essential food and other items for the duration of the crisis.
Guarantee a payment of the average weekly wage to anyone on a zero hours or part-time flexible contract.
Provide support to the people who care for our most vulnerable people in care homes or their own homes.
Make sure every child living in a poor household is taken to school every day, given a full education, access to technology and two free meals.
Pay for all the care needed to support children or adults with a range of special needs for the duration.

Only after that has been done and ‘maximum effort’ has been given to them, and others identified as in danger of potential harm, can civil servants start to plan and implement the type of support package given by the treasury early in this crisis.

So, which narrative would you choose to believe…?

Thoughts at the end of week 6.

The relatively wet weather has confined us indoors. Alyson has been reading Terry Waite’s book Taken on Trust, sewing masks for us all and going for long walks every day.

I have had many more Zoom meetings and took part in an online quiz for Christian Aid. I have two quizzes to write in the coming week. I attended my weekly streamed service from Methodist Central Hall.

We had a family Zoom with 15 of us who should have been at a large house in Ross on Wye for the weekend.

Alyson practiced her skills as a home hairdresser on me with clippers and special scissors I had bought from Amazon.

I managed to put another shelf in my shed and am confident I can now do the last one in under an hour!

Stay safe everyone.

Life & Death – Coronavirus week 5 – what’s the next step?

An uncertain timescale, and new ways of working.

As the total passed 20,000 this week I fear the announcement of a high number deaths in the previous 24 hours is becoming part of our daily routine. I had some favourable comments about last week’s blog on statistics and am grateful to our son David for sending a publicly available link to the NHS Statistics site that details how these are compiled and it is at;

https://www.england.nhs.uk/statistics/statistical-work-areas/covid-19-daily-deaths/

David pointed out that the term ‘daily death toll’ is misleading as they are compiled from a series of numbers, some of which can be from a few weeks before. If you want to see how many have died in your local hospital trust these are on the different sheets in the spreadsheets.

The daily briefings are now showing some of the additional community and care home figures, which increases the totals. There has also been a discussion this week on how exactly registrations of death in the community are classified. The new guidelines allow for dying of Covid-19 or dying with Covid-19 and having one of the reasons as ‘pneumonia-like’ symptoms.

Looking at the current versions of the Johns Hopkins charts from last week’s blog, there is not really a definite ‘plateau’ in the figures, never mind any sign of a decline.

Unlike the virus, the shock of a high number of daily deaths appears to be something we are becoming immune to. Chief Medical Officer (CMO) Professor Chris Whitty suggested the current measures might need to be in place until the end of the year. The situation has been compared to a war, and in my less optimistic moments I worry that like the First World War when the ‘experts’ of the time, the military analysts, declared it would be ‘over by Christmas’, we will need to come to a more realistic appraisal. The first few months of the Great War were characterised by patriotic parades, rousing speeches, a general call to arms, volunteering and government spending. After Christmas, however, when it was clear that the proposed strategy of a short campaign followed by bringing enemies together to negotiate, was not working, countries had to change their economies and society and put them on a ‘war footing’ for the long-haul. Most of the time, however, I am optimistic that we can see out the current ‘war against an unseen enemy’, and a return to ‘normal’ is on the horizon.

No one wants to think of this war going on for a few years and our government having to borrow over 25% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annually, as happened in the two wars, compared to the short term 15-20% our chancellor has sanctioned so far. In the two wars GDP increased due to more production of munitions and uniforms etc. There is already some increased activity in sectors of the economy such as supermarkets, food manufacturers, logistics, suppliers of PPE and the pharmaceutical sector supplying medication and carrying out testing. The problem (as it was during the previous wars) is that much of this expenditure is government-funded and needs to be repaid at some point.

An increasing theme of questions to ministers at the daily briefings, and from some of the government’s own MPs, has been a desire to talk about the plan to get out of lockdown. The week started with former prime minister Tony Blair’s Foundation the Institute For Global Change producing an outline 10-point plan for how this might happen. It uses a ‘traffic light’ system of the metrics that would allow certain activities when an amber stage is reached, and more when a green might follow. If infections, hospitalisation and deaths start to climb again, it allows for a red stage and return to lockdown.

Nicola Sturgeon Scotland’s First Minister released a similar document to start what she called an ‘adult discussion’ about the gradual release of restrictions. For example, on how schools might have to be adapted to keep social distancing measures. One of the opposition parties in Scotland claimed that this was as much to do with trying to have a separate track from the UK government, and to steal a march on the ‘English Parliament’, as it is a real attempt to plan.

We had an idea of how releasing the lockdown might look after I joined an ‘on-line queue’ last Sunday to place a small order with DIY retailer Wickes. We had a text on Tuesday when it was ready to collect. Alyson drove to an empty car park where a member of staff brought the order out and put it to one side for her to place in the car. It was so long since Alyson had been out that the car clock was an hour behind. Alyson was so excited that in a Shirley Valentine moment she said, ‘hello car, it’s been a long time, how are you doing?’.

It may be that any retailer that wants to re-open, must think about making such adjustments and change the layout and operate a queue and collection system. As our good friend David said during a Skype call ‘every shop will be like Argos’. Talking to my brother-in-law Paul, on a Zoom call for Friday evening drinks, about Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) planning to restart production at two of their car plants, he said they will have ‘re-engineered’ the line. Paul knows about such things having been involved in similar plans before retirement. Instead of having two or three people working on the cars as they go down the line, the engineers will be changing the order and reprogramming the robots used to allow the build to continue within the ‘social distancing’ guidelines. Whether there will be the customers to buy the finished vehicles is a different question.

The UK is fortunate to have some really educated and clever people working in our small and large private and public enterprises. We must hope that, like JLR, they will have been working on ways to ‘re-engineer’ what they do in a ‘post-pandemic’ world. Some of these changes may have been the way to improved productivity anyway, and the space and time during this outbreak was needed to get them implemented. Other businesses less able to adapt and change and whose business model was not ‘fit for purpose’ will disappear.

Apparently a group of experts are meeting with the various sporting bodies to determine how the leagues and events might resume in May/June. There is talk of playing behind closed doors with safety measures in place for players/officials and broadcasters. I will return to this topic in the coming weeks, after more details are released. For now, I am curious how a game of football will look if players must keep two metres apart and the ball must be wiped down with sanitiser after every header or a throw by the goalkeepers!

For me the first few weeks of lockdown has brought an increasing number of video calls. Two months ago I knew about Skype, but Zoom was a new product to me. Such is the growth of this platform that, like Google, it has gone from being a noun to a verb quite quickly. We now say we are ‘having a Zoom’ with a colleague or we say we have ‘been Zooming our family’. Looking back I have had 16 such meetings in the last fortnight and a few more 1-2-1’s helping people setup Zoom. This week we had our first ‘virtual coffee morning’ with members of the head injury charity I am trustee/volunteer for. Given one of our aims is to reduce the social isolation of people who suffer such injuries, I have no doubts that this is an aspect of our work that will continue whenever the situation gets back to ‘normal’. It was a wonderful time of sharing for the ten of us on the call from all over Cheshire.

Technology is another sector of our economy that is booming as people need to be setup for working from home. Some of this business-to-business (B2B) spending is from the private sector so, even if it is funded by borrowing, is adding to our GDP.

Another crisis in the nations’ health being stored for the future?

After last week’s headlines about the current crisis in the care sector, this week doctors leaders and Sir Simon Stevens, Chief Executive of the NHS, highlighted a fall in general attendance at hospitals and GP surgeries. There could be people who need on-going treatment for heart conditions, cancers and other serious issues not getting these. People showing other serious symptoms of stroke, early-warning signs of cancers are choosing not to get checked out.

Related to this is the mental health of those who are isolated or trapped in homes with an abusive partner or parent. The increase in retail sales of alcohol, the boom in business for wine delivery merchants, some of which is the result of the closure of pubs and restaurants, should also be an area of serious concern.

Alyson and I are blessed to live as a couple with all the interaction that brings and so far are generally getting along amicably! I saw a piece on one of the news channels about the lack of ‘human touch’ that is becoming a real problem even for those who wouldn’t normally classify themselves as ‘touchy-feely’ types. This could be something as simple as a touch of a hand when upset or a hug with a child or grandchild. One new grandparent said, hopefully semi-seriously, ‘well perhaps I will get to see them before their first day of school…’

My thoughts have been with a church friend who lives on her own following the death of her husband last April. This lack of touch is becoming a real problem for her. She had to manage the anniversary of her husband’s death on her own, without the special touch from her son who lives 150 miles away. Her daughter lives in Australia and has a son who was born a few days after her husdand’s death. So she couldn’t even share a first birthday cuddle with him, just a ‘virtual cuddle’ via the ‘FaceTime’ app on an iPad.

Other news this week.

Not a new item but a ‘correction’ from two weeks’ ago when I stated that the birds were singing more loudly as a sign of new life. During one of our virtual coffee chats with friends David and Janis, they sent a link to some research showing that the decibel volume of birdsong has actually fallen. This is true particularly in urban areas and near airports as they don’t have to compete with the ambient background traffic noise anymore.
This week a potential vaccine against the coronavirus was injected into a human in the first stage of a trial. The remarkable speed at which this has happened is a chance for some optimism, but the scientists tell us that it will take months for any useful results to be available and analysed. In the rush to get this game-changer out to the world, great care needs to be taken to be sure that there are no side-effects that could make the harm done in the long-term far greater than the deaths of the outbreak.
The science needed to understand vaccines and terms like re-infection rates, on-going immunity, blind trials, cohort selection, existing morbidities, aggravating factors etc are not simple. I tried to resist mentioning President Trump again this week, but his suggestion of injecting or inhaling disinfectants to ‘clean out the virus in a minute’ was not only dangerous but showed a complete lack of any of the science on which his experts have briefed him. I do think this quote, and his subsequent attempt to pass it off as sarcasm towards the reporters in the briefing room, will be seen as a ‘game-changer’ in the longer term. The idea that a President who has any sort of basic education is unable to see the difference of putting a powerful chemical on surfaces such as metal, porcelain or man-made plastics is no different to the delicate structure of skin or the inside of a human lung is frightening. It is like a parody of the story of ‘The Emperor’s New Clothes’ or in this case ‘The President’s New Coronavirus Treatment’ where everyone else can see it is completely ridiculous idea, but the person elected to lead thinks it is a brilliant one. Will any of his advisors or leaders in his administration have the courage to criticise him in public?
There was some ‘outrage’ that Richard Branson would apply for a loan from the government to support his airline Virgin Atlantic. It was pointed out that he has a lot of personal wealth and despite putting his private island (valued at ‘only’ a few tens of millions of pounds) as an asset against the £500Million loan, his press was not favourable. I can see the need to support his employees in the UK, but this is one example for the government and big businesses to negotiate over. The ownership of the company by one of the major US airlines and the tax regimes they operate in needs considering. Denmark was one of the countries this week to announce that any company that hides some of its tax offshore, without true transparency, will not be allowed a loan.
On Sunday morning it was announced that prime minister Boris Johnson had recovered enough from his coronavirus after effects to return to Downing Street and lead the government again. Writing as someone who has also come close to death during a 12-week stay in hospital, my hope is that the episode might have given him a new perspective on what really matters in life. The decisions he takes, the way he views the NHS and key workers, might mean a change in approach.

Thoughts at the end of week 5.

Covid-19 has claimed the life of another person I knew. Sharon was a local church treasurer in our circuit, and we talked at meetings. She had some other health problems, but the loss of any life, particularly from this virus, and the effect isolation has on close family is devastating.

The weather continued to be warm and dry so we enjoyed lovely walks outside viewing plants and wildlife. I went for two more substitute parkruns. The goods we managed to get from Wickes meant we could get on with work in the garden and complete painting the fence.

I have really enjoyed all my Zooming this week, particularly catching up with friends and family for coffee and chat.

Alyson continued learning her new skill of sign language and sewed a mask from cotton material should she need to wear it outside.

My lack of any new improved DIY skill was demonstrated by the fact that it has so far taken me over three hours to put up three simple shelves in our garden shed. The phrase ‘all the gear and no idea’ definitely applies to me. What made it worse was that the neighbour who backs onto our garden has made a whole Japanese design inspired pergola from scraps of wood in the same time. Complete with a decorative hand-carved finial. I looked on with some envy at the way he constructed it and used his power tools and screws in a way that I can only dream of. I will report how long it took to put my final shelf up in the next blog.

Stay safe and let’s see what week 6 brings.

So Whats the Story?….We did it!

During the weekend that Eliud Kipchoge ran a marathon in under two hours, I managed to slowly jog 10k around Tatton Park in 1 hour 12 minutes and 23 seconds. Eliud could have done it in 28 minutes 32 seconds!

The real story, however, is not my running but that together we raised a lot of money for four charities. I decided to include Parkrun Forever, the charity which, along with corporate sponsors, allows Parkrun to be free for everyone to take part in.

The total sponsorship for the charities are:

Cheshire South Methodist Circuit
£1,230.00

HIP in Cheshire
£2,860.50

UHNM Charity (Royal Stoke Hospital)
£1,312.50

Parkrun Forever
£145.00

That’s a total of £5,548

Thanks to more than 65 of my family, friends, church fellowship and HIP members who donated. Your generosity is overwhelming!

I know the charities will be grateful for the funds and it will allow them to support the people they work with, or who are helped by what they do.

The on-line donation pages have now been closed and the funds passed to the charities.

Every blessing

Ian Skaife
November 2019

So Whats the Story?….. The Long Story

This is the longer story of the reason I am doing a sponsored 10k for three charities that you can read about in my last post So Whats the Story…? A 3-2-1 offer on a sponsored 10k.

During the Olympic summer of 2012 I was training for my first short triathlon, having been a ‘slow plodder’ for about 30 years of doing 10K’s and around 15 Half Marathons including five Great North Runs. I was never competitive and my motto was ‘when the going gets tough…..it’s time to slow down or even walk if needed’.

I woke up one Wednesday morning with a splitting headache and some numbness in my right foot. Putting it down to ‘man flu’ and an old back injury I worked that day but took the next one off. On Friday I woke up and could barely move my right side and the headache was excruciating. By the time we got to A&E I could barely stand unaided. A stroke was diagnosed, and I was put in a ward and pumped full of aspirin. On Sunday after a CT scan I was told that it could be a cancerous brain tumour and I was being sent to a specialist hospital 18 miles away. They confirmed that it wasn’t a tumour but a large amount of infection. They were not able to operate, as I had so much aspirin in my blood there was a danger that I would suffer a bleed in the brain. By Thursday my condition deteriorated, and they did an emergency biopsy. This didn’t go well and early the next morning I went for a second operation to drain the infection. Alyson was told that I might not make it, and when our two sons arrived from their homes in the south, they had what we now refer to as ‘the organ donation conversation’.

Memories of the next 24 hours are sketchy but when I arrived back on the ward from intensive care, I still couldn’t move my right side and although I understood what people were saying I couldn’t answer at all. The only words I managed were a tentative ‘yes’ (when I meant no) and no (meaning yes). Later I managed to speak a little but then it was mainly swear words which, as people who know me will confirm, I rarely use.

So began treatment involving two antibiotics intravenously five times a day every day. I was also put on anti-epileptic medication to prevent fitting, and antidepressants for my low mood. The days were endless, the restless nights even longer. I was struggling with tiredness and extreme confusion. Coming to a dead stop after my life as a busy IT Project Manager was hard. I wanted to be back at work but had to learn that in the brain business, days turn to weeks and weeks to months.

I tried to read newspapers and magazines but by the end of a paragraph I had forgotten what the headline was about. I had asked for my Bible to be brought in and that was even harder to read. I couldn’t even remember The Lord’s Prayer. My Bible was still a source of some comfort, although starting on Psalms was probably not my best idea. I do have a vivid memory of Carmen, a Columbian nurse singing quietly a hymn while she gently washed my back. I shared stories with other overseas nurses who, on seeing my Bible, talked about life ‘back home’ and what their faith meant to them.

I started intense physio and speech therapy. Being left-handed was a bonus as at least I could do some basic tasks. It took three people to get me out of bed using a hoist and either onto the toilet or eventually to prop me up in a chair. What I couldn’t do was muster the words to ask to be put back, so often sat there frustrated for hours as people came in and out of my room.

Alyson visited me twice a day every day for the next 12 weeks. I owe her a debt that will never be paid. Church friends and close family helped relate my story each day to our wider circle. My brother and cousins drove mum and dad from their home 3 hours away. I barred any visitors other than close family at first, as I looked awful and couldn’t concentrate enough. When I relented our friends were faced with Ian who didn’t have any personality. The lights were on, but no-one was at home.

Then started daily visits from close friends, our sons, Alyson’s sister and brother, cousins. I couldn’t remember who had been from one day to the next – but I know that they all made me feel better – even if it didn’t always show on my face. Chocolates, grapes, biscuits and particularly ready-made custard were very welcome!

Work colleagues from the IT & Business Consultancy business I worked in visited and I was grateful for their support covering the projects I was supposed to be managing. Alyson’s employers Co-op Pharmacy were very understanding and allowed her all the time off with compassionate leave. The stress and worry meant that she was unable to work in any useful way.

Eight weeks in I needed a third operation as infection was still collecting in my brain. I had ‘drains’ fitted linked to bags on my shoulder – I looked like ‘Dracula’s Bride’ for a week or so.

This is a scan of my brain just before the operation on the left, and what a ‘normal’ brain looks like on the right – you don’t need to be medically trained to see the pools of infection and damage….

Scan 3rd September 2012

Scan of healthy brain

The result was a small improvement in all my symptoms; I managed to move a toe then bend my ankle. I managed some ‘freedom’ with a wheelchair that I could push myself around the ward and, if Alyson came with me, to the café or even outside. Friends and family began to see some big changes in both my alertness and mobility.

Steve Ingrouille, the minister at my local Methodist church, came to visit and we had the strangest communion I have ever received sitting in a corner of the public restaurant. Steve did the complete service with the bread and wine used at my church the previous Sunday.
Alyson also had great support from church friends who rallied around to help and I believe that the prayers they gave aided my recovery. Val Mayers and our neighbours Stuart & Veronica Rhodes need a special mention. I continue to gain strength from my church fellowship and my faith.

My mood slowly improved and when mum visited me one Saturday as she left we hugged and she said ‘Love you son, keep getting better and see you soon’. These were the last words she said to me as the next day she had a heart attack and was put into a coma on a life support system for a week. One Friday as I was taking my first steps unaided by physios I had a missed call on my mobile. It was my brother telling me that mum had died…she never got to see me walk again.

I was allowed out of hospital for one day to travel to her funeral 150 miles away and managed to stand using a frame to give part of her eulogy.

I had my laptop back by then to write and plan my ‘escape’ from the rehab hospital until my condition improved enough for Alyson to take me home in a wheelchair. The skilled consultants, surgeons, nursing team and physios had ‘fixed me’ – physically at least.

18 months of hard work started, to recover from my ongoing symptoms, regain my driving licence, and build my strength enough to stand on my own with a stick, and climb stairs. I did some part-time work in the IT Consultancy Business, helping the owners to sell the part of the business I was in. I knew about this before my illness but it meant me being made redundant. I then managed to get a little paid work with my church on finance and property.

Alyson went back to work as a pharmacy manager in a very busy community pharmacy attached to a surgery. This is an extremely demanding role with a team of around 20 to manage and unrealistic targets set. At least I was able to support her in this, being at home to look after practical things around the house, waiting for trades people, doing some of the household chores that until then had fallen mainly on Alyson. I was happy with a lower pace of life than before, and could rest when needed.

I had the hip replacement that I needed before going into hospital, and it was through this that I met Annette Turner, a brilliant physio specialising in hydrotherapy. When my consultant had signed me off in February 2013 he said it would be two years before we would know the lasting damage and implied this would be substantial. Annette convinced me that, whilst that was true, she could get me to the point where it might be that the only thing I couldn’t do was to move my little toe. That has proved to be the case.

In January 2014 I was encouraged by Beth Fisher, Service Manager from the Acquired Brain Injury service in Chester, to attend a support group who met for coffee. This is an amazing organisation who provide help for people with a brain injury to reduce the loneliness that can come from hidden symptoms, loss of confidence in social situations, along with memory issues and extreme fatigue. During the last few years this group has formed into a formal charity. I am now a trustee of Head Injured People in Cheshire.

Steve Price, an accountant who had been one of my project managers, had left to concentrate on his own business. In August 2014 he offered me the opportunity to work with him a few days a month to get out of his front room into an office, taking on some people to help him. I am eternally grateful to Steve and the team for the opportunity to work with them putting new systems, marketing material, social media, lots of new business processes in place as we grew. I became Compliance & Training Manager. (In April 2019 Steve and the rest of the team merged with another practice and he is now one of 5 directors in a company with 23 employees and a growing list of clients. I took the opportunity to retire).

I had another 18 months of physio and got to walk correctly and slowly, then six months later I decided to try running a few steps. I did a short route around our home in streets that I had used for training. It took me about 30 minutes to do a couple of miles with intense concentration on my foot placement and staying upright. I had to sleep for an hour afterwards. Fatigue is a lasting symptom of brain injury and several afternoons a week I sleep for 40 minutes, and each time I run I must sleep for around 50% longer than the time I take.

I don’t remember how I heard about Parkrun but in April 2016 I arrived at Delamere with my barcode and did the whole 5k without stopping. It was very emotional, and my account can be found at https://skatchat.wordpress.com/2016/04/.

Alyson used to come with me and walk the course before we started and meet me at the end but then two weeks before her 59^th birthday she announced that she fancied running it. As someone who has asthma and have never run before I was amazed. She did her first run in 37 minutes, beat my PB the next week and after 5 more successive PBs she now runs around 30 minutes. She even fell over once and after dusting herself off for a short while still beat me by four minutes.

So the 100th Parkrun completed yesterday was an emotional one too, coming as it did on the 7th anniversary of mum’s death. Alyson did her 24th and our son Michael volunteered. My brother Andrew did his 100th at Newcastle on the same day along with his son Thomas.

As we lost dad in 2016 and have received some money from their estate, it seemed a good time to celebrate my recovery and use their legacy to raise funds for the three charities that have helped me. So next weekend I will take on 10k at Tatton Park.

So Whats the Story?…..where I am now.

Reflecting on the past seven years, I genuinely feel that I am in a better place than before my brain injury. Sure, it has been a tough time and I wouldn’t want to inflict the stress and worry on my family that was some of our experience. Overall the positives are;

I am in a less stressful state than I was before – many people when they heard it may have been a stroke worried that it was due to pressure of work and church business that had caused it. I often say that my memory problems mean that I can’t remember what I am supposed to stress about
I feel that my faith has been strengthened, as it says in Psalm 40

I patiently waited, Lord, for you to hear my prayer. You listened and pulled me from a lonely pit full of mud and mire. You let me stand on a rock with my feet firm, and you gave me a new song a song of praise to you

and when I hear the story in Luke’s gospel of the paralysed man whose friends prayed for him and took him to Jesus – I can really relate to that.

But I want you to know that the Son of Man has authority on earth to forgive sins.” So he said to the paralyzed man, “I tell you, get up, take your mat and go home.” Immediately he stood up in front of them, took what he had been lying on and went home praising God.Everyone was amazed and gave praise to God. They were filled with awe and said, “We have seen remarkable things today.”

There is no substitute for confronting your own mortality and asking the real
questions of what your life is about…

I have been able to spend more time working for my local church on finance and property issues, to support the Leadership Team looking at new ways of working, recruiting some amazing lay workers to support our ministers and churches.
I have had more time to give to Alyson and our family. Supporting them through difficult times at work and being there to help with looking after her parents and supporting her when they died these past two years. Our two sons are in well-paid roles and have been able to buy their own homes. They too have benefited from their grandparents’ legacies, and by that I don’t just mean the financial ones.
We are fortunate to have built up enough savings to be comfortable in our retirement. I had several good jobs in companies with strong ethics and who made a difference to their employees and the patients/customers they served. I have been able to help a friend build his business to repay his faith in me.
I work with some amazing people in the head injury charity and have met some truly inspirational survivors, who live in much more challenging after effects than mine. Head injury doesn’t discriminate on the basis of age, wealth, personal background, education or experience. I am fortunate that the relationships with family and close friends have survived – that is not always the case.

So as I look forward to enjoying some travel and a forthcoming pilgrimage to the Holy Land, I wonder what the future holds, and the next challenge we will face. I hope that I am up to the task but know that I will have a lot of support.

Thank you for reading my story.

Ian Skaife, October 2019

So Whats the Story…? A 3-2-1 offer on a sponsored 10k.

The Short Story...

For those of you who have found this page for details on my upcoming 10k sponsored run, these are the basic details with links to the pages where you can donate.

I am running the Tatton Park 10k on Sunday 13th October 2019. I have decided to do this as it is near the seventh anniversary of my mum’s sudden death in 2012. I was in hospital struggling to walk or communicate after 12 of weeks of treatment for a brain injury. I stood and took my first small steps unaided at exactly the time of a missed call on my phone from my brother telling me that, after withdrawal of life support, my mum had died. She never saw me walk again..

It has been a long journey since that time and you can read more details in the ‘Long Story’ which I will post before the event.

I am running for three charities that have helped me and others.

Cheshire South Methodist Circuit – The key unit of mission for my local church.
For more details, and to donate go to my Just Giving crowdfunding page at
Just Giving Crowdfunding – Ian Skaife

HIP in Cheshire – The charity of which I am a member trustee and which helps people like me with friendship, support and saves us from social isolation. For more details go to
HIP – CAF Donate – Ian Skaife

Royal Stoke Hospital – (UHNM Charity) – This was the hospital that fixed me physically. They need some new equipment for the Neuroscience ward that I was on. For more details go to UHNM Virgin Money Giving – Ian Skaife

That’s the ‘3’ from the title of this page, but there is a special offer which is the ‘2’. I have been fortunate to receive a legacy from my mum and dad’s estate and want to use that to Double Your Sponsorship (before Gift Aid). To be very clear if you give £10 I will add £20 so that it becomes £30 total. If you donate £50 I will add £100 to make it £150. Go on, challenge me…..!

The ‘1’ is me taking part in the event. In so many ways I will not be on my own as I have the support of my faith, my close family and so many friends from the charities and people who have worked with me.

My target is to raise £1,000 for each charity, but my hope is that together we can do so much more and touch the lives of a lot of people.

Thanks for reading this and if you feel that you can’t give, that’s absolutely ok. Just think of me, and the charities on the day.

Category: Charity

Coronavirus week 39 – Advent hope or Christmas cancelled?

Life & Death – Coronavirus week 8 – assessing risks, dividing the country

Tell us what we are supposed to be doing, don’t ask us to use common sense….

Other news this week

Thoughts at the end of week 8.

Life & Death – Coronavirus week 6 – light at the end of the tunnel.

Two narratives, but which do you believe?

The ‘accepted/acceptable’ view…

The ‘alternative/critical view’…

Thoughts at the end of week 6.

Life & Death – Coronavirus week 5 – what’s the next step?

An uncertain timescale, and new ways of working.

Another crisis in the nations’ health being stored for the future?

Other news this week.

Thoughts at the end of week 5.

So Whats the Story?….We did it!

Cheshire South Methodist Circuit
£1,230.00

HIP in Cheshire
£2,860.50

UHNM Charity (Royal Stoke Hospital)
£1,312.50

Parkrun Forever
£145.00

That’s a total of £5,548

The on-line donation pages have now been closed and the funds passed to the charities.

So Whats the Story?….. The Long Story

So Whats the Story?…..where I am now.

So Whats the Story…? A 3-2-1 offer on a sponsored 10k.

The Short Story...

Coming Soon – The Long Story….

Did we go too soon?

Other news this week

How was week 15 for us?

Tell us what we are supposed to be doing, don’t ask us to use common sense….

Other news this week

Thoughts at the end of week 8.

Two narratives, but which do you believe?

The ‘accepted/acceptable’ view…

The ‘alternative/critical view’…

Thoughts at the end of week 6.

An uncertain timescale, and new ways of working.

Another crisis in the nations’ health being stored for the future?

Other news this week.

Thoughts at the end of week 5.

Cheshire South Methodist Circuit £1,230.00

HIP in Cheshire £2,860.50

UHNM Charity (Royal Stoke Hospital) £1,312.50

Parkrun Forever £145.00

That’s a total of £5,548

The on-line donation pages have now been closed and the funds passed to the charities.

So Whats the Story?…..where I am now.

The Short Story...

Coming Soon – The Long Story….

Cheshire South Methodist Circuit
£1,230.00

HIP in Cheshire
£2,860.50

UHNM Charity (Royal Stoke Hospital)
£1,312.50

Parkrun Forever
£145.00