excerpt from a letter to Canada..
.. just sent to a Cousin (safe in the mountains of British Columbia) asking what it's like here in London..... Just me musin' in case anyone's vaguely interested...Hi there Sheila....Like most people across Europe, we’re in virtual lockdown. Shop shelves empty courtesy of hoarders. Streets slowly emptying except for massive queues at supermarkets. Far less tube trains and buses running. Lots of folk wearing masks. Weird. It’s like waking to another world, one we’ve never known before. Maybe it was a bit like this in 1914 and 1939. But instead of listening out for distant guns or the drone of aeroplanes raining bombs on our city, we can’t see this enemy. Where’s it hiding? Whose shoulder is it on? Is it at the front door? Is it already in the house? In some corner somewhere? Lurking? Waiting to pounce in the middle of the night?All we can do is stay away. Stay put at home. Wash our hands again and again. Don’t touch your own face. No handshaking. No hugs. Keep two metres away from all human contact. Maybe those thousands of our ancestors who huddled up all night on underground platforms in fear of the Luftwaffe had it better than us. Maybe they didn’t. Who knows. I don’t think any of us do yet awhile.Maybe we’ll all get used to this new way of living? Maybe in a few weeks it’ll all seem normal. Maybe we’ll all soon embrace this odd new world with the kind of stoicism humans have displayed down the ages. Who knows. We might all end up playing monopoly by candlelight. Digging up our gardens and growing our own vegetables. Listening to Vera Lynn on the wireless. Waiting for another Prime Minister to comfort us and tell us this could yet become our finest hour.Meanwhile all we can do is wait. And hope....
Stuart Kerr ● 2421d1 Comments