Remembering Lockdown Six Years On

It’s that time of year again. A time when memories return to that eerie sequence of events that led to lockdowns.

Many people dislike talking about it because, while they conformed at the time, they feel troubled in retrospect. But as the years pass, some of us, like the Ancient Mariner, feel a compulsion to tell people what we went through.

For me the announcement of a lockdown was personal. 

I had organised a writers’ conference in a Cambridge college, which meant that I stood to lose thousands of pounds. As a self-employed person with a young family, how was I going deal with that?

It’s very hard for people to empathise with human experience that differs widely from their own. My early life was dominated by family upheaval caused by my mother joining the Christian Scientists in the early 1970s. The Christian Scientists, for those who don’t know, eschew all medical interventions. They claim that the answer to all ailments is prayer and Bible meditation.

My father feared she’d joined a cult. In fact almost everyone thinks they’re a cult. Though I doubt many could tell the difference between a Christian Scientist and a Scientologist. Our family life has been one long argument about the validity of Mary Baker Eddy’s claims. But like all religions, you can vehemently oppose them, but they still shape your thinking.

Between 2011 and 2018, I organised an annual event focused on death and dying, with a comical edge. We called it the Ideal Death Show. I read widely on the subject. I’d watched every episode of the HBO series, Six Feet Under, twice.

My attempts to sell the Ideal Death Show to the Anglican Church or the local NHS revealed to me the middle classes are highly irrational when it comes to dealing with mortality. Bureaucrats were especially dumb. When, as part of the festival, I politely asked Bournemouth Bereavement Services if we could have a picnic tea in the local cemetery, it said no. And then it went to some lengths to ban us from doing so. 

One of the most peculiar aspects of modern life is that we regard death as disgusting. Whenever I hear someone is ‘fighting’ cancer, I’m filled with dismay. It’s our daily task to come to terms with the prosaic truth that our bodies are perishable. ‘Thy will, not my will be done’ seems to me a far more sane and realistic response to mortal danger.

The Greek philosopher Epictetus pointed out that most people can’t make up their mind whether to live or die. In the era of virtual reality and technological comfort it becomes ever easier to opt out of ‘being’. Government stole from us huge amounts of precious living time during lockdowns. There was no revolution.

By the beginning of March 2020, all the speakers for my conference in Cambridge had dropped out and I realised something unthinkable was going to happen. 

The statistics were not particularly alarming. Yet irresponsible journalists were broadcasting from outside intensive care units. Were they not already aware that death is often drawn-out and unpleasant? 

As lockdown was announced, I made a visit to my local Sainsbury’s. It had been ransacked. That shook me up. I knew a bit about government. They’re all blind in the bunker. I was particularly concerned for my friend working in Downing Street. What was the Army going to do? They would share my pragmatic approach to death. 

I fully expected them to shut down the BBC and roll a tank down Whitehall. A veteran of the Afghan war would go on TV to say some comforting words about courage and sacrifice and then tell everyone to go back to work. I called my friend in Downing Street and, to my surprise, he seemed unconcerned by this scenario.

Christian Science is a religion on the verge of extinction these days, but its founder had some refreshingly Nietzschean things to say about the psychology of disease. For example, Mary Baker Eddy said if they coin a new name for an ailment, everybody will want to get it, like the Paris fashions. 

It’s hard for people who believe in modern medicine to countenance that, but those of us with children are aware that ‘acting out’ illness is common. Does it continue into adulthood? Is it entirely unfair to say Covid was a great way to ‘act out’ anger about Brexit, the defeat of Jeremy Corbyn or the antics of Donald Trump?

Most of us quickly sensed there were not going to be bodies in the street. I kept having problems with the narrative. I knew personally one of the distraught women who regularly appeared on the BBC to berate the Government after the death of a partner from Covid. Did they do due diligence on her claims? 

In June 2020 we had the infamous invasion of Bournemouth beach. Half-a-million people defied the restrictions. Tobias Ellwood MP had his finest hour. The reason for the invasion? Social media circulated the news that the barriers were not being enforced at Waterloo. Hence thousands were tempted by a fabulous freebie in the sunshine. The carriages were rammed. Presumably they intuitively felt a free trip to the seaside outweighed the risks. Were they wrong?

I know my dentist well. He stripped the whole surgery of magazines, fixtures and fittings, introduced sanitiser and locked all the doors. I ranted at him. He pointed out that seven dental professional bodies had mandated the regulations. Even though there was no reports of people catching Covid at the dentists.

I was sad that journalists who I had previously admired did not go on the demonstrations in a professional capacity. Newspapers like the Guardian and the FT wrote that they were made up of far Right activists and conspiracy theorists. I went on a march in Bournemouth. They were the same kind of gentle, earnest people who went on CND marches in the 1980s. 

At the beginning of the 20th century Christian Science was popular in British aristocratic circles. Nancy Astor, the first female Conservative MP, for example, and Anthony Fisher, the founder of the Institute of Economic Affairs. 

A political party must be able to draw on collective wisdom. Politicians did make pandemic exemptions for 12-step meetings probably because there must be dozens of recovering alcoholics and addicts in the Palace of Westminster. Sects like the Christian Scientists and the Ultra-Orthodox Jews have some crazy ideas in the judgement of ‘normal’ people. That’s why the direction of public opinion, led by the politicians, was so terrifying at the time. 

To deal with the contempt of the medical profession, Christian Scientists need to know the law. If you were familiar with medical ethics before the pandemic, you could only marvel at what public health officials were saying and doing. Medicine is not really a science, it’s an art. Treatment is not scientific, it’s trial and error. Doctors are often as uncomfortable as their patients about death. They see it as failure. My death festival underlined the importance of spiritual preparation for the only thing that’s certain. Otherwise, when the painful truth emerges, the response can be terror and hysteria.

The language of that time was absurd. Nobody ever ‘saves’ a life, they just postpone a death. Life is not a consumer product that comes with guarantees. Do you want to live so long that you might experience the death of your children? One of my uncles was a surgeon. He told the relatives of a Jehovah’s Witness that she would certainly die without a blood transfusion. It caused turmoil when she refused. It turns out she didn’t have the transfusion and she didn’t die.

When the local Anglican church reopened, I went back. I wanted to give my children a Sunday School experience. We had a vicar who had been an NHS surgeon before being ordained. He led prayers for the vaccines to be made available in developing countries. I was not impressed. When they cancelled the Christmas services in 2021 and the Archbishop of Canterbury announced that Jesus would have taken the vaccine, I terminated my direct debit and took my children out of Sunday School.

I saw my Downing Street friend in early December 2021. I spent the whole evening yelling at him. They were preparing to lock us down again for Omnicron. But it didn’t happen. 

I have a cynical theory about what finally stopped it. It was a 34.2% swing against the Conservative Party in the Owen Patterson by-election. As my Downing Street friend later explained to me, lockdowns (with furlough) had been the most popular government policy since the advent of democracy.

The deep wounds of that time are still raw. The state corrupted our most intimate relationships: a wife bullied into having the vaccine by her husband, children by their parents, employees by their employers. 

Very little is now said about the cruelty of the health bureaucrats who denied families dignified interactions and the university chancellors who put their students through misery. The Anglican leadership betrayed its worshippers by endorsing the fear rather than drawing on the faith.

We paused the mortgage, we took benefits, there were gifts and a legacy: somehow we survived the lockdowns without going into debt and I was able to put on my conference in March 2022 and resume my business.

Before lockdown, I was a member of a weekly support group which had taken years to build up. It went online and then dissolved. I was a member of a co-working space – I did not return. I left my tennis club and never returned. We all know a few Covid troglodytes, people who went underground during the lockdowns and who have not really re-emerged since. Because the government took on power without restraint, the social damage has been incalculable.

I joined the Baptist church after lockdowns. They’re not like the goody-goody Anglicans. I gravitate to a group of them who are pro-Trump and anti-vax. And I feel happy. One of them recently led prayers that the Anglicans would return to the Christian faith, which made me laugh.

Brian Jenner is the organiser of the Carnival of Alternative Politics which takes place in Bournemouth on Saturday February 14th.