The intense pleasures of lockdown

I used to live in Mogadishu for months at a time, cooped up in compounds behind fortified walls. Venturing on to the streets meant a flak jacket, escort vehicle bristling with guns, chain-smoking as we zoomed through smashed districts, militias, ambushes and roadside bombs. Despite the incarceration, Somalia gave me some of my happiest memories. At home on the ranch in Kenya we often make a point of staying away from town for as long as possible. Our record is three months of no shops, offices, crowds or traffic — just cattle, pasture, birdsong and the rarest of visitors dropping by for a beer. And as a child in north Devon during the winter of 1978, I recall the local constable escorting me across fields in a blizzard to my mother’s arms. We were cut off from the outside world, surrounded by deep snow and eerie silence for a fortnight until a bulldozer cleared the lanes to the village of Iddesleigh.

As time went on during lockdown in London, the Hartley family got over being castaways and forgot about being homesick for Africa. As the weeks progressed we began to feel privileged to be in the city during such a historic time. Always before I have seen the world at ground level, avoiding oncoming pedestrians. But pacing empty streets, we began to look up and see the rooftops. On our runs, we became familiar with silent statues, churches and squares. People greeted each other in the street and I made friends with characters I often bumped into randomly, without knowing anything about them at all.

As spring turned to summer, cycling around London became a truly lovely experience, so that it will be hard ever again to get into a train or taxi in the sunshine.