Susan Hill Susan Hill

The lost world of lockdown

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It started when, the day after the announcement of some lockdown easing, I drove five miles along the coast road. For seven weeks there had been barely another car, and now it was like a normal pre-pandemic morning. Our little town was no longer deserted, and there were queues for newsagent and bank. Many holiday and second homes are apparently occupied, though no one is actually allowed to be here of course. Nevertheless, agencies are merrily advertising: ‘Come and lock down in beautiful, safe North Norfolk.’ The paths to the beaches are open again, and if the wind had not swung round to blow a vicious north-easterly they would have been crowded.

The TV news has shown packed commuter tubes and trains going into London, but it was when the Transport Secretary urged people to eschew public transport in favour of cars that a wave of misery washed over me as I realised that it’s all over. Yes, there are still things we cannot do, and I know the nation must return to work and we can’t live in a bubble for ever. But soon the clear air will be fume-filled again and the wonderful birdsong drowned out. The buzz of rush, grab a coffee, shove one’s way on to the train will return, and that strange air of timelessness and calm will be gone. As our childhood compositions so often ended: ‘I woke up and it was all a dream.’

What about the lessons we should have learned? Our appreciation of the slow life, silence, home and the easing of pressure? I feel very pessimistic and no longer believe that lockdown will have changed anything — but then, how many events actually do that anyway? The two world wars did, of course, and the assassination of President Kennedy definitely changed America, but the only one I can think of that changed the world, probably for ever, was 9/11.

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