Songs of Scotland: acquired 2020

I am a reader; I love reading, all sorts of things, novels, classical literature, detective novels, biographies, dictionaries, tourist guides, walking books, occasionally newspapers……. I have owned thousands of books but over the last seven years have reduced the number to about two hundred.  These are mainly collections of ‘proper’ novels that I have been given, for my 21st birthday, as a leaving gift back in 1979, belonging to my mother or belonging to other members of the family.  Do I still read?  Yes, more than ever.  How do I read now?  On a Kindle!  I know lots of people regard this as not ‘proper reading’.  For me, it means I can take thousands of books on holiday, rather than lugging enormous paperbacks across the world.  I have a cover on my Kindle which makes it feel like reading an ordinary book.  I never thought I’d say this, but I love my Kindle.

Back in February 2020, I was visiting Aberdeen, to see my friend Jean, and was able to go to the ‘Granite Noir’ festival, all about murder, mystery and suspense.  I was able to see Sara Paretsky talking with Denise Mina about her novels (and politics), see ‘Dial M for Murder’ at His Majesty’s Theatre and watch ‘Locked Door: Murder at the Movies’ at the Belmont Filmhouse.  Stuart MacBride, my favourite author, who writes about Aberdeen and the north-east Scotland, is the Granite Noir Festival Ambassador.  He said “It’s great to see a Book Festival like this thriving and flourishing in Aberdeen”.  And it was great fun.

However, the whole purpose of this Blog, with an extremely loose link with with this tea towel is that I was lying in bed, reading a Stuart MacBride book when I sat up sharply.  There were two, yes two, references to tea towels.  I jumped out of bed to get a notebook, because I’d never remember the quotes when I woke up in the morning.  What better line could there be than “the sniffy crying stopped like someone had thrown a tea towel over a budgie”.  Stuart MacBride uses such a humble piece of kitchen equipment for a key role in the story “Sally slips the homemade gag from her pocket – it’s only a tea towel with a knot tied in the middle but perfectly serviceable”.   I love that line which creates such an atmosphere.  As I was jotting these lines, I knew they would have to be in a Tea Towel Blog but also knew I’d be struggling to find a tea towel because I’d written about all my Aberdeen tea towels.  Occasionally, Logan McRae (Central character) has sung a song; that will be the link.

Thank you Stuart MacBride for such great stories and for the splendid Granite Noir Festival.  I’ll be back next year.

Florence Nightingale Museum: 2020

If someone is reading this Blog, years in the future, they may well wonder what sort of events were happening on, or around, 25 May 2020.  What did ‘Clapping for the NHS’, on a Thursday, mean?  Why were there ‘Rainbows’ posted in the windows of a lot of houses?  And teddy bears, alongside the rainbows?  What did ‘Keep Safe’, ‘Stay Alert’, ‘Protect the NHS’ all mean?  What did ‘Furloughing’ mean?  ‘Lockdown’ became the new buzz word for the vocabulary.  Life changed.  For months we had to stay at home, not meet with friends and family; we had our groceries delivered.  Technology came into it’s own.  It wasn’t just about being able to send emails and texts; everyone wanted to ‘Zoom’ or ‘Skype’ or ‘Facetime’.  ‘Homeschooling’ wasn’t a choice parents made, who didn’t like the education system, but something that had to happen because the schools closed.  In fact, everything closed.  We couldn’t watch Eastenders and Coronation Street because they weren’t filming it; we couldn’t move house because the Estate Agents weren’t open.  We were all proud of our hair, growing long and straggly, grey hairs and roots showing because hairdressers were ‘dangerous’ places.  And the Phrase of the Day was ‘Social Distancing’: you needed to be at least 2 metres apart, definitely no hugging.  And today, we have no idea how long some of this will last.  When will we be able to go on holiday, fly to a foreign country, without having to go into quarantine?  When will we be able to sit right next to someone in a restaurant or allow more than two people in the local chemist?

I wonder if the term ‘R Factor’ will still have the sense of terror that it has had for the last couple of months?  ‘Clap for the NHS’, followed by ‘Clap for the Keyworkers’ and finally ‘Clap for our Carers’ was one of the rituals of the COVID-19 pandemic in Britain.  It was the idea of Annemarie Plas who started this, as an idea on Instagram.  People first came outside their front doors at 8pm on Thursday 26 March 2020, clapping their hands, banging saucepans, even setting off fireworks.  ‘Clap for our Carers’ now has its own Wikipedia page.  The last day will be 28 May 2020, as the number of people in hospital decreases, as the number of people dying decreases, as shops and schools gradually start to re-open in a very measured way.  But this simple act of clapping allowed us all to stand alongside our neighbours, in a social distancing sort of way, at a dreadful time.  Some medical staff have more recently said that ‘Clapping for NHS’ actually makes us forget that the NHS was in danger of not being able to cope with the pandemic because the Tory Governments, over the years, have regularly reduced funding for the NHS.

History will tell a tale of the pandemic but what we all know is that many people died, dreadful deaths, away from their families; that new hospitals were built in a very short time and throughout it all the doctors and nurses were there.  Some died, but they all worked very hard.  We need to remember that, and be prepared for any further pandemics.  Ten weeks of a minutes clapping is not enough.  We have to remember this period of history.

Any reader of this Blog knows that I love a tea towel and I would never say that I had a favourite.  But today I would say that, if you have clapped for the NHS, then you should have this tea towel.  Personally, I think it is an essential household item.  It is useful because you can wipe your dishes but it will also be the reminder of the time we all came together, stuck to incredibly strict regulations, and thought that this was better than hundreds of thousands of people dying.  At the moment, we have to remember that more than 36,000 people have already died from COVID-19; there could have been many more.

I wonder, if in the history books, the name of Dominic Cummings will come up and what the story will tell.  Will he be known as the man that ‘broke the rules’? Or will he just be another arrogant, well-paid white man whose story just disappears and he continues in his well-paid job?  Maybe he will be known as the Man Who Made Everyone Angry or the Man Who Made Boris Johnson Look Really Stupid.

Back to the tea towel (sorry I am so angry that a rant was necessary).  I received this one through the post, from my cousin Amanda who said in her message “I wanted one that signifies the good of Lockdown, for a blog for you”.   And how it does.  It comes from the Florence Nightingale Museum, celebrating the 200th Anniversary of her birth in 1820 and depicts nurses throughout the ages and if we want to ‘Clap for the NHS’, in recognition of their work throughout the pandemic, and during those ordinary days of the past, this is the tea towel to do it with.  Go and buy one!

http://www.florence-nightingale.co.uk

A Hum of Bumble Bees: 2020

I won a tea towel!!  I occasionally win some minor prize on the Premium Bonds but rarely a ‘thing’.  I was very excited, especially when it slipped through the letter box, in the unmistakeable package that tea towels arrive in, and after I had wiped the plastic envelope with anti-bacterial stuff.  In the excitement, I texted a number of people to tell them my good news.  I have to say I was surprised by the variety of responses.

Liz said  “What was the quiz about?  You don’t normally enter quizzes”

“It was about tea towels”

“You entered a quiz about tea towels?”  Liz asked in a querulous way.

“Yep.  I like tea towels”

“I know that.  I’ve seen the cupboard, and the hangers that arrived yesterday.  But, what on earth was the quiz about?”

“I told you, tea towels”

“But what about tea towels?”

“It’s complicated to explain but it was about the missing tea towels from a Tea Towel Designer’s website”

“But you’re useless on websites” Liz pursued.

“Yeah, but I know Perkins and Morley tea towels so it made it easier”

“You didn’t say it was Perkins and Morley.  You must have most of theirs”

“That’s where you’re wrong.  They have 30 on sale, only 28 on the website and I only have three anyway”

“No, no, no, no, no, that’s 27 to go.  No, no, no”, Liz wails, in a mournful voice.

“No, it’s only 26, because I’ve just won one”  I said smuggly.

Another groan.

When I told Lynne, she said “You don’t need any more tea towels, why did you enter?”

“Because the prize was a tea towel, of course.  Drrrrrrrrrr”

Angela said “If it was about tea towels, if anyone was going to win, it would have been you but why did you enter?”

Are they not getting this?  “Because the prize was a tea towel.  Drrrrrrrrr”

Anne, the reflexologist I go to (if I wasn’t in Lockdown) was much more positive “Brilliant” she said so I sent her a picture.   She thought it was lovely.

Even Jai, the future inheritor of the collection, and who has no interest in tea towels, said “Oh, yeah, a good one” after I sent her the photo.

And now back to the tea towel.  Having won a tea towel, Jan Morley asked me to choose the tea towel that I wanted.  I told her which ones I had and said she should choose; it would make a better Blog!  And how well she chose.  The note with the envelope said “I decided on the Hum of Bumble Bees in the end as I know how much you love a Venery Noun and it is bright and cheery.  Hope you like it.” and how right she is; both that I love a Venery Noun and that it was the right choice of tea towel for me.  Incidentally, the tea towel was wrapped in a piece of Venery Nouns gift wrapping paper.  If I was a promoter of Perkins and Morley stuff, I would definitely recommend this because (a) it is cute (b) it is made of resilient, quality paper and (c) you can easily peel any cellotape off it and use it again.  And for me, the reusing quality is essential and see the paper at the bottom of the Blog.

So thanks to Perkins and Morley for my lovely tea towel (and devising a competition that I could win because I am usually useless at competitions).

 

Julie, Amanda and Barbara: 2019

When I was sorting through my photographs, scanning and archiving them, I came across this photo.  It is of me (in that delightful checked dress, missing some teeth and a ‘Pudding Basin’ haircut), my cousin Julie (with a fringe that looks as though it had been hacked by a pair of garden shears) in a dress with smocking and a delightful smile and her sister, my cousin, Amanda who was behaving in an appalling manner, completely uncontrollable.  My Grandmother was trying to contain her, unsuccessfully.  We were sitting on the garden lounger in the garden of ‘Marden Ash’.  ‘Marden Ash’ was a huge, mock Tudor house in Ealing with a large garden on all different levels.  The lawn we were sitting on was a Croquet Lawn (not that they ever played croquet).

Looking at the photo, I can actually remember that day.  I used to visit my grandmother every Wednesday afternoon, when her School Uniform shop was closed; I could spend time with my cousins, sometimes staying overnight.  ‘Marden Ash’ was one of those houses that was full of atmosphere with some wooden panelled walls, wide staircase, huge kitchen with a scullery, magnificent dining room.  I particularly remember the dining room because it had (a) a full, 12 place dining service, can’t remember the name of the pattern but I do remember the vegetable serving dishes with their lids (b) the most amazing dining chairs, some with arms and padded backs, surrounded by an ornate frame.  They were difficult for small children to sit on.  The floor was solid wood with a large Persian Rug in the centre.  There was a very long sideboard where most of the china was kept.  The cutlery was silver, ornate and very heavy.  I loved the room. The house was so big that Julie and Amanda with their parents shared the house with my grandparents, in separate ‘quarters’.  ‘Marden Ash’ is no longer there, knocked down to be replaced by some smaller dwellings.  I was always very sad to see it go.

As an only child, it was nice to be able to spend some time, regularly, with other children, particularly my cousins.  When I stayed overnight we all shared the same bedroom, which again was huge.  Julie and Amanda always wanted to stay awake and talk.  Me, I wanted to go to sleep.  I devised a great game, that they liked to take part in which was called ‘Let’s pretend to be asleep’.  They joined in enthusiastically and I was able to go to sleep.  They moaned the following morning about the fact that I had fallen asleep.  Yet the following week they would enthusiastically play the same game.  As an older cousin, I think I was probably very mean to try and convince them that this was a game.  For me, that part of my childhood, and family, was full of happy memories.  Somehow any family feuds, of which there were many, had nothing to do with the three of us; they belonged to a different generation, to a history we were not a part of.

All through the years, when we moved farther and farther apart, we have kept in touch, especially around Christmas.  We have shared Christmas dinners; the most memorable was at Julie’s house when my grandfather was still alive.  He sat at the head of the table and dramatically took his false teeth out, putting them on the napkin and proceeded to eat his meal.  We all sat there, astounded but not saying anything.  On another occasion, he said to me “I know you liked these chairs.  Do you want them?” Referring to Julie’s dining chairs.  It would certainly have been interesting to have gone home, taking ten chairs with me.

2019 was the year that I had this photograph, transferred onto a tea towel.  I had three copies done, one for each of us.  It was to be a Christmas present for Julie and Amanda.  Through various illnesses and ill-health, our annual ‘meeting-up’ didn’t happen and the one planned for 28 December was also postponed because of more ill-health and then came ‘Lockdown’.  So just after Lockdown, I decided to brave the trip to the Post Office to post these.  I thought it might cheer them up.

As I look at the tea towel, and use it, it certainly reminds me of good times and makes me hope that it won’t be too long before we can have our 2019 Christmas ‘meet-up’ and still meet up for 2020.

Horses and Ponies: Acquired 2020 but older

In my Tea Towel Blog of ‘Horses’, dated 17 April 2020, I freely admitted that horses were not my first love in the realm of animals.  From having no tea towels of horses, one day I acquired 11.  They were a gift, along with 88 other tea towels, just as Lockdown began in UK, from a friend of my cousin’s whose mother had been an avid collector of tea towels and had died.  The first couple of weeks of Lockdown were spent ‘playing’ with my new tea towels: admiring them, sorting them and, finally, photographing them.  However, I am now faced with blogging about them.

I’ve ‘done’ seven already, five on my horrendous experience of horse riding and two about the ‘Godfather’.  Then two things happened.  Firstly,  Roberta responded to the Blog and I fell about laughing.  It wasn’t disrespectful laughter but a joy that I wasn’t the only person in the world that had an ‘experience’ with a horse; I had thought I was, always one for a bit of drama! “You sound like me!  In my final semester at the University of Nebraska I took a ‘Horse Course’ (no grade, just pass or fail) to try and overcome my fear of horses.  One day was so stormy and wet, we stayed in the barn grooming the horses, saddling them and cleaning the saddles.  Just as it was time to unsaddle the horses, and leave, my horse, a big stubborn mare named ‘Flirt’ bolted out the open door and ran through the pouring rain to a muddy pool in the yard where she lay down and rolled in it vigorously, soaking the saddle, blanket and all.  ‘Flirt’ seemed to make it her job to humiliate me and she succeeded.  I’ve never ridden since that class!”  What a great story!

Roberta made me sit and think about my relationship with horses; suddenly I remembered my dad.  He died 36 years ago, he wasn’t a gambler but he did always place a bet on the UK Grand National each year.  It was always the same routine: two ‘Each Way’ bets where you win if the horse is placed.  In a race as big as the Grand National, the first four horses will win something.  Then he did one Single Bet.  In 1967 Grand National, he did just that.  The Single Bet was ‘Foinavon’ at 100/1 and one of his Each Way Bets was ‘Red Alligator’ at 30/1.  ‘Foinavon’ won and ‘Red Alligator’ was third.  He never had a win like that again.  I remember all this because with the winnings he bought my mother a very ‘flash’ electric cooker (and he got completely pissed that night).  I don’t know how he chose the horses nor how much he finally won but that cooker cost quite a bit.

I think I’m at the end of my horse stories now, and I still have three tea towels to go!

Western Australia: Acquired 2019 but vintage

I’ve often said that Australia is well known for it’s tea towels, a nation of Tea Towel Lovers.  I’ve never been to Australia but I have loads, from Charity Shops thanks to my friend Lynn, from relatives of my friends and certainly some that I have forgotten where they come from.  This was from Lynn who found a bargain-load of tea towels in a Charity Shop last summer.  No duplicates and all vintage and unused.

I have been working with a few children during ‘Lockdown’, setting them challenges.  Umaynah took up this challenge.  First she had to come up with 15 facts about Western Australia and then she had to use some of them in a Blog about this tea towel.  I think she did brilliantly and I think I could have a Tea Towel Blogger in training!

“When Lockdown started, I was feeling quite bored and upset as I could not meet my friends and family.  So, when my Mum’s former boss, Barbara, asked if I would like to take part in a variety of challenges, I thought it would be a good way to use up some of the free time I have.

Above is a very colourful tea towel of a map of Western Australia.  My second challenge that I was given, was to find 15 facts about Western Australia.  To find the facts, I started by writing down the different headings for each fact.  Once I was done, I searched each heading and found more detail about them.  Some of the facts that I found out, and thought were very interesting, are:

The capital city: the capital city of Western Australia is Perth.  It is known to be one of the most isolated cities in the world.  As you can see on the tea towel, Perth is in the south west part of Australia and it is the only city in Western Australia on its own and not surrounded by towns.  This is why it is known as an isolated city.

Tourist Attractions: Western Australia has a lot of tourist attractions, some of which are Western Australia Museum, Perth Zoo, King Park Botanical Gardens, Swan Bells, Krajini National Park and St Martins Tower. 

Ancestry and Immigration: Western Australia’s population is made up of people whose families are originally from different countries which are England, Australia, Ireland,Scotland, Italy, China, Germany, India Netherlands, Philippines, New Zealand and South Africa.

Before I started doing this challenge I did not know a lot about Western Australia.  I have enjoyed learning about it, although I don’t think I would want to go there.  I have found out that there are many species of venomous spiders in Australia!!”

Thank you Umaynah for your hard work and interesting information about Western Australia.  If you want to do another just let me know!!!

Calorie Guide: Acquired 2019 but older

 

Back in 1971, I started a diet (the only time I’ve been on a diet).  There were no fancy diets in those days, no Cambridge Diet, no Atkins Diets, no specialist foods prepared.  We used the ‘calorie counting’ method.  It was a real bore, having a list of every foodstuff and calculating the calorific value of each meal.  It worked; it provided a balanced diet; you didn’t have to exclude things just be able to add up and we didn’t have calculators in those days.  I used to walk around with a notebook.  What a faff!!  I wish I’d had a tea towel like this one; it would have helped and I reckon it was around at that time.

The diet was successful; I lost a lot of weight (but then I had a lot of weight to lose).  By the end of it, around Summer 1972, I had probably lost too much weight, much to my Aunt Pam’s annoyance, real annoyance.  She was getting married in June 1972; I was asked to be a bridesmaid and she was making the bridesmaid’s dresses.  Between fittings for the dress, I lost even more weight so she had to keep making alterations.  She was not a happy woman.

The whole issue of weight, and diets, is having a big part in our lives during Coronavirus and Lockdown.  My friend Anne wrote a three part story about ‘Life Under Lockdown’ for the Virtual Tea Towel Museum.  Later, she wrote to me “It’s great to hear everyone’s story, but like you said our waistlines are growing and I’m definitely a couch potato compared to normal.  At first it was to see the virus updates but now I want to clear the recorded programmes and films.  Some I question why I recorded them in the first place.  I think its the busiest I get when the food comes to the house, decontaminating it all.  I find it a very responsible job.  I think I go a bit overboard and overthink.  Towards the end I get a bowl of soapy water, cut to the chase and throw them all in and sing ‘Happy Birthday’ twice; after all, that’s what they suggest with our hands.  My cabbage was pretty soapy the other day, I obviously should rinse more”

In response to Anne, @imari1017 said “Loved this post and got a real chuckle out of it.  For me, by the time I make a list, assemble gloves, mask, wipes, keys, purse…. well, I just go out every other week.  We are all chuckling though at the expansion of our waistlines.  I am too much of a couch potato and I love to read the great tales of the time of COVID-19, as we see how much we have in common, no matter where we live”

In the days of Coronavirus, diets take on a whole new meaning and this tea towel with remind me of these days with fondness!!

 

Hannah Highland and Fisher Puffin: 2020

 

Oh, I am such a lucky girl.  This arrived through the post the other day.  I knew it was coming.  I ripped the package open but then I remembered I needed to dispose of the packaging and then wash my hands for 20 seconds with soap, just in case the Postman was a ‘carrier’.  Part of me thinks that he would be feeling poorly if he was carrying COVID-19 and then I think of all the warnings about people being asymptomatic.  It delays my impending excitement.

Finally, I get to open this beautiful and amazing tea towel.  My friend in America, @imari1017, wrote “This is wonderful – so vibrant, colourful and creative” when she saw it in In Conversation With…. Heather McLennan in http://www.virtualteatowelmuseum.com, and she is right.  This tea towel is called ‘Hannah Highland and Puffer Fisher’, inspired by Argyllshire.  I received this during the Seabird World Cup 2020 on Twitter where the Puffin certainly had a lot of fans.  If you want to see what happened with the Seabird World Cup, go to @SteelySeabirder and you will be entertained for hours with the story of the knock-out rounds.

This is a fabulous tea towel, great quality; I always love a Highland Cow, but a Highland Cow and a Puffin is just a delight.  Looking at it, reminds me what I am missing at the moment: Scotland, the Isles, seals, whales, the Gannets, beautiful scenery, hills and mountains, gardens, the sea, Aberdeen, North Berwick, Edinburgh and I could just go on forever.

Thank you Heather for such a great tea towel: see her on Facebook HeatherMcLennanArt

 

Kinder Mass Trespass: 2020

Cor Blimey!  It’s taken ages to write this Blog.  Talk about getting distracted!

I don’t often buy tea towels online.  There is a reality that I could spend many hours, browsing websites, searching for the ‘perfect’ tea towel, a bit like getting caught up on YouTube, following links and forgetting what I had originally embarked upon.  But, when I buy a tea towel, I love to hold it, touch it, compare with other ones, get a feel for the colour and quality.  You can never do that online.  Some makers have such a large selection of designs that one shop will never hold the whole stock and you could miss some excellent ones.  The Radical Tea Towel Company is a good example.

However, I know the quality of their tea towels, they pride themselves on their quality.  I have a number of their suffragette ones, and a few other political ones but the one I didn’t have was the Kinder Mass Trespass 1932.  I’d seen it online, some time ago, and a wealth of memories came flooding back, significant aspects of my past, things I don’t want to forget.  I’d hoped I might find it in a shop, but no.  I must be going to the wrong places.  And last week, I thought I deserved a treat, after all this Lockdown.

I remember learning about, and discussing, the Kinder Mass Trespass when I was at university, many many years ago.  We were researching the background to the National Park movement, about the importance of countryside to the general population, about long distance footpaths and about environmentalism.  Having been born and brought up in Ealing, there might have been quite a lot of parks around but we were a long way from the countryside, from long distance paths.

Depending on your political stance, there are many interpretations of the role of the Kinder Mass Trespass.  I like to think of it as “the working class struggle for the right to roam versus the rights of the wealthy to have exclusive use of moorlands for grouse shooting”.  On 24 April 1932, around 400 ramblers (but as with any political demonstration, the number varies depending which side you are on) committed an act of wilful trespass to mount Kinder Scout, from three different aspects, because walkers in England and Wales were denied access to the open country.  This trespass was organised by Benny Rothman, secretary of the British Worker’s Sports Federation (the young branch of the Young Communist League).  Six protesters were arrested when the gamekeepers engaged them in a fight, the part that is often concealed in the telling of the story.

Arguably, the Kinder Mass Trespass led to the National Parks legislation in 1949 and helped in the establishment of the Pennine Way (and the other long distance footpaths).  The Pennine Way, for me, has a magic about it; it is not the longest footpath in Britain but it has a unique history.  268 miles long (originally planned to be 270 miles) which was proposed by Tom Stephenson in 1935 and finally got all the legislative approval needed in 1965.  It was at this point I got completely distracted.

Firstly, Ewan MacColl, as a 17 year old called Jimmie Miller, wrote the song ‘The Manchester Rambler’ which celebrated this event.  So I go onto YouTube to listen to ‘The Manchester Rambler’; at first I didn’t find Ewan MacColl’s version but came across a number of different versions, from over the years, sung by The Spinners.  I loved the Spinners; I saw them every time they came to Swansea, when I was at university, and then to Nottingham.  This led me to listening to ‘Maggie May’ then, eventually, I found Ewan MacColl’s version but it never occurred to me that Ewan MacColl was the father of Kirsty MacColl which led me to listening to ‘Fairy Tale of New York’ which led me to reading about her death……… I hadn’t realised that Ewan MacColl had written ‘The first time ever I saw your face’ (one of my favourite songs) and he had written it for Peggy Seeger, so I had to listen to that……..

The Pennine Way is the one thing I had wanted to do and never achieved; largely because I can’t carry a rucksack because of the shape of my back and I didn’t know anyone stupid enough to want to carry two rucksacks worth of clothing and equipment.  I sat pondering this, mid-Blog, when I remembered that I have a number of books about the Pennine Way, written by Alfred Wainwright, so I went and got them and spent another couple of hours looking through them.  By that time it was the end of my day.  So I ended by listening to Ewan MacColl again singing ‘The Manchester Rambler’ and was genuinely delighted that I had bought the Kinder Mass Trespass 1932

Isle of Wight: Acquired 2018 and 2020 but much older

It’s nearly 20 years since I went to the Isle of Wight.  I have very little memory of it except for Ventnor Botanic Gardens and a Tea Garden at Luccombe, above the coast, with a really beautiful view.  I was given these two tea towels: one belonged to Susan’s mother who was clearing out her cupboards and realised she no longer needed this and the other belonged to Vanessa’s late mother.  Both unused, both stored carefully, both pristine.  I thought I would struggle Blogging about these two.  But, no!

Isle of Wight is the place of the moment; people see the Isle of Wight as the key to our release from ‘Lockdown’ as the Coronavirus gradually, slowly decreases.  I don’t suppose the inhabitants of the Isle of Wight ever imagined this level of fame being foist upon them.  So many residents are being interviewed for the radio and TV.  The Isle of Wight is the place where the Government is hoping most residents will download the ‘Track and Trace App’ on their phone, where they can input data if they have been tested positive for COVID-19 which will inform any of their contacts, anonymously, so they can go into hibernation for 14 days.  This is about tracking the virus and trying to eliminate it.

Loads of people, not from the Isle of Wight, are raising issues about privacy, what will be done with this data.  I assume that many of those people have not had a friend or relative, partner or child get the virus, be hospitalised by the virus, be killed by the virus.   Back in mid-March, someone I knew caught the virus, someone who was fit, healthy and at work, who escaped going into hospital by a hair’s breath, who was told that if she lived alone she would have been in hospital.  This was not one of those cases like a mild dose of flu.  This was debilitating, frightening, scary and lasted a long time.

I met someone else whose parents were ‘shielding’, not having been out of the house, even for the walk, For 6 weeks.  They caught the virus.  One of them recovered after 7 days, the other is now alone, in hospital, on oxygen, scared, whose prognosis is unknown.  They can only have caught it from someone delivering food, letters or parcels.

There are measures being taken to anonymise the data from the Isle of Wight but actually would you want anyone you knew to go through this.  Bring on the App!  If you are doing things that you don’t want anyone to know or going to places you want to keep secret then just stop doing it, for the sake of friends, relatives, associates, nurses, post people, shop assistants, doctors, ambulance staff……….  Their lives, and maybe even your life, has to be more important.

So, the Isle of Wight, famous for sailing and Cowes Week, now is known for so much more.  And good on them.  If Track and Trace works we may all have more freedom, more quickly and be prepared for the next evil pandemic because, make no bones about it, there will be another one.

Thank you, Residents of the Isle of Wight.