Covid: The Big Conversation

I am a widow, retired and living alone in Chichester. I have one daughter who is married with two young children and lives near Cambridge.

When the pandemic hit the UK I received letters from the Government saying I am extremely clinically vulnerable. I packed a suitcase ready for admission to hospital (as advised) and shielded. It was all rather scary.

Since my husband died seven years ago I have accepted every invitation offered. I have joined art classes, yoga classes, a book group, Transition Chichester, things that offer company and purpose to prevent me from becoming morose. And it worked – they have been wonderful as have my friends and family. But what would happen to me in lockdown? I felt like the person in Edvard Munch’s Scream.

The best thing I have discovered is that I enjoy my own company.

That’s not to say that I don’t miss my friends and family – especially my family. When they came to see me in July (after 7 months) I was as overexcited as a child. Up until then, although I had been alone I hadn’t felt lonely.

But I am extremely fortunate. I have a house with a garden and I have a pension. I have kind and friendly neighbours who baked a cake and sang to me from the street on my birthday, and I had a host of projects that had mounted up over the years.

I learned to use zoom and joined a Pilates class. Book group and art continue in this way. Since July I have met friends in gardens and eaten meals outside restaurants and pubs.

I am still very careful.

The figures are rising again and I know that I am one of the vulnerable people that younger ones are distancing to protect. I am happy at home and don’t want to take any risks, except I do want to see my family.

One granddaughter has started school this term and the other is back at nursery. I would love to see them again at half-term. Sometimes I feel there is little point in staying alive if I can’t give them a hug, but at others I think if they gave me Covid-19 I wouldn’t want them to live with the guilt.

If there is to be a suitable

Tim Mansfield snapped this shot showing the beauty of Bognor Regis in the evening

vaccine by the end of the year it would be worth the wait but who knows? To see or not to see – that is my present dilemma.

SUE ORGAN

health crisis and that ‘the science’ is hardly unanimous, with which I very much sympathise, one can hardly be impressed by the record on such things as PPE, care homes, the timing of lockdowns and quarantines, the hurtful exams fiasco and testing/ tracing. And if I then add the national shame in openly being willing to break international law...

Other things may well arguably need reform – but the Government has more than enough on its plate with two massive crises, in which case please devote energies to ameliorating these and otherwise leave well alone for the immediate and probably medium term.

JOHN NEWMAN

new venture will help to fill the gap as well as providing around 60 much-needed jobs.

Mr Morley repeats the arguments made two years ago that alternative uses should be found for the site. He seems to overlook that the site belongs to the district council.

At that time the district council’s director of finance, Mr Ward, made clear that the council was bound by law to seek ‘best consideration’ when disposing of land.

There were some very exceptional circumstances where the council could dispose of land for less than best value. To accept a lesser consideration the council would have had to show that this would secure the improvement of the economic, social or environmental wellbeing of the area.

Mr Ward confirmed that there was currently no such established council policy for this site. Without it, then accepting a lesser consideration would be deemed unlawful. It would also be in breach of state aid rules as the council would be subsidising a private sector organisation.

None of the other bids received by the council for the site at the same time as that for the care home came anywhere near the amount offered by the care home bidder.

It is also often forgotten that the disposal proceeds from the old Grange site were always intended by the council to partly offset the cost of the new Grange development which has been so popular with Midhurst residents.