We shall emerge from this battle stronger
Enduring wars often make us better than before, says
Every cloud has a silver lining. As some people started to show a lack of moral fibre, ransacking Tesco’s for lavatory rolls and causing internet food delivery services to implode, it took Dame Vera Lynn, aged 103, to remind us not just of how to behave in a crisis, but also of the uses of adversity. Dame Vera, who 80 years ago rallied us through a threat far worse than coronavirus, sent a message to her fellow Britons last Wednesday in which she said that “it is likely that we will all have to make hard decisions in the coming months. I am reminded of World War II, when our country faced the darkest of times and yet, despite our struggles, pulled together for the common good and we faced the common threat together as a country”.
Dame Vera, with the perception bred in those who lived through the challenges of 1940, added that “it is time for us all to rediscover that same spirit that saw us through the war. By keeping calm, looking after each other, and following the Government’s latest guidance, we can overcome the threat of coronavirus just as we have overcome so many other challenges before”. Many have already acted explicitly on her word. People are more alert to the needs of their neighbours, especially the elderly. Existing volunteer groups have gone into overdrive to make isolation bearable; and new community groups have sprung up.
In our scattered village, we have been calling on our nearest neighbour, who lives alone in his 91st year. The group of women who clean the church on Wednesday mornings – my wife among them – have temporarily disbanded, and there are no church services, or the tea and coffee afterwards that acted as the parish jungle-drums. Friends meet in the outdoors to walk their dogs, rejoicing more than ever in the fresh air and a countryside full of primroses and blackthorn blossom. Nobody dares buy more than one packet of toilet tissue in the village shop.
After venturing to a deserted London for a breakfast meeting last Monday, I have been at home with my wife. Our elder son, a political risk analyst, has been working from home for a fortnight. Our younger son has just been evacuated from university, where he is about to take his finals; tempting though it was to make him live in the woodshed until we knew he was uninfected, he appears so repulsively fit that we have allowed him in the house. Barring the odd visit to the butcher and the local supermarket, we’re here for the duration.
True community spirit has many aspects. Those who, from greed or panic, have been emptying shops are being noted and held in contempt. The concept of shame, abandoned in the late 20th century for being allegedly harsh and “judgmental”, is making a welcome return. When we are meant to be all in it together – and for many it is an existentialist crisis – those pigs who do not just force their noses into the trough, but stop all the other animals from eating, merit whatever humiliation comes their way.
All of us who knew people of Dame Vera’s generation knew how the hardships they endured bred character. Rationing, death and nights spent cowering in air-raid shelters while the Luftwaffe bombed British towns and cities made normal life seem like the proverbial piece of cake. The legendary cricketer Keith Miller, a pilot in the Royal Australian Air Force during the war, was once asked about coping with the pressure of playing in a test match. “Pressure is a Messerschmitt up your a---,” he replied. “Playing cricket is not.” For him, like millions of others who came through the war, adversity provided resilience and perspective.
All wars bring permanent change, and the “war” we are told we are fighting against the coronavirus will be no different. At a fundamental level, we are being made to realise that what is important is not that we can go on holiday, or go to the pub, or go shopping, but that family and friends dear to us are protected and preserved.
It brings, too, the realisation that the state, on which too many people have come to rely since the war, cannot do everything, and nor should it be expected to. It reminds us of the significance of family and community; of the importance of the helping hand, of the altruistic deed performed not because it might be repaid, but for the sake of it. If a sense of the importance of human relationships, and of human life, now takes precedence over consumption and luxury, is that a bad thing? We shall see whether or not such a new set of priorities survives beyond this crisis; I expect it will, not least because all who come through an experience unique to everyone will remember it for the rest of our lives, as the very elderly remember the Blitz.
It will give us all a new yardstick to measure what is significant against what is insignificant – and what is good, civilised behaviour compared with the bad, uncivilised sort. It will make us think more about others, and less about ourselves – or, at least, it should.
But there will be other permanent changes. Enforced working from home is confirming the utility of the internet and the value of the digital revolution. It will radically alter the work-life balance. Some people may never return to their offices, or at least only visit them occasionally. That may have a bad effect on the commercial property market; equally it might free up space for much-needed residential development. As home working becomes more normal, massive infrastructure projects will become more questionable; a review of HS2 will be essential after the impact of this virus has been properly assessed.
Unable now to hop across the Channel or the Atlantic and holiday where we wish, we are being made to acquaint ourselves more deeply with our own homes and local hinterland; and perhaps more closely to examine things and places we take for granted. Without any help from Greta Thunberg, our carbon emissions may drop considerably. Doubtless some businesses will go under, and one does not underestimate the hardship and stress that will cause; but the difficulties this virus causes are only temporary. At the end of it, there will be new business opportunities for entrepreneurs and new openings for those who will work for them.
There will be no more talk, as there was recently from an idiotic Downing Street adviser, about ending farming in this country because it was cheaper and easier to import food. Look at the queues outside supermarkets; reflect that this is unlikely to be the last time such a pandemic occurs; and ask where we would be without the substantial agricultural sector providing not just food but also the raw materials for many other essential products. We shall realise that to depend on other countries, with their own problems and susceptibilities, to feed us is insane.
We might even become less partisan and party political and keener on competence and honesty in our politicians. Once this is over we shall be better able to judge how well the episode has been conducted; and how well our NHS has been funded and maintained; and it may force the long overdue grown-up and preferably non-political discussion about what we expect of our health service and social care, and how we are going to pay for them. Those conversations are long overdue, and if it has taken this grave crisis to ensure we have them, so much the better.
Above all, millions of us will have ample time for reflection on what our priorities should be, where we stand in relation to the state and to each other, and what we can do for the future to ensure we consolidate the moral gains of this challenging time and how we learn from the handling of this crisis. As Dame Vera would doubtless affirm, we’ll meet again, some sunny day: preferably alive and well, and in a country and society that has been strengthened by these trials and not damaged by them.
Simon Heffer
This will make us think more about others, and less about ourselves