HOW TENBY SPRUNG OUT OF LOCKDOWN
Robert Harries sees town go from ‘zero to 100%’ almost overnight as the holidaymakers pour in but the influx is provoking fear, as well as glee...
AFEW short weeks ago, which admittedly feels like an age in this brave new world, Tenby was fast asleep.
The shops and bars were closed, so too the restaurants and the cafes, leaving the town’s beautiful streets deserted. One or two would brave the town centre square and the quaint corners to walk their dog, but the middle of the day came to resemble the middle of the night, with nothing to hear but the seagulls and the sea. But now, Tenby is back.
The shops and pubs are trading again, with safety measures in place ranging from social distancing markers and hand sanitiser stations to permanent glass screens at the tills, one-way systems and temperature checkers.
It’s not normal, but it’s difficult to know if you could tell the difference had you been living on another planet since February and had never heard the words coronavirus or lockdown.
Thursday, 11am, the weather is fine, not wonderful, and the streets are already full. By 1pm it’s the Tenby we love, the Tenby we expect in August.
If 2.5 million people visit Tenby in a normal year, it seems like a lot of them are trying to make up for lost time, desperate for a piece of this Welsh haven.
One couple, sat on a bench staring at Caldey Island across South Beach, said they found the beaches to be coping well with social distancing, but admitted they had come away from the town centre because it was too busy. One resident and councillor admitted: “It’s as if we went from zero to 100% overnight.”
But the shops are making money again, the pubs are selling alcohol, and the cafes are serving tea and scones like it’s not 2020.
Isn’t this what we wanted? After all, Tenby is a tourist town, and without the will of the people to flock west from every corner of the UK, it would die. Quickly.
I head into my favourite shop in the world, Equinox, through the “Entrance-only” door, to get a view from behind the counter on how Tenby 2.0 is getting on.
“It started off, during the first couple of weeks, really quietly, but that was before they changed the travel rule,” explained Victoria Randall, owner of Equinox for the past 16 years.
“But that time gave us a couple of weeks to get used to being open like this. I think we’ve got the hang of it now, and people seem to be enjoying themselves.”
“You see some people not sticking to the guidelines but I think they just momentarily forget and do it as a mistake.”
Busy as Tenby may be on this decent-weathered Thursday (not a scorching weekend, remember), 2020 is already being “written off” in a business sense.
“We won’t be able to make up for what we’ve lost this year,” said Mrs Randall. “We just have to hope for the best. I think the two-metre rule will still be in place for a long time – how long is a piece of string?
“But of course our biggest concern is that we have to shut down again.”
I pop into the Bush Inn, the first pub you encounter as you walk under the famous arches that welcome you into the centre of Tenby. It’s a small pub full of character and characters, and it’s been run by landlord Jim McGrath for more than 25 years.
“My main concern when the pub was shut was the old boys who come in here every day,” he said. “I was worried about them because they had nowhere to go.”
Having sold some takeaway beers to boost the coffers, the Bush Inn reopened properly on Monday.
“You don’t want to offend people by turning them away; it’s hard when someone’s been drinking here for 20 years to have to tell them they can’t come in. It’s been OK so far, but this is going to be the first weekend.
“I think some people are not taking social distancing as seriously as they should be. A lot of people have been drinking in pubs in England, then they come down to Wales and think it’s the same – it’s not.
“But I count myself as one of the lucky ones because it’s not a seasonal business like some of the others, so I can open all year round.”
As I sit on a bench at the top of Tenby’s main square, I’m joined by Michael Williams.
He’s a Pembrokeshire county councillor and a Tenby resident. We watch the crowds walk past and we see tourists try to keep a distance from each other as they head down towards the beach.
“To be honest, there’s a lot of worry in the town,” he said. “Many people have been shielding and they are
extremely worried.”
Looking out over the square, Mr Williams continued: “Social distancing has gone, and when you try to point it out to people, they become very aggressive. It’s as if they’ve forgotten about Covid-19.
“It’s great for businesses to be able to make money again, and from what I see they are doing a very good job of reopening responsibly, but it does seem to have gone from one extreme to the other – back in April and May I could go for a walk around the town and only see three or four people.”
Mr Williams admitted some businesses will struggle to survive in the long-term as we battle to defeat coronavirus entirely, and pointed out Pembrokeshire council has already paid out more than £50m in grants to companies that “would not have been able to reopen without that help”.
But the dilemma laid before everyone in Tenby is clear, and it has been clear since the nightmare of coronavirus and the subsequent lockdown began: how do we strike a balance between being busy enough to save shops, pubs and cafes and the hard-working employees that run and staff them, and being too busy?
It’s impossible to ignore the look on some people’s faces as they try to navigate their way along the packed cobbles: they look uncomfortable, shifting awkwardly among the masses.
“We are totally dependent on tourism here,” conceded Mr Williams. “That’s all we have. But people are beginning to realise that there is a cost to tourism as well and that has become more evident this year.
“We’ve had some issues on weekends already with anti-social behaviour, perhaps when people are being sold alcohol when they are already inebriated. I know one cafe owner as well who shut early the other day after getting stick from some members of the public because he would not let them inside. It has not been an easy transition in the town.”
Pembrokeshire council’s leader, David Simpson, said this week that “concerns have been raised that social distancing is not being adhered to”, not just in Tenby but in other areas of the county, and that “everyone needs to ensure they manage their own social distancing as this is key to our recovery”.
The county council is employing people – tourism ambassadors – to help with social distancing in Tenby to try to remind people of their responsibilities, to offer a calming presence. One of those tasked with such a job is Darren Scott, or “Oz” to most people, who moved to West Wales from Australia in 2006. He works for the council at Fishguard leisure centre, but has been redeployed during its temporary closure to the streets of Tenby.
“It’s our job basically to report back to the council if people are not paying attention to the social distancing guidelines. I’ve not had any aggravation, but one or two of the others had some trouble when they tried to tell someone that they couldn’t drive down a certain street. From what I’ve seen, though, most people have been pretty good.”
Fecci & Sons chip shop on Lower Frog Street is a popular business and has put in place safety measures for people to order their food and queue in an orderly fashion outside, before being called to a “pick-up station” away from the entrance door.
After being allowed in via the “pick-up station” I’m immediately “zapped” as I enter to check my temperature. Having been declared fit and healthy, I sit down for a chat with owner Delmon Fecci in the empty restaurant which adjoins the takeaway.
“It is busy, but I think the town seems busier than it is because there are restrictions inside pubs, cafes and restaurants. I think without those in place it would not seem so busy.
“I don’t tend to notice the town itself because, to be honest with you, if I’m not working, I’m at home, so I haven’t found it too bad. Because I’m local I know the quietest way to get back to my house!
“I know the lanes and the alleyways, so I know where to avoid. But I’m glad that people have come back because without the tourists we’d be dead – we could not afford two winters in a row, no way.
“Tenby is 90% independent businesses – that’s what makes us, so we have to open for the tourists, because apart from the beaches what else gives them that Tenby experience? They want a pint in a pub, or a bag of chips or to go to the amusement arcade.
“They have to have these things, or they won’t want to come back again.”
Mr Fecci says his business is doing OK. It’s not what it should be when compared with August in a normal year, but 2020 has been anything but normal. For him and his family, it’s enough.
He wants everyone who comes to Tenby to be responsible but also to go away loving the town the way he has loved it for generations.
“A very dear friend of mine used to remind me of what Gandhi once said: ‘The world has enough for everyone’s needs, but not everyone’s greed’ and that’s absolutely true.
“I can employ my staff, I can pay them a salary and I can live on what’s left. I don’t need a new car or anything like that. I’m happy.”
Most people in this part of the world seem to be, because it’s the summer that many of us thought we would never have and Tenby is open for business; if everyone makes the most of the hard and diligent work that local businesses have undertaken to keep us all safe, hopefully that will last.