Author Archives: Tim Lenton

It’s beginning to look as if coming out of lockdown will be more stressful than lockdown itself. Well, you know what Kafka said: “It’s often safer to be in chains than to be free.”

And we do tend to worry an awful lot about safety nowadays. Even before the dreaded coronavirus, most of what we did in life seemed to be directed into ensuring our safety: insurance for everything, ridiculously low speed limits, plenty of exercise, the “right” food, contorted health and safety regulations, dubious dbs checks, cameras everywhere and much, much more.

Now it’s face masks and protective clothing, social distancing and quarantine.

I am not one to criticise politicians for making radical decisions in the face of a threat none of us has ever experienced before – a threat that is unpredictable in who it affects, the way it affects them, the way it spreads and the possible ways of stopping it. It is a no-win situation, and if anyone makes the right decisions, it is likely to be down to luck or prayer.

But what about the science? That might work if there were such a thing as “science”. What we actually have is scientists, and to no-one’s surprise, they disagree with each other. Why wouldn’t they? That is how “science” makes progress. When politicians say “the science” they mean “what our own scientists say”. They try to pick the top scientists, but history shows the top scientists are not always right.

A week or so ago I had a COVID-19 test. This was a bit of a miracle in itself, because the nearest test centre they could offer me was not even in my own county, but more than 30 miles away. I am not sure how I would have got there if I had some of the more striking symptoms of the virus. As it happens, I wasn’t feeling too bad, which wasn’t surprising, because I turned out to be negative. A lot of people have always regarded me as negative; so that was no surprise.

The test itself, which took place in an empty leisure centre car park, was Kafka-esque. A group of young soldiers were supervising, but I had to do the test myself. This involved making a phone call to someone standing just outside my car, a pack being thrown through the side window furthest from me, together with a formidable set of instructions. I had to manipulate a swab of my throat and nose, then pop the swab into a tube, on which I had to stick a bar code. There were lots of bar codes. I then had to put it into a bag, and the bag into another bag, find my way out of the car park and throw the bag(s) out of the car window into a kind of sack. Then drive home.

I may have missed out a couple of stages. On the plus side, I did not turn into a giant insect. At least, I haven’t yet. As far as I know.

Obviously I understand that everyone wanted to be safe. I want to be safe. We all do. But we tend to forget that there are large parts of the world where no-one feels safe, and with good reason. Their lives tend to have different priorities. They look for a high quality of life, taking risks and offering hospitality and love, sacrificing themselves for others. They do not fear death, because we all die. They are likely to look beyond that.

Some of these people live among us.

That, in the end, is surely a life more worth living than one bound up in the chains of safety? Helen Keller said: “Life is either a daring adventure or nothing. Security does not exist in nature, nor do the children of men as a whole experience it. Avoiding danger is no safer in the long run than exposure.” 

And Helen Keller was deaf and blind; so she knew what she was talking about.

As I believe I mentioned before, I am over 70. I am not boasting: these things happen – usually far too quickly. I am therefore restricted in what I can do.

I am not sure this is fair. But as a colleague of mine once said: “Who wants to be fair?” If life were fair, I should probably not be 70 at all. I should be elsewhere. So that’s OK. I don’t want fairness: I want forgiveness.

This is not as obvious as it sounds, because in fact one of our prime driving forces is for justice. That’s what we look for in films and books. A fair outcome: people getting what they deserve. Isn’t it?

Maybe not. What we really want is for evil to be overcome, and for goodness to triumph. That’s not quite the same thing.

We see an ideal society as one where justice is administered fairly, under the rule of law. But there is a dark side to that, and it is one it is all too easy to slip into.

It’s called self-righteousness. And there it is in the current crisis, lurking among all the good-neighbourliness and the compliance with intense inconvenience for the sake of others; peeking out from behind the unselfishness and love.

I went out for an exercise walk yesterday, and saw a deer in a cemetery. On the way back I met my wife, with whom I live and who was walking to meet me. I had just passed two men, sitting at least two metres apart, and my immediate thought was that they would assume I was meeting someone in secret, getting too close to her and flouting the regulations. They might report me.

They didn’t (as far as I know). Most people wouldn’t. But there is a hard core of people who are on the lookout for other people doing “wrong”. This results in newspaper stories like the one about the scientist whose mistress paid him a visit, and the one about Scotland’s chief medical officer, who travelled to her second home when this was being actively discouraged.

Neither of these people was “flouting” the advice given. I’m willing to bet they gave it a lot of thought and decided it posed almost no risk to anyone. But they both had to resign (and deprive us of the excellent work they were doing) because the self-righteous public thought that if they themselves couldn’t do it, no-one else could – and so they had to go.

It is those final five words that are critical. People make misjudgements – sometimes they just seem to make misjudgements – and they find themselves jumped on from a great height. Wouldn’t it be more sensible to allow them to say: “OK. I see what you mean. That may not have been the wisest thing to do” – and be forgiven?

It might not be fair, but it would be the compassionate thing to do. We need compassion. We need forgiveness. It’s not as easy as clapping for the NHS, but it lasts longer and reaches deeper.

I have to admit that I am over 70. I am therefore at risk and cannot be allowed out of the house except for exercise. I cannot buy my own food. My wife and I cannot help anyone else and have to depend on a friend to keep us fed. Neither of us is knowingly ill: I do feel short of breath occasionally, but that is just when the word “coronavirus” is mentioned. Unfortunately that is quite often, especially on the BBC.

It is a long time since I have hugged anyone except my wife. She views this as a good thing, but I am not so sure. My son is in Canada, and my grandchildren are in Buckinghamshire.

On the plus side, the sun is shining, and we have had some very warm days. I have in fact been getting more exercise than I normally do, though I cannot admit that, in case the Government tells me I don’t need it and locks me in the attic. We are eating pretty well and are improving our house and garden considerably.

Not only that, we now understand Zoom. I’m not sure “understand” is the right word, but we have used it to talk to friends, have meetings and “attend” church services. It is astonishing how many elderly people seem able to do this – not to mention FaceTime and Skype. In many cases these are people who would not in normal circumstances admit to any understanding of technology more advanced than e-mails.

My wife and I have now made friends with two blackbirds, who recklessly approach much nearer than two metres whenever we go into the garden, possibly because we feed them.

So where is it all leading? No-one knows, of course, but I am aware that I am extremely fortunate and could continue like this for some months. I don’t want to, but I could. Others, however, could not – especially those who are being deprived of work and money through no fault of their own.

Is it really necessary? Again, no-one knows. Is it all being done to save the NHS? The NHS is an expensive organisation, being operated at face-to-face level by courageous, skilful and caring people. But I suspect at management level it is in need of severe shaking up, and has been for some time.

It needs more money, but money does not appear magically out of thin air. Are we prepared to pay more tax? If not, it’s no use running campaigns to “save our NHS”. Clap by all means on a Thursday evening. We do. But we need to put our hands in our pockets too.

Many more people will die of COVID-19. Other people will die of other things. People die, sometimes in horrible ways, and we have to accept this. We may or may not think it’s the end of everything. I have lost a cousin to this virus, and it was devastating for his family. But are we so afraid of death that we will do anything to avoid it? Anything? Including making life intolerable for others?

If so, we should remind ourselves that those for whom life is being made intolerable are largely the young people who are the future of our country. They are vulnerable too, and they need some of the love that has been shown to so many others.

This is not a criticism of the Government. I don’t know what decisions I would have made, and I am grateful I didn’t have to make them. It’s just a question. What kind of people do we think we are?

As it’s Easter week, I decided not to write anything about Palm Sunday, Good Friday, Black Saturday or Easter Sunday, on the grounds that what I say will already have been said by members of the clergy not allowed into churches and running desperately to the internet in order to write or stream, or zoom, or do something else I haven’t come across yet.

It is very hard to stop clergy expressing themselves. In that respect they are much like journalists. So instead of writing anything coherent in the way of journalism (Did I ever? you may ask), I am simply giving you a poem this week. Totally free. Not reduced in any way. No response necessary. I advise you to stand a good two metres away from it.

This would be a good time to be walking on the breathtaking beach at Luskentyre in the Outer Hebrides – assuming the weather is as sunny and (fairly) warm as it is at the moment in Norwich. Last time I was there – at the height of summer – it would have been a real challenge not to distance yourself socially from other beach-users, because there were so few of them.

Of course there might be good reasons not to isolate yourself in Luskentyre. I’m unsure about the toilet roll situation there, not to mention the food supply, and supermarket deliveries might be a problem.

But it’s definitely a good place to get away from it all in these stultifying times. I am fortunate in being forced to stay in a reasonably sized house with a beautiful woman, which is not something I’m desperate to get away from. Others are stranded on their own, or with someone who does not appreciate their finer qualities, or someone who abuses them, physically or verbally.

We do have a garden, and it’s in fine condition, because my wife has been working in it almost all this week. What have I been doing? Well, being a writer means my workload has increased, if anything, and I still can’t catch up. She likes gardening. Honestly.

I do try to get some exercise, and our neighbours, the Norfolk Wildlife Trust, who are naturally closed, kindly left their gate open a for a couple of days so that I could take my daily exercise in their empty car park. However, they have now radically closed it, and my garden is not really big enough to get going in. A great deal of intricate manoeuvres are necessary to get from one end to the other, and even if you wiggle your hips, it still isn’t very far in terms of steps, which is what we all measure our fitness in nowadays.

We do have thoughtful neighbours and friends, which means that we are not hungry. Amazon have just delivered some olive oil, so that’s all right. I am expecting some peppercorns later. 

I am also doing what the Government tells me to. I am like that.

But I am paying little attention to the statistics on television or in the paper, because I still believe what my father told me over 60 years ago: “There are lies, damned lies and then statistics.” It wasn’t original to him, but he liked it.

I don’t actually think most statisticians make it all up; it’s just that there are so many unknowns, especially where viruses are concerned. It’s like economic forecasts – they are always wrong, and there’s always a good reason. Really.