Community Spirit: Harbury in Lockdown

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1st Harbury Cubs Go On Virtual County Cub Camp - Katy Spencer Hammon (Akela 1st Harbury Cub Pack) My name is Katy and I am Akela for 1st Harbury Cub Pack which is part of a very active Scouting and Guiding community in the village. Covid-19 restrictions meant face to face scouting was suspended in March 2020 and as part of this the County Cub Camp we were due to go in June was postponed a year. This was very disappointing for our cubs as it was promising to be a fantastic weekend away with over 1000 cubs due to be there. However, all was not lost as the county team put together a virtual Cub Camp! On Saturday 13th June, 13 Harbury cubs either camped in their own back gardens or, if they didn’t have access to a tent, built dens inside. The camp had an international theme and so the cubs very busily cooked dishes from other countries, made models of famous worldwide buildings out of recycling – models included the Acropolis, the Leaning Tower of Pisa and Kennedy Space Centre. The cubs also looked up the meaning of the purple World Scout Badge we all wear on our uniforms. We even made contact with a British Scouting Overseas Akela in Oman – his cub pack were also on a virtual camp which reinforced that the whole world has been affected by the pandemic and how scouting continues to link us all regardless of whether we are meeting face to face. We all kept in touch as a pack via WhatsApp and we swapped photos and videos of what we were up to. We also watched a special video put together by county which included messages to Warwickshire cubs from all around the world. On the Saturday evening we all ate marshmallows in one form or another – mostly toasted over fires in our gardens. Some of the cubs were lucky and did this before the rain started although some of us were not so lucky but valiantly kept going in the pouring rain. All of the best cub camps have rain though! 52 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

Despite the continuing appalling weather, we all stayed out in our tents and in our dens and we all had a fantastic weekend. Well done to Jessie, Mikey, Jack, Grace, Angus, Evan, Henry, Harry, Hugo, Ben, Noah, Jojo and Liam! Rather than being a poor plan B to the original planned camp this was a creative and fun new experience for us all and brought the pack closer together and reminded us what scouting is all about. It also highlighted that even in the most difficult times there is always another way – we just have to step back and think about it for a while. One of our cubs, Angus, has written his thoughts about the camp: “It was really nice that we still got to go on cub camp despite of the virus. Annoyingly, on that day it was raining which made it difficult to toast our marshmallows, but we still managed!” COMMUNITY SPIRIT 53

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Going On A Bear Hunt - Heather Rogers “Going on a Bear Hunt” is a popular children’s story. During lockdown, the residents of Harbury were asked to place their teddy bears in their windows to encourage children to take exercise by walking around the village going on a bear hunt. In addition, I knitted a bright orange teddy bear and put it in a different place in the front garden each day. Our caravan was taken from the winter store and it was ready to go at the front of the house for the start of our camping weeks away. During lockdown it was good to use it for coffee and reading the newspapers. Also, our young grandson FaceTimed and read to us for half an hour as part of his homeschooling day at that time too. All this gave us chance to watch the children spy ‘Ginger Ted’ often calling out “where are you Ginger Ted?” It was lovely to have this small a routine for each morning. COMMUNITY SPIRIT 55

Lockdown – Sue Bell Lockdown has been a difficult and challenging time for all of us, but we who are in the over 70’s age group have been told to be extra careful. We determined, at the beginning of it all that we must keep well away from the hospitals to avoid catching the Covid virus. Unfortunately, my husband Andrew fell whilst we were on our daily walk and broke his arm, so we had to attend Warwick Hospital to get treatment. The doctors and nurses were really good, and the Fracture Clinic was well distanced from the Covid wards. Thank goodness for our NHS. We were only too happy to applaud them on Thursday evenings. I had a dental problem which started during May (thank goodness for Ibuprofen), and was pleased to be able to have my tooth extracted in July. There have been many disadvantages to lockdown - feeling trapped and being afraid to venture too far from home, and not daring to visit any of the shops. Supermarket deliveries are fine, but you can’t beat being able to browse around and choose your own food. Also running out of ideas for meals. It would be lovely to eat a meal out sometimes. We had the added difficulty that both our fridge and microwave failed and had to be replaced during lockdown. Wearing a face mask is essential at times, but when you wear glasses they always mist up, so it’s difficult to see properly. We have really missed being able to meet up with our family and friends, and I have missed working my shifts at the Library. There have been some good things to come out of lockdown. We have been able to take lovely country walks on the Thwaites Estate. We watched the fields being ploughed and planted and noticed the wheat and barley crops ripening and turning golden in the sun - now almost ready to be harvested. We saw and photographed butterflies and birds, heard the cuckoo, and even saw a red deer stag running through a field of barley. We chatted at a distance with friends old and new. We have cleaned and tidied the house, and the garden has never looked so good. With the lovely weather, particularly at the beginning 56 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

of lockdown, we have enjoyed sitting out. I have been able to finish at last, a cross-stitch sampler that had been put aside for around 6 years! The VE Day 75th Anniversary Celebrations were a welcome occasion, when we could sit and chat with our neighbours in adjacent gardens, amongst flags and bunting, but the highlight was when our two sons and their families were able to visit us on the weekend of Father’s Day, and Andrew’s birthday. We sat in the garden and had two lovely days with them. (FaceTime is good, but it’s not the same as having them here). I can’t wait for the day when I can give them all a hug. Now that the measures are lifting a little, and we are able to cautiously do more things, we are entering a “new kind of normal”. We all really long for an effective vaccine to be produced so that we can back to a proper normal. COMMUNITY SPIRIT 57

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CONVERSATIONS WITH VILLAGERS (as told to Holly Winter-Hughes) COMMUNITY SPIRIT 59

The Balch Family (Julie, Craig, Grayson and Harry) Jennifer Edwards, Rosemary Harley, Sharon Hancock, Julie Marshall-Hardy Julie B: We’ve been in lockdown working from home as well as homeschooling, it’s been an interesting time for us! It’s been really busy. I joined the Parish Council in February and then this happened in March, so it’s been a bit of a baptism of fire! I’ve been involved in the Parish response to the pandemic, so I’ve been coordinating a volunteer region. Harry: I am 9, turning 10 in December. I found homeschooling really hard because there have been a lot of distractions at home because my family are all working at home. Julie: We’ve been on calls a lot and we’ve been on the same big, long table working together. So, it’s been tough! Harry: I’ve missed my friends but we’ve been on some video calls with them. I’ve also been on some bike rides with my friend. I went on one with my friend, Gabriel, yesterday but when we started to come home it tipped down with a thunderstorm! I’m in cubs and we were supposed to have cub camp this year but it got cancelled, so the leader of the cubs and some other cub scouts in Warwickshire and other counties did a virtual cub camp. I camped in the living room in our tepee. I had my sleeping bag. I surprised that Molly (the dog) didn’t come to me in the night, but she woke me up in the morning. I’ll be glad to go back to school but I have to wait until September! Julie: The hardest thing has been missing friends. Grayson: I’m 7 and I’ve had an exciting lockdown. I turned 7 over lockdown. We made up a bag of sweets and delivered them to everyone but told them to wait until the party later on until they ate them. I played a bunch of party games over House Party with five friends. One of the games was a game which mum made up, called Smelly Socks where you had to find smelly socks and bring them back to the camera. We had to find all sorts of things, loo rolls, toothpaste, tea bags… 60 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

Craig: It was funny because we were on a call like this and you’d say go and find the toothpaste and then all of a sudden they all disappeared! All the screens were empty but you could hear them thumping through the house. Julie: I think we managed to mess everyone’s houses up! They had prizes which we dropped off the next day. We’ve also been doing a project with seeds. Grayson: Oh yeah! We’ve been growing a bunch of vegetables in the front garden. Carrots, potatoes, pepper, sweetcorn, tomatoes, beans, lettuce… Julie: How have you felt about school and friends? Grayson: In the middle… a little bit happy and a little bit sad. I’ll be glad to go back to school. Craig: It’s been interesting because I think as adults we work in a structured way but these guys learn and work in such a fluid way and that fluidity has gone. We’re trying to work and have calls and we need them to work in that way. The clash of those two styles is hard. They just want to play with their friends. All of us have lost, but particularly these guys. The activeness of how they work is very different to what we are used to in our work… so it’s been really hard to try and keep them focused. They stay active but after a while they just want to be with their friends, they want to run around and kick footballs. Julie: I’ve got to say… they have been so good and have really got the gravity of the situation. I didn’t think they’d concentrate like they did, but because of that we’ve all been able to do what we’ve had to. They’ve been incredible. We’ve been very lucky. Craig: Their tale is really different from everyone else’s but in many ways it is quite similar. For us, trying to work and do everything… well, we had no time to begin with as the boys used to do swimming and football etc but since lockdown (even though we weren’t travelling to work or anything) we seemed to have less time because we were trying to work as well as being teachers and dinner ladies and COMMUNITY SPIRIT 61

everything! I’ve never worked so many nights in all my life. We are very lucky, as we still get to work and there is a lot of people out there who would dearly love to go to work or have something to do but they genuinely have nothing to do. So, it’s important to remember that… as hard as it is. Julie: Quite often, you had to make up the time in the evenings because we had to break off and do other things in the day. Craig: It was the extreme nature of it all that got to me. Seeing people when we were on walks and hearing about them being placed on furlough… you realise that there are only so many walls you can paint in the house… there are only so many holes you can dig in the garden and then the inevitable question is… what happens next? We try to remember that we’re the lucky ones. We still work, we’re ok and our family members are all ok. Julie: Our street really pulled together. We had a VE day party, with everyone in their own gardens. We all supported each other so well. There have been some incredible friendships being made with people really going above and beyond to help each other. We’ve had birthdays with cakes and flowers delivered, and balloons on the person’s door. It was the same day as Grayson’s birthday and we went and the person played happy birthday on the piano through the door to Grayson. We’re just so lucky to be living here! Here in Harbury we’ve been able to pull together as a community. We’ve got some wonderful people in the village who really care about each other and want to support each other. For me, this has brought out the very best in people. Craig: It’s doing all the simple things that you think mean nothing but actually mean a lot. The example I can think of, is that I managed to get hold of a commercial bag of flour – it was one of the hardest things to get at the time. It felt like a sweatshop! We were bagging up this flour and handing it out. We managed to get it and we didn’t need that much. In the grand scheme of things, it might not have seemed 62 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

much, but it made a difference. People were so grateful and they made cakes. We could get in the car and go out and so many people genuinely couldn’t leave the house, so being able to do our little bit and remember that all the little bits add up… that’s important. Julie: People who were helping houses that were self-isolating were so grateful to do something positive. They were desperate to help. We actually ran out of houses that needed help. We had too many volunteers! It’s really been a fantastic time for the community. It’s been hard for individual families. We’ve all had to get through it in our individual ways. Missing our families has been hard, but it’s been fantastic to see everyone coming together. Craig: I feel positive about the future. The right brains in the world are all working together which is unusual in itself. All we can do is continue to support each other. If each individual does the right thing, then we’ll all be ok. You’ve just got to be positive. Julie: The children are back to school in September and they can’t wait to see their teachers and they can’t wait to see their friends. It’ll really be quite special for them and it’ll be good for us to get some focused time working. We also had an online presentation for the Harbury Juniors football club for Harry’s age. There is usually a big event at the end of the year to present all the trophies and that happened online. Harry loved that as he got to see all his friends in one place at one time. *** Jennifer: My story is very different, and really it needs the back story. I only moved to Harbury at the end of September a totally new place with no contacts. Then I managed to get a fracture in my hip which stopped me walking or doing anything much. I’d get as far as Biblio’s and that was the trigger! That’s where I met Rosemary and five other people, who took me under their wing. I gradually got more mobile by January – I was toddling around on a shopping trolley, it was all a COMMUNITY SPIRIT 63

bit trying and then of course, we got locked down! Well, all I can say is this village is amazing. The Harbury Superstore said if you need any shopping just ring us and we’ll bring it across to you. Luckily, I’m right in the middle of the village so that was a really good start. The group I’ve made friends with in the library made regular phone calls between each other so I was always in contact with somebody I knew. There was a circular in the village saying that if anyone needed any help with shopping or pharmacy items to fill the form in, then I was contacted by a delightful lady in mid-March who literally made a daily phone call to me to make sure I was alright. The kindness of people has been absolutely overwhelming in so many ways. My daughters regularly monitored that I was ticking along in one piece and came to see me as appropriate, so they were fairly regular but they aren’t Harbury people. Things just continued in that jolly way. I had a little dog at the time, and occasionally met people taking her for a walk. The WI made sure I was all in one piece and offered to do various things online. They also delivered four sunflower seeds which I think I murdered! They haven’t done at all well, but two have finally produced something… if very dwarfed. The real joy to the whole experience has been my garden. It was an absolute jungle… literally, a jungle! But as my hip was recovering I was able to get out there, but even more joyous I managed to contact a lady called Becky who has been a total joy. She has cleared the garden and done a lot of the impossible work, she kept me fed with rhubarb as she knows I like it and she has been an absolute pleasure and joy to my life. How people manage in London, in flats, with children and no garden, I do not know. It must have been a total nightmare. My experience has been so easy by comparison. I carried on going out for short walks and met people doing that, and as lockdown eased just a little bit I popped around to Sheila’s one day and sat in her garden and there I met another person who has lived in the village for nearly 30 years and she had never really got to know 64 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

anybody. I thought what a contrast to the kindness I’ve experienced all thanks to lockdown! Life has continued like that. Biblio’s reopened… wonderful… and I met even more people. The whole experience has not been negative for me, it could so easily have been. I could have been totally isolated. It’s down to this village and this huge community spirit that exists here. I’ve never been to a place quite like it. I am so grateful to the community and how happy it has made me. Rosemary: It’s been lovely to meet Jennifer. It’s been great. I feel she’s been here a lot longer than she has. Jennifer: I used to live in a tiny village with no facilities but within a few weeks I’ve got more real friends than I had in the other place I lived. Rosemary: It’s good that positive things have come out of this. Jennifer: I volunteer for the library and I’m looking forward at some point to getting involved with that again. Sharon: I’ve lost count of the number of people who’ve said we are so lucky to live here. I came here for six months when my husband took a temporary post at the General Practice here and 51 years later we’re still here! One of the reasons is, this is an unrivalled community. It was a smaller village when we came and there were always concerns that when the village grew perhaps we’d lose that… I think lockdown has perhaps even helped the new houses (where Julie and family live) to become part of the community. It’s been great to see! Julie: There are some lovely people living there and they have been very keen to see more people all over the village. I had an area to look after as part of the volunteer network and that included a lot of people who had just moved here and they were desperate to help others. Sharon: The government announced its national volunteer scheme which completely flopped because loads of communities like this one had already got on and done it before the government even moved. Julie: I think so many people have felt so privileged to be part of COMMUNITY SPIRIT 65

it. This is definitely why I joined the Parish Council, to help people, and from day one we were straight in there able to help people. If you’re that kind of person who wants to help, then it’s an amazing experience. So many people on the Parish Council are incredibly knowledgeable and have so much experience. It’s an honour to be part of it. Sharon: I agree. I was in it for forty years before I retired! Craig: People are taking the time and making the effort, they are bothered about the people around them. There is a risk of losing that when you introduce new houses and new people, but we’ve definitely been able to retain that and probable make it better than it was before. It’s made the community better. There are a lot of younger families over here – it’s just the nature of the beast - and they all came forward and said, look, I can get out… I can do stuff… so what can I do to help? *** Julie M-H: We’re neighbours to Julie and Craig and what was fantastic was we had the VE day celebrations which brought everyone together. I work in a primary school so I was only working on a timetable. I found myself at home with not a lot to do, so I thought great we’ve got the VE day celebrations coming up… I’ll make some bunting. So, I made some red, white and blue bunting and delivered it to all the immediate neighbours. Everyone was thrilled and we had a little socially distanced party out on the street. It was absolutely fantastic. It brought together some of our neighbours who we see to wave to but don’t usually get to talk to. On the back of that, we set up this Covid WhatsApp group which included all of these people who we had distantly socialised with and that was great. It was so difficult to get flour, bread and hand sanitiser in the early days, so, anybody who managed to get a supermarket order would post on the group that if anyone wanted anything to let them know. It was great! Then on the 22nd May, my husband collapsed. If I’d been at school… 66 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

if it hadn’t been for Corvid, I think he’d have actually died. I’d have come home and found him dead. So, we had a bit of excitement in the village as the air ambulance arrived and two ambulances! Because of the VE day and the Covid situation in our particular street, the support was amazing. The ambulance and the paramedics did what they did and they took him off, and of course I couldn’t go anywhere. To have a member of family in hospital with Covid for months on end and you can’t go and see them must have been absolutely horrific. For me, it was just two weeks and it was a bit strange. He’s home now and he’s fine. I just think one of the huge upsides of the whole Covid thing was that we were able to come together and see each other more often. We were out the front planting things and having conversations about growing stuff. It was just great. I took him lunch up at 1, he had a Zoom meeting at 2 and at quarter to 2 I went upstairs to go and pass him the iPad for him to do his Zoom meeting and that’s when I found him. It can’t have been very long, because he’d eaten and drunk his drink. Fortunately, I was able to call 999 straight away. He’s healthy now, he’s doing really well. Craig: It’s interesting, because as a friend or a neighbour you can’t do anything in that situation. You desperately want to. I think one of the things that Julie found the most frustrating was not being able to give her a hug. What can you do? Julie: We used to meet at 3 o’clock in the gardens, all of us, with cups of tea for the next few days so that Julie had something to do at that time and we could ask her how she was and how she was doing. When we were in the garden a lot we could hear each other, so we just checked in now and again. It affected all of us, we are all quite close and you don’t realise until something like that happens. We’ve lived next door to each other for ten years. Julie M-H: It’s the same for Rosemary, you’ve got a really tight knit community where you live. Rosemary: Yes, in Temple End. We’ve had that for a long, long time. COMMUNITY SPIRIT 67

We’ve been very fortunate. We go out for meals; we go for walks. This has gone on for as long as I’ve known it here. We may have gone a little against the rules… meeting in the layby and having a drink… a good two meters away though! We’re very fortunate there. We’re in a bubble here. I just feel for the people in flats, difficult situations, unhappy marriages. I personally have been very happy all through the whole time. It’s given me a chance to stop the world and jump off and get on with jobs and do things that I’ve always meant to do. I admire you Julie and family, really I do, you’ve had so much to do. Julie B: Honestly, compared to some our situation has been easy. It’s all relative to what it’s like in your household, but we’ve got through it. Craig: You think I should be cleaning garages and cupboards… but you’ve got no time to do it! Sharon: I do have the time, but I haven’t ever wanted to do it in the first place. The group that do worry me, that maybe it hasn’t worked too well for them… is the teenagers. I’ve got four teenage grandchildren (who don’t live locally), it’s been tough for teenagers. Most of the things I’ve heard about teenagers have been negative comments, that they’ve been hanging around the park or one thing and another and I think it’s really tough for them. Ever since I’ve been on the Parish Council we’ve talked about what we could do for the teenage group, but there is still not a lot out there for them other than hanging out in the park – which they still get moaned at for! We need to take the opportunity to think about that. Craig: I think you’re right, it’s the hardest group. We all remember what it was like. All you wanted to do was go out of the house and do stuff. It didn’t matter what it was, as long as you were out doing stuff – to cage that group in the house… the younger kids we can entertain somehow, but that older group - as much as they have technology - they miss that human interaction. They want to see what life is all about, there is a big world out there and all of a sudden they are told to stay home with mum and dad. 68 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

*** Sharon: One of the things that we found odd at the beginning was because we are both doctors, but long retired, we thought… we need to do something! Then we realised… hang on we’re 75 we’re vulnerable! We can’t do that! It was a bit strange. It made us feel guilty to be at home with nice people ringing us up to see if we needed anything. We eventually got over that. There have been many positive things. Friendships we’ve had for a long time are stronger. We’ve talked to people who we hadn’t talked to before, because of the circumstances. You walk up the village and people speak to you, which they perhaps wouldn’t have done once. I never doubted that Harbury wouldn’t rise to the challenge, because that’s the sort of community that it is. We have lost a lot though; we’re all being very positive but when you think about what we normally have there is a lot of things lost. The church community felt it strongly. They’re usually so involved and to see the church and the hall standing there in quiet all the time, was really sad. The pubs are really struggling to stay afloat. There is a price being paid for all this and it’ll take a long time to put it right. Rosemary: The other thing to bear in mind is that if we get a second lockdown in the Autumn, it won’t be so easy! The weather has been to our advantage. We have to hope for the best and plan for the worst. Quite early on, I went with my friend Sheila for a walk everyday… staying apart… we walked and met people around the village… still staying apart but saying hello. We were in the back lane one day, walking along the road and a cyclist came from behind and sent me flying. I didn’t know I’d done anything much; I was just flat on the ground it was more of a worry to her. She thought… what do I do? He had fallen off his bike. She said to him “why didn’t you ring your bell?” and he said “you don’t have bells on £2000 worth of bicycle” I didn’t take his name or anything. You know how it is, when you’ve done something like that you just want to go home. COMMUNITY SPIRIT 69

When I got back I realised there was a problem with my tooth, it had been chipped. The real thing that concerns me is the cost. I am getting some of it back. It has to be crowned and root filled and all the rest. Compared with other things in life, it’s nothing. Luckily, it wasn’t painful. I thought that was a good thing, but the dentist said that wasn’t a good thing! It’s because the nerve was damaged. I went for a walk the next day, just the same. I just feel fortunate. I came to Harbury in ’77, I was opposite Sharon to begin with and then I moved to Temple End when my husband died suddenly. He had a heart attack, I’m so glad that Julie hasn’t got that problem. I was at school when it happened and by the time I got home it was too late. He was aged 48, but that’s life. But Harbury has been so fantastic and supportive. We are very fortunate. I’ve also got my tape player out and I’ve got 50 audiobook classics which I’m going through. All abridged. Jennifer, we’re still going to meet aren’t we? Even though it’s raining? Jennifer: I don’t think rain’s going to stop us, so yes we are! I’m going to add to Rosemary’s story if I may. I know that she’s been clearing things out during Covid and one of the things that she did do is to go through the Harbury Magazines. In amongst them she was cutting out pictures of people in various times in the magazine which she thought they might be interested in. I know one of the people who got one of her pictures was so delighted that she contacted Rosemary to tell her how much she had appreciated what she had done. I know it’s just a little incident of kindness but it’s a lovely story. Rosemary: I enjoyed going through them all and giving them to people, someone said to me “Oh they’ll have those already” but people hadn’t always kept them. They’d thrown them away or forgotten, they were the old ones from 77 to 2000… but they were appreciated. Sharon: We’re meant to be getting the Harbury News back in print. I know everyone thinks it’s ok online but you don’t read it the same, so 70 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

I’m looking forward to my print copy back. Rosemary: Yes, I agree. Sharon: That was one of the things that I was involved with fairly early on, it used to be hand assembled. It had to be stapled together. It was fun. It’s done properly now. It’s an important bit of communication. The church needed to be reheated, reroofed, repaired… goodness knows what… so in the middle of all this they launched a repair fund and it has been incredibly successful. COMMUNITY SPIRIT 71

Tim, Edward, Alice and Emma Lockley Tim: I have two experiences. I have my personal, family experiences and with my Parish Council hat I have my Parish Council experiences! They are two different things. Personally, I didn’t find it that traumatic. I teach at the university and work from home a lot anyway. So being at home isn’t really that different. I usually only go in to work a couple of times a week. Lockdown happened as we were just finishing for the Easter break anyway, so I would have had 5 weeks when I wouldn’t have been working anyway. All the summer term work, like marking, is done at home anyway. So, it wasn’t really that different. I’ve got three kids, and my eldest is 20 now – we had her boyfriend here as well. So, there were lots of us in the house. It meant that we were never bored and had lots of entertainment. We all get on alright. There weren’t any screaming rows! We occasionally struggled a bit for working space. So, when the kids were doing their distanced schooling we had to work out where they’d do that, if my wife had meetings and I had meetings. Thank goodness the weather was alright, because sometimes we were sat in the garden for meetings. It’s all changed now. The kids are at work. My son works in a pub and the eldest works in Morrison’s so the routines which we had throughout April, May and June when everyone was here have all gone out the window. Before we used to all eat together and things like that. We’re back to people grabbing food as and when they are in the house which is a bit weird, I guess. That’s changed. From a Parish Council point of view, our biggest thing at the start was how we were going to cope and manage with lots of people who were potentially shielding. We weren’t getting any meaningful advice for central or local government, especially in that middle of March time when things were clearly heading towards a lockdown situation but it had not yet been announced. It was obvious that we’d have to do something as the village overall is probably older than Warwickshire and older than the UK. No doubt they’d be people with health conditions as well, but the demographic of the village we knew wasn’t great. So, in the week before lockdown, I decided that what we 72 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

needed to do was try and find out who did need help. So, we printed 1000 forms that we got the Scouts to deliver to every household. The leaflet said please fill it in if you think you are going to need help, or option B, if you’d like to offer help. We designated a few areas around the village for them to drop them off, or they could leave them with me or email them to me. So, there were a variety of ways in which they could submit the form. I collated the information into a spreadsheet. Over the first week or so we gathered that there were around 120 households that needed help, but we always had more volunteers than we had those needing help. The list of volunteers topped out at 150 and the number of households never got that high. I didn’t want to manage this centrally as it was too big and so I approached eight people who had volunteered who lived in different parts of the village. I split the village into eight zones and made each of them in charge of their own zone. So, they had a list of volunteers who would help, and a list of people who needed help within their zone. I left it to them to marshal their volunteers. They usually allocated one volunteer to each household and they were responsible for making contact with that person, finding out what sort of help they needed or might need. The idea was that people would know the volunteers as they lived close by, so they wouldn’t have strangers coming in. Quite a lot of people who thought they might need help were precautionary and didn’t actually need the help in the end. If the pandemic had spread much more virulently and they themselves got sick it would have been a different matter. Equally, there were plenty of households that did need help that had pre-existing health conditions. It worked really nicely. The volunteers would collect shopping for people, collect prescriptions, check they were ok. Someone volunteered to deliver newspapers to houses that were shielding, because we don’t have newspaper delivery in the village. Even that made a big difference. The volunteer network was pretty much up and running by the time lockdown fully started, which COMMUNITY SPIRIT 73

meant there was no gap between lockdown starting and us being up and running. This was important. I had loads of emails from families who were remote from their elderly parents. Some were in Australia, some were in a different part of the country and they’d say thank you so much for looking after our parents because we live too far away and they didn’t know what they were going to do. That was really nice. I met with the eight volunteer coordinators a few times over Zoom in the early days but after that we didn’t need to meet and we just let everyone get on with it. Equally, as things have changed we’ve let people manage it themselves. Some people don’t need the help anymore as things have eased. Others have carried on with it. In the early days we had a few people who volunteered and then became sick so couldn’t volunteer anymore. So, we had to make alternative arrangements, but we weren’t ever going to run out of volunteers. If it had got really bad and the volunteers were unable to help out then the situation would have changed, but thankfully it didn’t. As far as I know, we only had one fatality in the village but we had a number of people who were sick with Corona in the start. They were all linked to the village Folk Club. Somebody had been on holiday to Spain. They had a meeting where they all played instruments and sang, in a fairly small space and a lot of them got sick after that. Sadly, one them who got sick died, an elderly man. My neighbours all got sick in March. But by mid-April we weren’t hearing of any new cases at all. The slightly dramatic thing that happened just before Easter was that our post master and post mistress both got Corona. They don’t live in the village; they live in Leamington but they both got sick. The shop was suddenly closed. It’s a lifeline for quite a lot of people who want to get papers and milk etc. The Coop were now overwhelmed. People weren’t willing to go to the big supermarkets outside of Harbury, they were shopping as much as they could here in the village. Now the whole village had one shop rather than two. It’s a typical corner shop as well as a post office. I was in conversation with Preet (the post mistress) who wasn’t that poorly, her husband was much sicker. We 74 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

managed to get the keys of the building off her. Me and a guy who lives around the corner from the post office decided to open the shop. It was like a Dad’s Army type of operation! Neither of us knew what we were doing. We had someone come and explain to us how the till worked and how to get in and out of the building due to the security. They went off sick of the Friday, on the Monday about half a dozen of us did a big clean and cleaned all the surfaces with antibacterial wipes. Then on the Tuesday we reopened. We decided to open in the mornings from 9-12 for supplies such as milk and papers. We did that for ten days and they did their two weeks’ isolation. This covered the Easter weekend. They were able to come back on the Thursday after Easter. I was quite happy to open up and sort the papers. Two or three people did the whole morning several times. It wasn’t a massive thing; it was keeping the shop open and making sure people had access to these things if they wanted them. We couldn’t do the post office side because you have to be specially trained. We couldn’t do the lottery side because we didn’t know how the machines worked. We couldn’t sell cigarettes because they had all been cleared away and we didn’t know where they’d put them. It was a bit haphazard and probably not how they would have done it but it was a real community effort and it was a good thing to do. We took two or three hundred pounds every day. A lot of it was alcohol as well as sweets and essentials. The village pubs did a takeout service which was really great. They did takeout beer for a while when they had stock. They’d fill any carton, so I was reusing milk cartons. The village library decided to do a bespoke service for people who wanted it. They could send an email or phone up and they’d ask for crime fiction for example, and we’d deliver a selection for people. We also have a free book exchange where people donate books. We reopened that in mid-April, in a socially distanced manner. We’ve also recently opened the little café in the library, doing takeout – so people have adapted. The volunteer network was excellent and helped a lot of people to cope with the whole situation COMMUNITY SPIRIT 75

and helped take away any worries that they may have had. Personally, I wouldn’t say I was scared. Partly ignorance helped. The information was drip fed out. I’m not in a particularly high-risk demographic I wouldn’t have said. So, I was thinking that even if I got it I’d be fine – which is probably still true. Since then, we’ve heard about cases of people younger than me becoming seriously ill and not making it. Maybe they’ve got other reasons why, but it’s difficult to know. Right at the very start, at the beginning of March I’d been in hospital with an appendicitis. There was a Covid ward at Warwick hospital. I remember saying to people that I wanted to recover from the appendicitis before getting Covid because coughing after you’ve had abdominal surgery would not be fun. It took about three weeks to recover, and the surgery was on the 9th March. I wasn’t frightened, I was slightly fatalistic. We were taking precautions, but if you end up catching it, you end up catching it! We tried to minimise the amount of times we went shopping and only go once a week, but at times it wasn’t possible because with six of us we go through food like you wouldn’t believe. There is only so much you can store in the fridge and the freezer. We got used to not socialising with people fairly quickly. I’d have online meetings with friends with a pint in the evening. We did that fairly regularly. Because there are six of us, it wasn’t like we were feeling lonely either. My mother is 83, so I was more worried about her. She lives in an apartment building and there was a time at the start when she was struggling to get food. Although she’s 83 and has diabetes, she wasn’t classed as vulnerable enough to qualify for supermarket slots. So that required some careful thought. Eventually between myself and my sister-in-law she managed to get slots which we populated for Mum and got them delivered to her. In the end it got silly because she got too much food. It took quite a bit of time for her local support network to kick in, but by May she had local food bank type deliveries. She lives in Leeds and I haven’t seen her. I’m going up in the first week 76 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

of September. I saw her in January/February time but then I was ill. My brother is local so he’s been to see her. She’s learnt how to use FaceTime and to text, so she’s made technological advancements which is quite impressive for someone of her age. I didn’t get any sense of fear from the community. There were a few people on the Facebook page who were a little more worried and complaining about kids in the park who weren’t social distancing. I had emails from people saying ‘what are you going to do about so and so they had too many people…’ the whole snooping neighbour thing. They should have reported it to the authorities, not to me! The main sentiment overall was that people were lucky. When you compare with other places that don’t have open spaces. When we were allowed that one hour walk for a while we had the lovely countryside and it was easy to social distance because we had all that open space. The majority of houses have a garden. Nothing like an inner-city area with no parks or green spaces. I think we all agreed that if you were going to go through this then there would be a lot of worse places to go through it than here. We also had a beautiful Spring and great weather which helped. You could sit out with your neighbours without breaking the rules. I’ve observed a little bit of the impact this has had on people with dementia. There is a guy who lives down the road and I know his son. He must be in his 80s, he has dementia but isn’t in a care home. All of his routines have gone. Chris spent ages trying to stop his Dad from going into the Coop, which is part of his routine – he used to go every day. Chris lives opposite the Coop and he’d see his dad out of the kitchen window, so he had to intercept him and tell him not to go in but his dad always asked, ‘Why not?’ It must have been so hard for those kinds of people. So many people were isolated from friends and family. Some have family in neighbouring villagers but if your family live in Australia that’s hard – which is why the volunteer network was so good. We didn’t want to miss anyone out. We started off digitally promoting the idea over Facebook, but we didn’t want to miss anyone COMMUNITY SPIRIT 77

out which is why we printed out the leaflets and distributed them to every household. It seems to have been effective. After a week or so of it operating the numbers stayed stable, so I think we got everyone who needed help. On VE day on our little street everyone sat at the end of their drive having afternoon tea. You can chat with people 5-10 metres away without being in their space. *** Edward (17): One of my best friends lives next door, so for a long time we were playing badminton and tennis over the garden fence. The only thing that it really halted was learning to drive, which I’m able to do now anyway. I turned 17 on the day of lockdown! For me, it’s been really good for my work. I work much better at home without all the noise and distractions of a classroom. I don’t agree with people saying that this situation has stopped us from doing what we enjoy. It’s more about making the best of the situation and finding something that you do enjoy doing. It’s about trying to be creative and make the most of what you’ve got. It helps that I’m already into arty stuff. I’ve spent a lot of time doing that, which has been massively helpful. I do A-level photography which has benefited because of it too. There were a couple of instances where there were big groups of people my age meeting in the park, this was in April or May when they really shouldn’t have been but other than that I don’t think it was that bad. I’m back at work now. I work at a pub in the village and I’ve noticed that it’s very hard to maintain guidelines there. Big groups of men in their 20s are basically impossible to manage! I try my hardest to stay away from customers. I wore a mask for a while. We went away to Wales in July, so for two weeks after that I wore a mask at work. I don’t feel particularly at risk at work as there is so much PPE everywhere. We sanitise our hands every 5-10 minutes and a lot of our customers wear masks until they are sat down. It’s only on Friday evenings when 78 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

we’re packed full of drinkers with no one really eating that it gets hard to manage. Especially when the weather isn’t good. At least when they can sit outside, they stick to their tables. Even though the tables inside are technically two metres apart they are always moving chairs around so they can be in groups with their friends. We’ve got a maximum of four people to a table inside but outside you can seat ten to a table! All of my school friends live outside the village. Once it was end of May/June time and things were starting to ease I could go on friends with Matty next door and our other friend Carmen. That was fine. We didn’t use Zoom or Teams or anything but with group FaceTime I could talk to my friends from school. It’s quite easy to stay in touch that way. Even though my generation has grown up with technology, we still prefer to see people and would rather speak to them face- to-face. The first time we met as a group was the 3rd July for a joint birthday. We met in a park and had a barbecue. Since then we’ve had a few meet ups. I go and see a few of my friends from that group near the canal that is close by. We meet there quite often. I’ve had other group meetings. I had a very late birthday party. I had to cancel my initial one, so we had a general meet up in the garden. It’s my friend’s birthday on Monday so we’re going to his for that. So, I’ve not found it that hard. I’ve not found this whole situation all that difficult, but I know that my view does not represent the masses. A lot of my friends don’t share that sentiment. It felt like it all happened quite gradually. I was travelling at the start of the year with school. I went to Iceland in January and then New York in mid to late February. Even then they were doing loads of checks at the airport, asking if any of us had gone to China recently. Even then we were starting to realise what was going to happen. Even though it hadn’t made it to America in that time. As soon as we got back to school, we were having assemblies about it and they were putting hand sanitiser everywhere. I’ve been back into school a couple of times since then and they’ve had all the distancing guidelines inside. COMMUNITY SPIRIT 79

I’ve been paranoid! I think I’ve got Corona virus every four days! But I’m not scared of actually getting it. Nothing about it scares me. Some of it annoys me. People who don’t care about it annoy me. The fact that everything has had to close and all of my favourite sporting events got cancelled (even though some of them are back on again now). Tim: I remember when it was just easing and you saw some of those kids at the park not social distancing, that you found it annoying because they were just ignoring it. Edward: That was so annoying as there were so many of them and they were all people I knew as well. They were drinking and wrestling for fun. They came over to me and my friend and tried to hug us and shake hands and we just wanted them to go away. I thought it was quite disrespectful! Tim: I think a lot of it is because they feel invincible and they don’t give any thought to what they might do to other people. They think, well I’ll be ok! They don’t think about other people. It’s that idea of ‘Don’t kill Granny!’ Edward: I think from what I’ve seen, especially on the internet, is that the majority age group who don’t seem to care is the generation older than mum and dad. That seems to be the major demographic who buy into the ‘plandemic’ and that vaccines will give us all diseases. Tim: Really? The people in their 60s! Aren’t they the ones who might get it and die? Edward: Yes! They seem to be the people who think it’s all a hoax and masks don’t work and all that. My generation, Gen-Z overall seem to be very aware of it. That doesn’t mean that they’ll all follow it though. As you say, there are those who feel invincible when they are young. I think the narrative gets misconstrued when you see online people saying how all these kids don’t care and they are all ungrateful and disrespectful and above the law. I don’t think that’s true but I believe that some are skirting the guidelines when they shouldn’t be. There 80 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

are too many of them doing that. It’s the people in their mid-20s to 50s-ish who have been the most sensible. How people handle the situation also depends on their work ethic. I see all this about people wanting A-level content removed. The thing with that is that, on the one hand some kids don’t have the resources they need to work at home properly, but the other side of the coin is quite annoying because me and my friends have kept up with our work throughout this time and have all made sure that we are all on track to be where we need to be at the end of year 12. By removing the content, they are giving a free pass to people who couldn’t be bothered to do any work. We get set all of our tasks online through an app called ‘Show My Homework’ there was someone who was 67 tasks behind by the time we got to summer, because he hadn’t done anything! He was just going on his X-box instead. By removing the content, they are giving him a free pass! Although he’s my friend and I love him, I just think ‘do the work!’ I can understand lowering the grade boundaries but removing content would be annoying for those of us who worked hard to learn it all. My Spanish may have suffered a little because of the environment. It helped a little when it came to live lessons, but it’s nowhere near the same as face-to-face. You couldn’t have the same flow or conversation. You often can’t hear properly over FaceTime. I got used to it very quickly. I haven’t found it a particularly difficult situation; I’ve just found myself more bored than usual. I haven’t found it really stressful, it hasn’t out a massive strain on my mental health or anything like that. Tim: You are very chilled though. He always has been since he was a child! Edward: If you can’t change it there is no point moaning about it. It’s better to find ways of adapting than to complain about what has happened. One of my close friends, her Dad got it, He was completely asymptomatic. He only knew he got it because he broke his hand and went into hospital. They have to test you then no matter what. They COMMUNITY SPIRIT 81

tested it when he went in and when he left, both came up positive, so he definitely had it. But then, even though she doesn’t live with her Dad that often she does see him. So, she got very scared. Her whole family had to get tested. She got quite worried about it. She did work where I work, but she left. She really didn’t enjoy working in an environment where it felt crowded and busy, she didn’t feel safe. So, I guess some people have taken it differently. A friend of mine from my photography class has done a lockdown project using a lot of typography – she asked everyone how they found the experience. I was reading her work and she captured screenshots of texts. Loads of people said how bad it’s been and how they struggled with it. So, I think I don’t represent the whole age group. The majority wouldn’t feel the same. The one thing I struggled with at the time was not being able to see friends and be social as I get very bored if I’m not doing that. I was just desperate for school to reopen. I wouldn’t be desperate to work at school, but I’d be desperate to sit with my friends and just see people. That was a realisation knowing that I wouldn’t be back at school before at least September. It was a big dampener – but only for a day, but when I realised it I just accepted it. I didn’t help myself because I followed the numbers so closely every day on Worldometres. That definitely doesn’t help. I remember watching a news report ages ago when everything about Wuhan was coming out and they had an interview with a doctor at Wuhan and his top advice was to not check the news and the figures! Every day I was thinking how many cases and how many deaths? How many in the UK/ How many worldwide? I haven’t looked in over a month now and I’m happier because I’ve just ignored it. When we went to Barmouth it was so busy on the seafront. It was by far the busiest experience I’d had since New York. It was a hot day at a really popular seaside town. It was ridiculous! Getting back, it has been more normal again. *** 82 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

Alice (20): I didn’t find it scary because I didn’t think I’d be affected myself, but I didn’t like the thought that my Nana was on her own and my grandparents are on their own and they live far away from us. If something went wrong, they’d be nothing we could do. I’ve been at work in Morrison’s for the whole of lockdown. It was a bit easier to start with, but you get a lot of aggression off customers for not social distancing or for not wearing a mask – at the start we chose not to wear masks and a lot of customers would shout at us. We had to do tasks where we had to work together and it was impossible to social distance and the customers would give us a hard time about it. You can’t social distance in the warehouse out the back – it isn’t big enough. You can’t social distance around a palette. Things like Click and Collect are a bit awkward as you just leave their shopping there in baskets and have to stay away and watch them. I had to get a job because my pub job wasn’t happening because pubs were closed. I’m between my second and third year of uni and would have worked the summer in the pub, so I had to get a new job. I didn’t get any furlough because you were meant to have been registered to work from mid- February and I was obviously at uni then. Uni work is so much better from home. I would rather do that for the whole of next year too! I’m doing architecture and design. My tutor is relatively useless. They were way more helpful over email than they ever were in person and I got my very first ‘first’ by being at home. I got loads of feedback over email that I wouldn’t have got at uni. It was the first feedback that she ever gave us. I worked better at home. I wasn’t bored, I had stuff to do. I could go out on walks with the dogs and stuff. I kept busy. I liked being in my own room, my bed is much more comfortable here. There are so many things that are better about being at home. My flat is a studio flat, so everything is in the same room. I like it here, because if you get bored of one room you just go downstairs or upstairs. It was way better for them to send us home and do our lessons online and then mark us online, which they didn’t do for A-level or GCSE. They’ve just been given random grades! COMMUNITY SPIRIT 83

It’s easier obviously because we don’t do exams. They cancelled some of the courses that do exams. My partner had exams and he had to do it online, print it out, write it in and submit it that way. He still had to do them! I don’t think the village has been noticeably affected. Nothing really shut except the post office, but then they opened it. The pubs shut but they sold off the beer – because ales go out of date really quickly. So, she sold it off cheaper in 4.4 pint milk jugs. The other pub did takeout too, now they are both open it’s pretty normal in the pubs. People don’t have to wear masks to go in the pubs. Tim: I don’t think they’ll have lost too much money. The whole furlough schemes really helped and Eat Out To Help Out. They are doing pretty well now. Once the furlough scheme ends, sustaining that into the winter will be harder. They are fairly quiet village pubs anyway. We don’t get the tourists. Alice: For the takeouts, they basically just broke even with the food they had bought. We had about twenty houses a night, so we kept doing it. But they were quite cheap, maybe £8/ meal so they didn’t really make any profit. Tim: It was a great service for people who didn’t cook. At the start of lockdown, especially, we’d buy a meal from them or the other pub every week. It meant variety for us. Alice: I had to have a doctor’s appointment on the phone, that was weird. It was for a minor thing and he asked me to come in. I thought it would be on time because they’d be no one else there but it was still 20 minutes after the time I was given. He was fully kitted up in PPE. Tim: A few of the staff at the surgery were sick back in March. Some of the admin staff. They all recovered. Alice: My partner’s granddad died of Corona virus in a care home in Leamington. We had only seen his parents outside, only visiting on hot days and keeping our distance, wating to use the toilet etc. When 84 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

it came to the funeral, because we’re from different households we had to stand on one side of this huge crematorium and they were on the other side. At the end we thought it’s such a sad event we can all just hug. We couldn’t not hug his parents, and we went back for a reception but it was so odd being sat outside just the five of us eating a few sandwiches. It wasn’t a proper funeral. They are going to do a proper funeral next year. *** Emma (12): I found it fine to be honest. I’ve missed going into school, seeing my friends and gym. I could start gym at the start of August but before that I was doing it online on Zoom three times a week. On Zoom all we could do was strength, so we’d work on arms, abs and legs on different days. They were only an hour. Now we train for three and a half hours on the same days and we do all the pieces too. I hated my online school lessons. Tim: Emma’s work ethic was very good! All of their lessons were put on an app called ‘Show My Homework.’ Emma’s an early bird like me, she’ll be up at 7 and have all her lessons done by 11. So, she had the day free to do gym! She’d do them with her friend and they’d be on FaceTime together working through maths or history or whatever. I think she quite liked that type of schooling… Emma: My friend used to wake up a lot later than me, she’d join me at 9 o’clock or even later. I’d call her at 10 and she’d be a sleep. Tim: Emma would sit here at the dining table and I’d do Joe Wicks every morning. Because she’s a gymnast she’d tell me I wasn’t doing it properly! She’d show me how to do it! She found it harder missing her friends. As soon as she was allowed she saw her friend Emma and went on social distanced walk with her. Emma: We walked to the Holy Well in Southam where she lives. We spent a lot of time in her garden. This was in June. COMMUNITY SPIRIT 85

Tim: We did movie nights here. We subscribed to Disney + and we went through the catalogue. Emma: I didn’t like it when I first heard about Corona. I wanted to stay at school and keep going to gym. I had a competition the weekend that the gym shut. Our last day was the Friday and the comp was the Sunday but it didn’t happen. I don’t have any comps. I’m happy that I’m not doing one comp because it’s really hard and scary, but the other one I was really looking forward to and I probably can’t do it next year because we do grades and you need to move up a grade or you have to compete out of age which I don’t like doing. I wasn’t worried about other people getting sick. I felt safe. I like living in Harbury. Tim: If the family environment is tense, it must be so hard! Can you imagine that for months? *** Emma: I go to Rugby for gym. I was at Leamington, I left when I was 7 or 8 because they weren’t qualified enough to teach me anymore. I got a new skill a couple of days ago. I can do a full twist now! I’d ben working on it before lockdown, then lockdown happened. Tim: She did a lot of gymnastics in the house and garden. She got a little job delivering a newspaper to the guy with dementia down the road. We fill up with milk from the Milk Shed on the way back. It’s always been a farm but they never sold their own produce. The pittance they made from selling the milk to the processor meant they might as well have just tipped it away, but this way they are selling it for a lot more per litre but they get to keep it all. They’ve had to invest in a machine, but it should pay for itself fairly quickly as loads of people use it. I’ve had positive reviews from all the children in the house. It’s like the milk I remember from being a kid, with cream on top. It’s pasteurised but not homogenised. So, the kids really like it. It’s cheaper to go to the supermarket but the village is affluent enough to support it. There has always been an ethic of supporting local businesses here. It’s fresh, it’s eco – with no food miles, it tastes good! 86 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

Emma: And it comes in a reusable glass bottle… Tim: Being eco is something else that the Parish Council is very keen on. We’ve also made badges to say thank you to all the volunteers, but everyone is also going to get a voucher to get coffee and a cake from the library café in the village. The café supports the library and pays for everything. It’s the only café in the village and usually open 4 mornings a week. It’s got a really loyal clientele. Mums go after drop off, elderly people go. When we got the library back off the council in 2012, we needed some way of earning money to support it and that is what we decide to do. It’s consistently made more than twice what we need to pay for the library. It’s really popular. It’s an old Victorian building so the running costs are there. There is storm damage at the moment, but we can afford to repair it because we saved up. Looking after the old building while running a service takes money. You need that community ethic, which we really have here. It’s old fashioned like that. COMMUNITY SPIRIT 87

Linda Ridgley I came to Harbury in the mid ‘70s from Birmingham. I helped set up an organisation in the village, The Harbury Society, to help preseve everything historical. Change seems to come in waves here, with new developments and the like. A lot of the villagers get upset when they see change, they don’t want elements such as the environment and the fields to be lost. They are country people at heart. Though they are good at accepting new people on the whole. During lockdown, the volunteer network was excellent. I’m lucky to be surrounded by people I know. All the new houses on my street are set back, so all I see is old cottages. VE Day was lovely. People sat in their front gardens, singing songs and chatting at a distance. I didn’t particularly get a sense of fear in the village, and personally I didn’t feel that way. I did have to self-isolate, which I found very boring! I coped by passing on jokes over the internet and keeping in touch with people online. I also made the most of the time and did a lot of work for The Harbury Society. We wanted to stop people from feeling isolated, so I sent them talks from the archives etc. It’s not the same as being able to talk face-to-face but it helped. When we came to the village in the 1972, we were a young family. We moved to a new estate, that the locals didn’t like. We were young and had time, women tended not to work back then. We raised money for a swimming pool for the kids. It was a quarry village and too many kids used the quarry to swim, so we felt it was important that they learnt to swim properly. The Harbury carnivals used to be magnificent – so many farms and pubs (there were seven then) were involved. Events like that really brought people together. It’s much more difficult now as there are less places to meet. People don’t get the chance to relax and really get to know each other like they used to. We are a very proactive village though, and that still remains to this day. We insulated all the community buildings, and we had the first electric car club in the UK! We saved the library from being shut down. 88 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

The wave of newcomers who came in the ‘70s are in their 70s now and less able to keep these things going. The new wave may not have the same sense of community – I’m not sure – women work now, so they have less time. Different skills have come in and there are less of the skills that we had. You can just about get a painter or carpenter now, but only if you know the right people. There is less opportunity for people who don’t know people. There are two active Facebook groups – Harbury News and Harbury Village News, and these part-compensate for what went before, but obviously not everyone has access to them. It used to be a real racing village – there were horses everywhere – and all the pubs got involved. John Thorne had a racing stable and he rode the Grand National. The whole village was interested in racing and you’d often see girls out with their ponies. When they put the M40 in everyone was mortified because that was where the girls used to ride. Change has happened, but people don’t always like it! During lockdown people have seemed to pull together. I couldn’t go anywhere but my neighbours checked in and the neighbours were wonderful – they’d go out and get the paper for me. It’s nice to be able to read the news when you can’t go out. My daughter came every Sunday and would sit well away from me and check I was ok and bring me things. I was very lucky. I spent the time pottering in the garden. I’ve got figs, pears, apples, gooseberries, peas, asparagus, beans and flowers… I put out fallen apples for people to take. Life has gone on pretty much as it always has, but I’ve missed physically seeing and talking to people. I’ve been happily storing stuff that I’ll need for Christmas! We had an early Spring and you could go outside. There was no noise from the motorway, the music of the birds was so special as it wasn’t overwhelmed by the noise of the traffic like it used to be. The motorway was still being built when we moved in. Our house used to be covered in lichen but the years of pollution have destroyed it! COMMUNITY SPIRIT 89

There used to be innumerable shops in the village. We had cobblers, vegetable shops, bookies, butchers, three general stores, a deli, a ladies’ dress shop – everything you needed was within the village. Nowadays, you need to go outside for things. Since lockdown we’ve seen a lot of vans making deliveries from Sainsbury’s and Ocado! We have the second oldest Co-op in the country. It was set up by the villagers so that local people could get a dividend out at the end of the year. We’ve been very forward thinking for a long time! We had a school since the 1680s, so people have always been educated. It’s a good place to live and people are very kind in general. The locals never tell you about other people, they never criticise one another. A lot of people are also connected or related. The bus service is very poor, but that didn’t matter during lockdown. The Co-op and Post Office/general stores were a real lifeline to so many of us during lockdown. The rise of supermarkets caused the shops in the village to close down. Before people only knew how to drive if they were involved in agriculture! Now they think nothing of going into Leamington for a shop. There are still a lot of people who have protected skills. We all really appreciate having a farm in the village. When they are muck spreading and it gets on the roads, I collect it for my roses – but some people don’t like it! In the months past we’ve been locked in by the snow and people would use their 4x4s to dig cars out. You rarely hear about people and their kindness – but it’s there. We bought this old tumble-down cottage and my husband spent his Friday nights going round the pubs recruiting for help on the house. The pubs all closed down in lockdown but they did takeaways. The Harbury News was made available online and people were resourceful enough to make printed copies for older people. Newcomers have an urban view. They see the country as a pleasant place to live but haven’t got the rules yet – they buy big flashy cars, 90 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

they park on the pavements, they go too fast, they let their dogs off leads… we’ll tame them over time. They want their children to have a better life. We’ve got a lovely school; it’s got solar panels on it! We’re still waiting to hear news on the latest new homes project. So, we’re losing our internal green spaces in the village. The few small paddocks that were left formed a green corridor, we used to see deer, foxes and bats, we don’t see them anymore! Things have been truncated. Visitors and new villagers will say how much green space there is, but there used to be so much more. If they built out on the Heath – to the South of the village – it’s poor agricultural land (live clay) and wouldn’t impact the village so much. Cramming into the few remaining spaces within the village envelope is too sad. Many villagers are distressed by it! The green belt round Birmingham stretches into most of the district, so we’ve felt all the development. We fight to keep the trees we’ve got. Some people just don’t like them and want rid of them to make space for development. We lost an important tree on The Pound because people were convinced it was undermining a house. The insurers decided that the tree had to go. We lost a lot of trees in the early ‘80s due to Dutch Elm Disease. We put new trees in and HS2 has ripped through our area! We’re looking to put in wind turbines. We’re not stuck in the mud; we want things that are worthwhile. We just want to keep the village going and to preserve the heritage. When you come from a big city where no one knows you, you don’t care about what people think – but here everyone knows everyone. It’s a very different dynamic. The typical village feeling is one of really looking after one another. Traditionally they used to be big families and that feeling has stuck. We want to keep certain things the same, but to move on in other areas. It’s all about balance, which I think we do well in Harbury. COMMUNITY SPIRIT 91

Ruth Guy and Neville Sheasby Ruth: Zoom has made lockdown so much easier; I’m amazed that I’ve been able to do yoga and dance classes quite happily. I didn’t think that I’d do it, but I have! It’s so much easier but it feels a little anti-social, it does make you wonder if we’ll want to bother travelling to dance class and the like anymore! I’ve only just retired. In January, I was starting to look for things to do, so I started going to yoga and dance which was really handy because since lockdown I’ve had things to do! They transferred to Zoom. It’s been really good fun and it’s got me fitter. The big difference has been getting to know a couple who live nearby, through signing up for the volunteers. I’ve really found that rewarding. I feel like they’ll be in my life forever now. They are absolutely lovely. It’s a real pleasure. They must be in their early 90s. I shop for them once a week and I pick up their paper every day and get prescriptions etc. It’s been a real positive for me, because I’d been working until the end of December so I’d been a bit disengaged with the village for some time – I just hadn’t been here, so that was a nice way to feel back in the village, getting to know new people. So, people who live 200 yards away and I’d never met them! My Dad is exactly the same age (he’s 93) and my Mum has the same name as the lady who I volunteer for… there are a couple of other coincidences such as we both have a son with the same name. So, it made me warm to them. As I couldn’t help my Dad and I miss him terribly, it felt like at least if I were looking after them then I hoped that someone might do the same in his local area. So, it was using up that energy when I missed my Dad. I imagine this will be the same for everyone that you talk to… but I’ve done more walking and found more local walks. My husband and I had a bit of a routine. We’d do a cycle ride on a Monday and a walk on a Friday. We tried to arrange things in the week that we didn’t have to think about. We wouldn’t always feel like it, but because it was part of our routine we did it and then felt a lot better for making the effort. Creating that structure helped. 92 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

Because I recently retired I don’t usually spend much time in the village, so I had a whole different perspective. Suddenly, I was retired and it was lockdown. I used to work at Coventry University, as a careers consultant supporting students in the Arts and Humanities faculty. Working in the city and getting back at 6 in the evening meant I wasn’t around. I’ve had time to take up hobbies, but I don’t think that’s a lockdown thing… I think it’s a retired thing. I like how life got simpler on a personal level, there was less to worry about. I enjoyed not planning stuff. As much as I love family and friends, it always seems to be me who ends up doing the planning and the organising, so it’s really quite nice not to worry about that. It’s been very sad for other people though. We felt quite guilty that we were enjoying it. It wasn’t a hardship for us. My Dad was my main worry. Trying to keep him cheerful and focused. My daughter lives in Daventry with her fiancé who has to shield. Their wedding was supposed to be this coming Saturday, so we’ve been worrying about that. She came to stay with us for the first five weeks of lockdown, because she was still working for a dentist and was worried that it would be difficult for her fiancé. That was difficult for her. They are actually getting married tomorrow; they are doing their legal ceremony then the wedding celebrations will all be next year. Luckily, myself and my husband can attend the legal ceremony as they are allowed two witnesses. It’s been stressful, trying to help them through that. I’m sure a lot of people say this… but local deliveries have been great. There were local deliveries of bread from the beginning, which I thought was very enterprising and lovely. They were prepared to drop it on the doorstep on a Saturday morning. I enjoyed taking that up, and you feel like you get to know people better when you’re part of that sort of thing. Someone local was advertising eggs, so I still go up to her to get eggs rather than buying them from the supermarket. I’ve done loads more baking (haven’t we all!) It was something I could do for my Dad and my daughter and her fiancé. I could make them a nice homemade cake or some scones, it was just something that I could COMMUNITY SPIRIT 93

do. Through baking I could show that I cared. I started visiting my Dad eventually, but obviously we had to sit in the garden at a distance and drop things on the doorstep for him. More recently, he became part of our bubble. It just devastated me when he said, “I suppose one day, we’ll have a hug!” It broke my heart. My Mum only died two years ago. After 62 years of married life, he is still coming to terms with that. They’ve only ever lived in the house he lives in now. Watching him trying to cope without Mum, then being on his own… he never uses the word lonely; he says bored but I know he is. He’s far too independent to say that he is lonely. We had our first hug in a Sainsbury’s carpark when we were finally allowed to when he became part of our bubble. I hugged him for so long. He sent me a little message afterwards on WhatsApp. It’s been really tough seeing it through his eyes. We’ve been trying to encourage him to go back to his painting, we’ve done family Zooms every Saturday to give him something to get involved with. In addition to the yoga and dance, I’m one of the musicians in Harbury. The Harbury Folk Club would meet once a month, from that we’d get various offshoots such as the choir and orchestra. We’re all friends who love music. The choir has been going for 30 years. The Folk Club has been going even longer. In various ways, I’ve got involved with the music which has added an extra dimension. The choir did a project where we all sang our bit and sent it in to get edited together. Really hard to do, but we did it! The guy who used to be an organist at church left to go to another church. He was in touch with several of us who sing and play music. He was putting together a recording of the beautiful hymn Love Divine, so I ended up playing my cello and singing on that. It was lovely seeing the final piece with the guy who used to be the vicar here, and several other villagers. It was really lovely. There are so hard to do, and not at all enjoyable to record but when you see the results you are so glad that you did it. I also play cello in an orchestra in Leamington. A few weeks into the Thursday clapping, someone on Facebook was encouraging people to 94 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

play Somewhere over The Rainbow. So, for a couple of weeks I joined with other musicians, we went to a couple of different places in the village and played – I played my accordion. So that was really nice. After that, for several weeks I did the same in my area with musicians from round here. It just added another dimension to it all. I remember the first time I was able to invite some girlfriends over to my garden. We’d had a Zoom get together. We all have birthdays in May, there are four of us and we decided to have a slice of cake and a drink over Zoom. Then when restrictions eased a little we were able to meet in my garden and that felt like something very special. We’ve carried that on a bit which has been really nice. I’ve had a positive time personally, but it’s been difficult because I’ve been caring about others and that overshadows it. It’s been ok for me because of my situation. Work and money aren’t a worry for me because I’m retired. I feel very fortunate. My heart goes out to anyone else who doesn’t have that security right now. It’s just heart-breaking seeing these jobs go and worrying that my new son-in-law can’t work right now and doesn’t have any income. It’s just heart-breaking. It’s really hard for the younger generation. You have to look after yourself if you want to look after other people. You have to keep yourself well, to have the energy to drive over to Dad, to pick up prescriptions for my daughter and take their dog to the vets because they can’t leave the house. It’s all those sorts of things. I’m just overjoyed that we’re able to do that and can help other people. There is such a small window between retiring and being over 70 and being advised to shield. There are people who are just as fit and healthy as me who are having to stay at home – it’s driving them crazy! It’s really tough on them. *** Neville: My involvement in the library is an essential part. I like being useful, helping people and offering advice. The way things are at the moment – it’s difficult to do this. I’m also involved with the Heritage COMMUNITY SPIRIT 95

Centre. At the moment I’m in the process of digitising the census from the 1800s… and we’re doing a treasure hunt for the children. Neville: I’ve been getting very domesticated. I’ve been getting very good at doing my housework. I’ve been going out for walks each day. Sometimes, even twice a day. I’ve been catching up on reading. Having food deliveries. I’ve been quite happy. You can’t see people, so you get a little tight and wound up. It’s very hard. I’m used to volunteering for the library and being around people all the time. So, it’s been hard. In fact, it was a relief when we were allowed to go and visit pubs. It was nice to see my group of friends. We tend to meet up on a Friday night, so it was good to do that again with sensible social distancing. It was good to be able to talk. Other than that, I have been ringing people to see how they are – but it’s not the same. Saying hello to people when out on a walk has been nice. Before, you’d be out on a walk and no one would say a thing, they’d just walk by you. I’m part of the original village. A lot of the older villagers can be quite funny about how they interact with people as they are still part of that mindset. They can be funny about newbies and the like, not wanting to mix. I’ve lived here for 68 years, my whole life. The Heritage Centre isn’t open yet, but we’re doing things. We have socially distanced committee meetings. Until we can get the go ahead we won’t be able to open the centre on the school site. I can’t wait to go back to the library. The café is open outside for takeaways, they can’t open the building. It’s open for 2 hours on a Monday morning, and 2 hours on a Thursday afternoon with sanitisation in place. You can enter wearing masks. All of the Harbury collection is in one aisle and everything else is cordoned off. The library is operating a Click & Collect system of books that belong to us and not the County Council, so we can issue them. Returned books are left for three days to keep things germ free. Ruth: It’s a lovely library and the café is great too. Neville: Oh it is! I’ve been on the library committee for several years 96 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

now, so I’m responsible for petty cash for the library. I’m also responsible for ordering library stationery supplies. It was a joy when we were able to form bubbles. I live on my own. I lost my Mum last year, she was 95. She’d been in the village over 60 years. She originally came from Chesterton. My father was a Harbury lad anyway. I have seen so much change. Especially where I live. There were two fields opposite, and it’s now houses. I went to the school where the library is now. It was built in 1856 by Reverend White. I schooled there and now I help out at the library. I worked for 40 years for the local authority. Most of the time at North Leamington school operating the switchboard. Lockdown has changed people’s habits. They will speak to you now. Ruth: I’m surprised you say that Neville! Because I always find that people say hello. In Leamington it feels very different but in Harbury, I’m sure people said hello before lockdown. Neville: Sometimes they don’t respond. People are responding more than they used to. Ruth: Maybe because we have to keep our distance now people are saying hello and smiling to try and explain the reason why you’ve crossed the road. It’s to make up for that embarrassment! There has also been that feeling of we’re all in this together. People have definitely been more openly friendly and warm and chatty – I agree with you Neville. Neville: I think it’s brought the community together to a certain extent. I felt supported, I was fine. I looked after myself and was given what I needed. There is a strong volunteer network around here. When we can get back to normal it’ll be interesting to see how many of people will want to continue to volunteer. Ruth: A lot of volunteers in charity shops are over 70 in Leamington, so they’ve been struggling to find enough volunteers. Neville: We’re having to think about it seriously with the heritage group too. Myself and the chairman are the two youngest! We’re COMMUNITY SPIRIT 97

trying to encourage more people to join and become involved, but we’ll have to see what happens. I’d feel positive about the time ahead if the youngsters would be sensible. They just aren’t! Ruth: I agree with you, Neville! Neville: They are the ones that are indestructible. They are taking risks. Teenagers are gathering together. It says a lot if they are doing that! *** Ruth: I think that any lockdown in future would be local, so we’d probably not be affected. It’s a small population. It’s more of a concern for the cities and densely populated areas. So, it’s not going to be quite the same again. People’s incomes may have been affected already. They may have lost jobs by now. That could have a knock-on effect in terms of what people need in the village. Because we’ve been at home more, but we did remember to take our stuff down to the food bank every Monday for the e-cars. There was a volunteer in the carpark on Monday mornings for two hours and you’d take down groceries. They would load up the electric car and ship it off to the centre. Poor Bob who runs it had to stop doing things for a while, because he’s the wrong generation. It must have been so hard for him! It’s such a good service They take people to appointments, it’s wonderful but a lot of those drivers are over 70 so we’ll have to see what happens. Neville: It’s mostly older people here, but maybe this isn’t the case in the new houses. That’s often where people from Jaguar Land Rover live, but they tend to be on short term contracts so they might not settle here. Ruth: Another thing to mention is that the pubs have been brilliant at doing deliveries and takeaways. My Dad would have loved that, but no one in his community is doing it at all. We not only get deliveries, but the two main pubs clearly arranged to avoid clashing their hours. 98 COMMUNITY SPIRIT

One of the pubs, I’m sure everyone would agree, does better quality of food and would survive a lockdown. The other might struggle a bit. That’s just my feeling. They arranged it so that when one was open the other one wasn’t. One could have got rid of the other one, but they haven’t. That’s just my perception. Neville: There were seven pubs at one stage! Ruth: There were five very busy pubs when we moved here. Neville: There aren’t many small businesses. We do have an independent chemist. Ruth: I imagine all the prescriptions keep them going to some extent. I want to really support the local economy. Neville: I do too. Ruth: I think a lot of us think like that now, which might be a positive change that will stick! There is a new business at the farm, where you can go and buy proper milk fresh from the cow. It’s a new venture that has just sprung up. Good luck to them! It looks like they are getting the support. We’ve picked up a lot from social media, working out who does deliveries and about little baking businesses etc. There is a guy who does a pop-up street food thing up in the new areas, and he donates a lot to the food bank too. People really like to support him. The local Facebook pages have been really useful in helping us to find things out and keep them in our minds. Obviously, not everyone has access to this. But it reminds you to get bread from places or go somewhere for eggs. Without technology we wouldn’t be so connected. When it was things like clapping for carers people would put a photograph up and encourage people. It helps to develop the community spirit. Facebook really helps with that for those who are on it. I also made bags and headbands for nurses, someone in Harbury set that up in the early days. We got the instructions. I didn’t do the scrubs COMMUNITY SPIRIT 99

– that was a bit beyond me. I did the simple things. It feels good to be able to help. That was quite a nice feeling. It was someone over the road who provided the pattern, then you dropped them off at the other lady’s house and that was really quite nice. Everyone I have bumped into on walks says “we are so lucky to be here now” that just sums it up really. Neville: Definitely! Ruth: I think all of us know that if something awful happened then people would be there for them. We need new blood and fresh ideas to find new ways of doing things. I think new people coming in are really good for the village. While not getting rid of the important heritage that we’ve got. People’s contributions and memories from people like Neville are so valuable. Neville: I kept in touch with friends usually by phone and messenger to make sure they were ok and I was kept supplied with food by my sister, but it was great to be able to go out every day walking for exercise which I still keep up. I did find it difficult at times not seeing people as I enjoy helping and being with people, the library is the lifeblood of the community and must be kept going. 100 COMMUNITY SPIRIT