7 minute read
tough times
from EM Magazine 2020
by EM Magazine
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YES PLEASE!
Ruth Botha tough times
Lockdown has been a surreal experience that often I think is not real. When Boris announced the lockdown on the 23rd March, I panicked. I suffer from ADHD so I am the queen of overthinking!
The first week I felt very restless like I was in constant flight or fight mode. Some of my friends and family felt the same. I have suffered from anxiety and depression on and off over the years. So I had to put a plan into place and stick by it. This consisted of getting into a routine and keeping busy. I own an online meat business so do some work from home. It is a very small business, so I only used to work part time. But since the lockdown sales have increased a lot which it has thankfully taken up a lot of my time.
My son is fifteen and in year eleven so should be sitting his GCSE examinations. The week before words by Ruth Botha
photography by Ruth Deane 38
lockdown he was unwell so he didn’t get to say goodbye to his friends. They were all looking forward to the prom and now that has been cancelled too. I really feel for him and worry about his future. My son has autism and doesn’t show his emotions much. During lockdown he has coped extremely well.
My best friend has autism and she is the same. In a crisis a lot of autistic people cope well and appear to be quite bulletproof. We have been told he will be getting his predicted grades as a GCSE result. Personally, I don’t think this is fair. My son was going through a difficult time when they were sitting their mocks. He said that he would have tried much harder during the GCSE exams. We had also invested in a tutor to help him through his exams. But now I feel he will never get that chance and his GCSE results will determine if he gets into college. So I have been worrying about that a lot.
I have enjoyed our time together and with my husband who has been off work for the whole of lockdown. He is a self employed carpenter so has not been able to work or get paid during lockdown. Luckily we have always been savers and put money away so have been able to pay our mortgage where I know many people are struggling. It is such a worrying time for everyone. Especially on the mental health side. I know people who have developed anxiety and depression who have never had it before.
Some days can be a real struggle for me and social media definitely plays a big part in that. You start comparing yourself to others. Even getting a little bit envious as people are doing exercise routines, learning new things. As a model my influencer work is a big part of my job. But I haven’t felt like posting on my Instagram. It has taken a huge effort to get dressed up and do my hair and make-up. I really have to be in the right mood and I have felt extremely tired in the afternoon with zero energy. I see other models posting daily and don’t know how they can keep it up. But we are all different.
I do a lot of baking which I find very therapeutic. I bake for neighbours and leave cakes etc on their doorstep. Which they have told me cheers them up. I have also baked cakes and sent to family and friends.
I also make meals once a week for my local ambulance service. Which I really enjoy doing. I donate the meals for free from the business. I have held a raffle on my Facebook page and raised £250 which will go towards the meals I make.
The hardest thing for me is not seeing my parents who live 40 minutes from me. My dad has cancer and finished chemotherapy just before the lockdown. My mum has had cancer and is thankfully all clear now but is still in the vulnerable group as she takes immunosuppressant medication and has other medical conditions. They have to shield until told otherwise. Luckily we have zoom so can still see each other. But it’s been hard not being able to offer emotional support. Especially when you don’t know how long this will go on for. My dad’s cancer isn’t curable, so time is precious. I feel for my sister who lives in London as she can’t go home to see them. My brother has been furloughed from his job so it’s hard for him too.
Will the world ever go back to normal? I don’t know but I am hoping people will come out of this with a lot more compassion and kindness for others.
Stay Safe!
Rosalind Plowright OBE
Ihave always wanted to act! From my earliest days, our house was filled with music, fun and laughter orchestrated by my father, Bob Plowright. He was a full-time shoe shop manager and a part time jazz musician banding on the weekends. As I grew up, he would have me listen to and sing all the standards in my girlish treble. Late one evening, we returning from the Cheltenham Amateur Dramatic’s performance of The Mikado, and I jokingly imitated Katisha’s voice and suddenly this huge operatic sound gushed forth. This caused my father (who had been playing double bass in the orchestra) to almost swerve off the road.
From then on, I was encouraged to use this sound and although Dad wanted me to be the next Ella Fitzgerald my wise mother went out and bought me three records of Joan Sutherland, Renate Tebaldi and the greatest of all, my idol, Maria Callas. It was clear to me that I had an instrument
that might lead me to acting.
The world of Grand Opera is completely different to that of the stage. Acting is one part and very different to the type of acting required by TV, the stage or film. The reason for this is that in a play or movie you can say the words, “I love you” and you need to covey the intensity of the moment in the time it takes you to say it. In opera, we can spend five minutes saying “T’amo” and the music takes you to the very heights of passion and emotion and so the acting has to last that long.
My success in 1979 at the top opera competition at that time, led me to an international career in opera. I performed at pretty well every great Pictured right, the Countess in
Tchaikovsky’s Queen of
Spades Photography by Fritz Curzon. Above left, the old
Baroness in Samuel Barber’s, Vanessa, which won the 2020 BBC
Music Magazine DVD
Award. Photography by Tristram Kenton. Below left, Actress headshot by Ruthie Deane opera house around the world, recorded with the major opera recording companies, performed at Covent Garden with all three tenors and won quite a few awards including a “Larry” back in 1980. Opportunities to perform in straight drama were few and far between and when I did get asked, I was usually too booked to be able to say yes. There were three exceptions to this.
The BBC asked me to play Grace Vosper, an opera diva, in an episode of House of Eliott and Granada TV asked me to play another diva, Hermione Harefield, in their three part mini-series of Jilly Cooper’s The Man who made Husbands Jealous.
In 1999 when I made the difficult
