Telling It Like It Is

Telling It Like It Is ‘Please stop clicking and use local shops!’

By David Hollister

WELL, here we go into another autumn/winter – the leaves and apples are falling from the trees, and spring seems a long time away. Probably because it is!

As I get older, the need to work on my garden doesn’t diminish, just the energy and enthusiasm for going outside getting wet and cold.

I see that the Covid-19 statistics seem to show a local increase in ‘cases’, but I find myself asking, “How do they know”? The government has stopped issuing free test kits, and indeed actually finding test kits has been problematic.

Has the government stopped caring? Or have they been too busy examining their own navels and stopped pretending that there is anything that they or we can do about Covid, or indeed that they really care?

Do they still collect data, or is it now all algorithms and figures taken from the clock on the wall?

The leading symptoms of Covid-19 seem to be a sore throat, severe headaches, lethargy and maybe a blocked or runny nose – symptoms which in the past we would have written off as just another cold or dose of flu.

It was suggested to me that “you only have Covid if you test for it – otherwise it really is just a cold”. Hmmm.

Have you noticed that only a tiny minority of people now wear masks in shops, public places, restaurants etc? Only in the doctor’s surgery and at the vaccination centre and the airport have I been obliged to don my mask and I have done so willingly and gratefully.

So what happened to masks? I never did understand that I needed to wear a mask to walk into a restaurant but was able to remove it as soon as I sat down. I’m sure the virus is just as virulent at table height as at standing height!

So I had both my jabs and my booster and tried to be sensible and responsible. And then I caught Covid-19. I don’t know where or from whom.

I woke up one morning feeling unwell, took a test, proved positive and spent a week with a throat so sore that I was unable to speak – even down a microphone – followed by a week ‘working from home’ with lots to do and no enthusiasm to do it. Isn’t daytime TV awful!

Thankfully, after two weeks I tested clear and resumed the rest of my life, grateful I didn’t develop ‘long covid’, as a few of my friends did. So I’m not writing off the dangers of Covid, just questioning the way the government dealt with it.

“Track and Trace”... Think of the number of hospitals that the £37 billion spent on that could have built, or the number of nurses and doctors that could have been trained and employed. Think of all the other money handed out to companies and cronies for inappropriate or even non-existent PPE. Coupled with the ban on wedding celebrations and – worst of all – on relatives being prevented from attending the bedsides of dying relatives.

So many sad stories. The tiny black-dressed figure of the Queen, attending the funeral of the only man she had ever loved, with no children or relatives sitting there to comfort her, coincidentally on the same day that parties were being held at Number 10. So many of my own friends passed away during ‘lockdown’ with no funeral or remembrance services.

The best thing that can be said about lockdown is that it not only brought us clean air and clear skies for a while, it also made many of us change our working patterns for ever.

Yes, I worked at home as an accountant and columnist, but never thought I could do my radio show there. Yet ‘Home Alone’ ran for more than six months!

Our son used to travel into Canary Wharf five days a week. Now, thanks to high-speed broadband and four screens in his home office, he has saved £5000pa for that awful hour’s tube journey at each end of a difficult day and only goes in once a week. And consequently he can spend those two hours each day with his family.

Yes, we as a family have been amazingly lucky. And I do appreciate many of my readers have not been so lucky and have suffered dreadfully from both the disease and the restrictions. My heart goes out to them all.

Meanwhile, I was disappointed to read that ‘roadworks go on despite safety fears’, referring to Wessex Water’s inappropriate closure of the B3351 Studland to Corfe Road at exactly the same time the ferry was away for its planned annual refit.

It is disappointing the county council either didn’t realise the importance of this closure or was unable to stop Wessex Water from going ahead.

To the Wessex Water spokesman who said “everything possible has been done to minimise the impact to the community” and quoted advice from the county council that “work has been planned to take place away from the busy holiday season” and who studiously ignored the repeated pleas of Studland Parish Council to think again: YOU DISGUST ME.

We have all had so many good things come out of this summer: the successful carnival in Swanage; Wareham’s success in the South and South East In Bloom competition; and so many other good things many of which have been featured in this excellent magazine.

Here at Harmans Cross we had the busiest fete ever; congratulations to the new organisers who totally tore up the records and brought in an amazing £12,000 towards the village hall funds (the village hall is a registered charity and depends on its annual fete and general letting income to meet all its overheads and keep the buildings in good order).

We were also able to make a donation to “WillDoes”.

Believing the summer had not only brought in hordes of tourists but also lashings of money, I was disappointed to learn from a recent radio guest – CEO of one of our major tourist attractions – that many Swanage businesses were significantly down, either as a result of the after-effects of Covid-19 or as a result of fear of the oncoming recession.

So now more than ever I say to you, dear reader, please patronise our local shops. Stop ‘clicking’ and realise that every local business is someone’s baby, someone’s livelihood, and once they’re gone, they’re gone.