Jeremy Wagstaff writes: This is Susan, a classmate of mine from primary school. We haven't actually seen each other in nearly a half century, and my last memory of her was in a sack race at my 7th birthday party. Facebook has brought us back together, sort of, but this was the first time we'd actually talked since she got second prize, if I recall, in the egg and spoon race. She now owns, or runs, or both, a company in Manchester, and a cottage with what looked beautiful views somewhere in the countryside far from where we grew up. I wanted to hear from her about what COVID-19 looked like. And, as ever, I learned that this thing affects everyone in different ways.
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Email us at pandemic@cleftstick.com. Life in a Pandemic is produced by Jeremy Wagstaff and Sari Sudarsono for CleftStick.com.
Jeremy Wagstaff writes: This is Susan, a classmate of mine from primary school. We haven't actually seen each other in nearly a half century, and my last memory of her was in a sack race at my 7th birthday party. Facebook has brought us back together, sort of, but this was the first time we'd actually talked since she got second prize, if I recall, in the egg and spoon race. She now owns, or runs, or both, a company in Manchester, and a cottage with what looked beautiful views somewhere in the countryside far from where we grew up. I wanted to hear from her about what COVID-19 looked like. And, as ever, I learned that this thing affects everyone in different ways.
Subscribe and get updates as soon as a new podcast episode goes live in BuzzSprout. We are also on iTunes, Spotify, Google Podcast, and Stitcher.
Email us at pandemic@cleftstick.com. Life in a Pandemic is produced by Jeremy Wagstaff and Sari Sudarsono for CleftStick.com.
Jeremy: 0:00
Hi. My name is Jeremy Wagstaff. You're listening to Living in a Pandemic.
Jeremy: 0:05
It's April 4th 2020. There are 1,090,000 confirmed cases of COVID-19. 38,168 of them in the UK around the world, 58,159 people have died.
Jeremy: 0:22
Hi, Susan.
Susan: 0:24
Hello. How you doing?
Jeremy: 0:25
Doing all right. How are you?
Susan: 0:28
Yeah. Yes.
Jeremy: 0:30
This is Susan, a classmate of mine from primary school. We haven't actually seen each other in nearly half a century and my last memory of her was in a sack race at my 7th birthday party. Facebook has brought us back together. Sort of. But this was the first time we actually talked since she got second prize, if I recall in the egg and spoon race. She now owns or runs or both a company in Manchester and a cottage with what looked like beautiful views somewhere in the countryside, far from where we grew up. I wanted to hear from someone I grew up with what COVID-19 looked like. And as ever, I learned that this thing affects everyone in different ways.
Jeremy: 1:07
Have you basically kind of under lockdown there?
Susan: 1:10
Yeah, well, yes. Just essential journeys and work. So, but not working today. So theoretically, I don't need to go out.
Jeremy: 1:18
Right. So that's a requirement of the moment is that you can go out for if the work is needed, if it's essential?
Susan: 1:24
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, the factory's still going? I mean, you can go and buy groceries. You can go to the pharmacy. And you can go if you're helping other people, you can deliver, you know, shopping to other people. But right now, I don't really need to go out.
Jeremy: 1:40
Right. So factory, this is your own company. Is it?
Susan: 1:44
No. I used to be. I'm no longer a shareholder, we're part of a big group. But we make color and that goes into all sorts of things. So at the minute, it's necessary. Nobody said that very little is unnecessary, I suppose, except for retail. Retail is shut down. Our product goes into newsprint, for example, so all communications are going, and we make product for ink.
Jeremy: 2:15
So it's any kind of color that goes into any product that then...?
Susan: 2:19
Well, yeah. I mean, a lot of it is decorative coatings. But, I mean, it goes into soap. It goes into detergents. It goes into things that people are still making. So yeah, kind of.
Jeremy: 2:30
And so you sold the company to some big kind of multinational?
Susan: 2:33
Well, they were, but they were always a major shareholder. So no, I was only, we did the management buyout, and I was only a small part of it. So the deal was after five years, they'd buy the shares of us, so ... But I'm still there. It changes. It chops and changes, it's interesting. Some things will grind to a halt because India's shut its borders. So the Big Ink supplier that we supply to, want something like 15 tons of blue at the minute. You can't get it because India's stop shipping. So some things involving color. Unsurprising things, paper involves color. White paper involves blue and violet. Yeah. So, you know, there's some things that are gonna become in short supply other than loo rolls at the moment, which are now coming back on the shelves. I was just texting the kids earlier. My niece and my younger son have both started baking. And I'm saying, "Where'd you get flour from?" Because flour hasn't been on the shelves for like three weeks now up here. I mean, fortunately, I don't need to bake because there's only me. But Natalie needs to, because she's got two kids, and she's home so, so, yeah. Whereas I've got, um, stupid, stupid little things. I've got a bowl of flour and ginger sifted out because I was going to make my mom's favorite ginger biscuits. I've got no baking powder and you can't get baking powder either so it's been sat there for a week with me scratching my head going, "Tsk, don't know what to do with it now."
Jeremy: 4:05
But beyond that, you're not feeling, I mean, kind of the UK has been this odd thing, right? Where you've gone through Brexit, which has been this three...
Susan: 4:14
Oh, goodness knows what's going with that. Yeah.
Jeremy: 4:18
And then you've got this government that has finally got a sort of freedom under the table, and then this comes along and there seems to be these odd turns that they've made. And so the sense must be that we're not quite sure where this is going. I mean, originally they were talking about herd immunity, and now they're talking about well, we've just got to do as everybody else is doing, a kind of lock down. So does that kind of the conflicting messages affect people or make kind of people think oh, it was just business as usual?
Susan: 4:45
No, I don't think anybody thinking it's, well, very few people thinking it's business as usual. I think people are quite anxious now and the fact the government have changed tack, that they're doing what all the other European governments seemed to be doing then, I don't think people are overly bothered about it. Think they're more concerned that, you know, the NHS staff may not have the protection they need, and I have to admit, when I see the new hospital in the East End that could have 4,000 beds. 4,000 high-intensity beds really scares you. You can't imagine that many people being so ill, they need ventilators just lined up side by side. That's very, very scary thought. Let's hope it doesn't come to that, but anyway...
Jeremy: 5:35
You have a bit of a kind of technical, academic, scientific background in this, right? I mean this is not completely alien territory to you?
Susan: 5:43
Well, analyzing data and analyzing graphs is what I've done for 30 odd years. Though we don't try to map, whether it's zoology or whether it's finance, or whether it's this medical stuff. You see that the curve is still going up. It's not flattening out. The number of hospital admissions yesterday, you know, the two days running where they were similar. So maybe that's flattening, but two days is very little data. So, you know, there needs to be another 1 to 2 weeks of seeing what happens, to see whether we're really in trouble or whether they've caught it in time. So time, you know, we'll have to carry on. But the fear is Easter weekend. I mean, people, the first two weeks, two weeks ago? Might be three weeks ago now. But I have a holiday home on the East Coast and I went over because I haven't been since Christmas, and I needed to check the place and, which I knew was not dangerous. But, you know, I shouldn't really have been traveling. But, you know, I've got to do, wasn't going to see anybody. Didn't need to stop. Go and check the houses is alright, come back. Decided to walk the dog on the beach, went in the house. Everything was all right. Took Henry down to the beach. And I have never seen so many people in March on Valley Beach in six years. People just did not... And that was the weekend where all the publicity where people were walking in the peaks, and I mean, it was manic. So if that happens this Easter weekend is going to be real trouble. Four days, Four days is a long time. If when people are off work, and whether the weather picks up a little bit, you know, for people to actually be reasonable and stay indoors. So hopefully, you know, there's enough publicity an the police... The police are stopping people, and they are finding people when, you know, if you haven't got a good excuse for being out. So...
Jeremy: 7:37
How does that work? They just kind of give you ah sort of paper?
Susan: 7:39
Yeah. On the stop, they have a fixed penalty and if you don't pay that for the Magistrates then, you know, you went up in court on that. There was some lady traveling from Newcastle to York who refused to give her name and state what she was doing and ended up with £600 fine and court costs. Yeah. I mean, I don't know how much of a deterrent that really is to people. Hopefully.
Jeremy: 8:05
Was this introduced after your visit to the beach? I mean the...
Susan: 8:10
Yes, yes. It was, yeah. Anyway, and I was in such a hurry to get home. I left down my left back door unlocked and I've had the bit to do to sort that out. The next door neighbor's pretty good there. But, yeah. It's a very strange, very strange.
Jeremy: 8:29
Do you think it's because in Europe and America, they're just not being through something like this for years? Whereas in Asia, it is more?
Susan: 8:35
Yeah.
Jeremy: 8:36
Yeah. So is this kind of alien territory for most Brits, and?
Susan: 8:41
Absolutely. It's totally unprecedented. It is totally unprecedented, you know, and with the North American work connections. I mean, they are, you know, New York is, you know, they're there in kind of a bit... All of my colleagues in the group companies are quite panicked by it.
Jeremy: 9:01
What do you think's gonna happen in the U. K.? Your kind of preparing for the worst? Or do you think that people are gonna get it at some point and do the necessary?
Susan: 9:09
I think it's going to go on from weeks and weeks. You know? It's not. This isn't a short term thing. And from running a business and keeping people employed, it's a nightmare prospect of what we might, how we're gonna keep people with incomes. I'm sure, I'm fairly sure most people will get some, you know, there will be herd immunity and a couple of, you know, it's like flu. It's just like the flu, whereins that change every year. You know, they'll come out with the different sort of vaccine in some time, but by which time the virus will have well, have, you know, changed again. So, and you can't cure the common cold, so I don't think they'll really nail this. It'll, you know, will affect an awful lot of people. Hopefully it won't... Well, I don't know. I'm concerned about the elderly and of course, my mom, and, you know, my boys are in London, which is closer to it.
Jeremy: 10:03
Does your mom still live in a Northampton, or?
Susan: 10:05
No, no, no. She lives in Newbury. They moved to Newbury when Jordan, .maybe 40 years ago now. But for me now, that's a four-hour drive from a sister it's a half-hour drive. And she's by herself and okay, she's got friends and people. That phone, and she's got shopping done. But she had a meltdown this week. She had a major, you know, she had a nightmare. Didn't sleep. Woke up. Rang me at, I don't know what time it was, but I never answer the landline here cause it's always people selling things. Then my sister took the call and the stress and the tears and, you know, and then okay, by the time she caught up with the sleep, she was all right again. But we can't go and help.
Jeremy: 10:49
Yeah, yeah.
Susan: 10:51
And that's hard. It's really hard, you know?
Jeremy: 10:54
That must be the worst bit because you can't...
Susan: 10:57
Even if she was living, you know, in the next town, we wouldn't be able to technically be able to travel. So I suppose it's no different from that. Except that if she was ill, or some of the reason then, yeah, that's, that's the problem. A niggle at the back of your mind. But, you know, we are where we are with it. Yes, yes. Because you know, there's not much you can do when someone's upset over the end of the phone and accept, you know, burst into tears yourself..
Jeremy: 11:28
Yeah, it must be quite bewildering to her. I mean, it is she kind of, she called you so she knew what's going on.
Susan: 11:34
Yeah, yeah, yeah. She doesn't have it on all the time. I mean, there's going to be a lot of mental health issues. The colleague at work. Her mom's been at home for a number of weeks now because her husband is quite poorly. So they're on this 12 weeks shut down. Well, theoretically, except she went to Tesco's pharmacy for some drugs, and Francine said she shouldn't have gone. But she felt anxious. She hadn't been after the house for so long that she actually felt totally anxious being outside and in a shop. That it was, it was really uncomfortable. So she literally just picked the drugs up and came straight home feeling really not herself.
Jeremy: 12:10
So agrophobia, I suppose. Would it? Yeah, it kind of makes you understand.
Susan: 12:16
You know, I think there's going to be a lot of that. You know, there's there's some good things that's gonna come out of it. I've worked for 25 years with a homelessness charity and the government are doing everything they can right this minute to get the street, homeless people housed. And if that's the result that comes out of it, then wow, that will be absolutely amazing. I mean, it's not proving very easy at the minute because, of course, we've got front line workers who really should be not having contact, trying to help people and arranging tendencies and finding places coz you need to go and view a property, arrang with the landlord to take you on, and then how's that vulnerable person there. So of course, in lock down, that's damn difficult. But there's a lot of that going on, and there's an awful lot of really good work being done across the country by lots of organizations for that, which is, which is amazing, absolutely amazing. They stay housed at the end of it.
Jeremy: 13:15
Yeah, no, that's that's great to hear. It does. I think it's kind of caused a sea change, a temporary one. But presumably it's gonna have longer effect where people kind of realize that there's just some things that aren't really acceptable, having people kind of living rough on the streets.
Susan: 13:29
Work in the gallery was interesting. I think there's a number of people being housed at Heathrow at the moment. And, you know, these guys were saying, "Well, all the retail outlets shut." So, he would have gone to a gym for a shower. He would have gone to a department store to use the bathroom and all these places closed. So, where do the street homeless go? You know, some people can't be helped, and some people are tons of other issues, but you know. So hopefully that will be a positive thing that comes out of this, you know. As is the community help, I mean, I mean, it is amazing, you know. I've had a note through the door from local people saying, "You know, if you get stuck, ring this number will come and do your shopping for you." You know, and the number of people contacts. I mean, I just moved house. I've left quite a lovely next door neighbour. That elderly guy who is really should be staying indoors. But, you know, he's too busy running around doing the shopping for other people. Blessing. But yes, that sound all right, so, you know, being, you know, keeping in contact and doing that, all of that stuff that's really good stuff going on.
Jeremy: 14:38
Yeah.
Susan: 14:39
And I suppose it's what people do to take their minds off, you know, potentially what might happen if they don't get ill.
Jeremy: 14:46
Yeah. No, that's that's nice to hear. I mean, I guess you know I'm still a Brit and I think like a Brit, but I don't know, you know, the British mind might have moved on, and it seems to be this, when people ask me how British people are going to respond to this is very hard for me to say. Of course, there's no it's hard to generalize anyway. But...
Susan: 15:04
No, they're digging in and helping people. I mean, the number of volunteers. When NHS put out, you know, we need volunteers, we need, I don't know what they said, a 100,000? Like 400,000 people volunteered. You know, to do things like man phone lines. And you know, the first thing my sister said, you know, the calling for volunteers, what can I do? So, yeah, I think there's an awful lot of people that, you know, that is the Brit reaction really.
Jeremy: 15:32
Right.
Susan: 15:33
You know, it hasn't come away.
Jeremy: 15:36
Right. Now, that's good. That's good to hear. So what happens to you and the factory and stuff now? I mean, you're just gonna keep skeleton crew running and hope that you're getting the raw materials and to be able to continue to?
Susan: 15:47
Yeah, I mean, that's the factories in the group across the world. That's the issue at the minute. There are delivery issues because now where deliveries are taking longer because they would man, you know, two drivers and they would swap. For now, there's only one driver per lorry for safety. So you know, physical movement of goods are taking longer. As I say, that the issue is a lot of our pigment they're raw material, that the power color comes from India and China, while India's locked down now. So we're restricted to whatever is in the supply chain. China will start up again with a bit of luck, so that's good. But we don't get our factory, particularly most of it's from India. We do have inventory, so we'll see. But you know, a lot of the demand is just coming back. You know, we had a very quiet period for six months last year. We lost the piece of business and it's all starting to come back, so we're busier than we've been for six months, which is really weird, you know. Unless and very macabre things, for example, one of our reds goes into body bags. So long as the demand for, you know, with increased deaths, is not a very big volume. But there's all lots of stuff, very, not particularly nice. I mean, there will be a demand for people who make the color for the scrubs for the blue and the green medical gowns that we used to supply that quite a number of years ago. So there's, you'd be amazed how much industry still really, really required in these times. A pair of companies, pigments go into a lot of plastics. Well, okay. You know, masks air clear without color. But there's all sorts of other pieces of equipment that currently have specified and they're colored. So it's just strange, really.
Jeremy: 17:36
Right.
Susan: 17:37
You wouldn't expect us to be required.
Jeremy: 17:40
No, but that's good. And good. Good news for your workers, right? That they don't have to follow....
Susan: 17:44
Well, yeah. Yes. I mean, we're doing a lot of this with this mighty project that I'm on. And it's really hard work over the Internet. You know, meetings are hard at work. We're trying on this step with my charity, you know, our first attempt, you know, a collaborative meeting. You know, it's difficult to chair because you can't see the cues from people that somebody was wanting to speak. People can over talk other people, you know, if they're more dominant. You know it's, and the team of people were more productive when we do and do, come and do a block of two weeks together rather than, I mean, every afternoon, I mean, I am basically on calls with North America from like, one o'clock through till seven o'clock in the evening. And it's draining. It's really draining.
Jeremy: 18:31
Yeah, yeah, no, that's that's that is a good point. I think we're either going to get better at this or or it's going to were it's at, we're gonna be quite antisocial.
Susan: 18:43
There's periods of anxiety that's, you know, hit me on the whole thing from time to time. It might be interesting to understand why some people still are traveling to work because, you know, if you don't make some color, then that's fine. When you want to paint the house later on, you won't have that. But right now, color goes into medical gowns. It goes into, you know, some Mormon medical equipment that we don't need to tell everybody. Uh, you know. But so powder, if you want to carry on buying, you know, things to clean the world with, you gotta have these sorts of things, haven't you?
Jeremy: 19:17
That's Susan from her home in Lincolnshire, recorded on April 4th. I had no idea that color was an industry and profession in its own right, and it makes you realize, where do you draw the line when it comes to vital industries? And how do you comfort family under lock down when they're nearby, but not in the same house? We'll get Susan for another call in another week or two's time.
Jeremy: 19:37
If you have questions for any of the people I've spoken to or for me or comments, you can reach me at Pandemic@cleftstick.com.
Jeremy: 19:46
You've been listening to life in a pandemic produced by myself, Jeremy Wagstaff and Sari Sudarsono. If you're not already doing so, please subscribe, so you catch future episodes and find old ones. And if you like it enough, make your feelings known on iTunes or whatever service you're listening to this on. If you'd like to comment or participate, please drop us a line at pandemic@cleftstick.com. My name is Jeremy Wagstaff. Goodbye for now and stay well wherever you are.