This has been a remarkable series, triggered by the lockdown jottings from Toronto of Bill Taylor. Bill and I worked on different local newspapers at their district offices in Bishop Auckland, County Durham. We'd both been lazy, low achievers at school and were probably fortunate to scrape into journalism. But I knew from early in Bill's career that he was an exceptional writer with sharp powers of observation.
Pete Sixsmith was much more driven and conscientious at school and, later, college. He became an outstanding teacher by all accounts (including my own, after he persuaded me to talk to his class about the media), rising to head of history in Ferryhill. He also applied much patience and, doubtless, ingenuity in dealing one-to-one with the more challenging pupils. Pete is also a writer of rare talent; the wit, wisdom and eloquence of his prose turned my site for supporters of Sunderland AFC, salutsunderland.com (it's become something else under recent new ownership), into a beacon of great football writing.
I was delighted when Pete agreed to contribute to the series from our home town of Shildon. Please read on. You won't regret it. In a just world, his words and those of Bill's on the current global crisis would be seen by many thousands, not a few hundred ...
SMALL TOWN VIEW
I live in a small house in a small town in a (relatively) small and enclosed part of England.
There have been cases of COVID-19 in the lands betwixt Tweed and Tees but the virus has not had a huge impact on the region yet. However, the fear of it has.
My house is a two up, two down former colliery house, built in 1912. I own it, lock, stock and barrel; the mortgage was paid of when I retired.
It’s a pleasant house, not overlooked to front or back and on what used to be the main road from Darlington to Bishop Auckland. Despite a by-pass being built a number of years ago, it’s still a busy road.
It’s on the edge of Shildon, a small post-industrial town, once well known for its railway works, where freight wagons were made for British Railways and for railway companies all over the world. I once woke up on a train in Zagreb, looked out of the window and saw the Shildon plate on a Yugoslav wagon.My chest swelled with pride.
Since the railway works closed in 1984, the town has steeply declined.
No. Mallard was not built at Shildon. But this mighty railway beast did pay a visit when the town's offshoot of the National Railway Museum of York staged the Great Gathering of 'streaks' in 2014
Young people with any hopes and ambitions left, property prices slumped and private landlords have bought much of the old housing stock.
The North East is a relatively insular area, far removed from the cosmopolitan feel of Colin Randall’s London or Bill Taylor’s Toronto.
It feels left out – sometimes wrongly- and administered a huge kicking to the Labour Party at the last election, with my constituency of Bishop Auckland returning a Conservative MP for the first time ever.
Neighbouring areas did the same. The old order has changed and with a resounding bang.
The bang has got louder with the arrival of COVID-19.
Lives have changed. Live is quieter, slower and far, far more fearful than it was in January when news of the virus began to filter through from Wuhan.
There were lame jokes about bats and pangolins (never before mentioned in the Royal George or Elm Road WMC) and the less mature opted not to get their daily takeaway from the Chinese fast food shops that inhabit the once thriving Church Street.
Then it arrived in Italy, where pangolin and bat pie is rarely, if ever, on the menu and the mood began to change. Government advice was to stay in if you could while for over 70s it was suggested that it should be compulsory.
The early mood was one of defiance. I was on a bus from Bishop Auckland to home the day after the advice was proffered. The obligatory drunk made it clear that nothing would come between him and his daily occupation of the local Wetherspoons and a group of elderly women said that it was unthinkable that they miss out on their afternoon bingo sessions and their perusal of the produce in Asda and/or Morrisons.
Since then, it’s all changed. We are in lockdown. Work places have closed. Deaths have occurred. The sheer scale of the pandemic has stamped on that defiance and left it curled up in the gutter. We are frightened.
I see this on a daily basis. For the last five years, I have delivered newspapers for the local shop.
There’s a symmetry to it. I got my first job there in 1965 when Colin passed his Sunday paper round on to me.
And now, it’s my last regular job, albeit under a different proprietor, although I do deliver the Northern Echo to the man who had the shop 55 years ago. Now, that’s what I call symmetry.
The shop is quieter as people on their way to work aren’t. The schools are closed so the red blazered hordes from St John’s no longer buy their bags of sweets, chocolate bars or copies of Tit-Bits or Reveille.
The roads are very quiet. I usually see those working the day shift dashing along to the factories at West Auckland, followed a little later by those returning home from the night shift. Not now I don’t.
Shildon Tunnel. A monument to the town's industrial past - and part of the inspiration for this Salut! North piece by Bill Taylor
The lady who passes me at the Cemetery most mornings in her Fiat 500, taking her children to breakfast club, has disappeared, The St John’s mini bus has not been seen all week. The man who waves from his pick up truck has vanished. And the road is deathly quiet.
The two early morning buses have been withdrawn and the service has been reduced from two and hour to one. I imagine that will be reduced even further as buses passing my house rarely have anybody on them.
The train that trundles from Saltburn to Bishop Auckland is still running its hourly service but passenger numbers have been slashed.
Last week the round was a pleasure to do. The days were bright and clear and I was able to walk home via the fields and along the ridge which gives me stunning views across to Weardale and Teesdale and sets me up for the day.
And there’s the problem…..
There’s nothing to do.
I like a coffee in the local Costa. It’s closed.
I enjoy an afternoon at the cinema. They’re closed.
I might go out for a walk and have lunch in a café. The walks ok; the café’s closed.
I sometimes pop out for a pint. The pubs are closed.
I like to use my bus pass. The buses have been slashed and there’s no point in going anywhere. Everywhere is closed.
A couple of nights a week, I go to football. The season is over. At weekends I watch Sunderland. Not now I don’t.
I like going to a Rugby League game on Sunday. See previous answer.
The whole fabric of my life is on hold – and who knows for how long.
The Government directions are being followed.
On Friday, in the queue at Sainsbury’s, we all kept a respectful distance from the person in front as we waited to be filtered in.
Customers inside were respectful of each other’s space and there was none of the grabbing and snatching that we saw in the early days of panic buying.
The shelves were quite full, although the beer and wine areas were almost stripped naked.
The two metres apart even extended to the methadone users outside a local pharmacy, where they waited patiently outside while the one out one in rule was invoked. I was impressed.
The problem is, how long can this self-discipline last? There are stories of pubs surreptitiously opening although I suspect that many of these are groundless rumours put around by malicious tell tales.
Dogs are looking exhausted after being loaned out to numerous neighbours who use them as a reason for temporarily relieving their Johnsonian imposed exile.
Vets are going to be busy people…
So, at the moment, the line is holding.
There is genuine fear. I saw it in the eyes and faces of some shoppers in the supermarket and I have heard it expressed by customers in the shop.
Then there are others who don’t believe it’s as bad as it is and are convinced that it’s a plan by the government to steal their savings. Hmmmm ...
We go into Week 2 of the Great Lockdown apprehensive of what the start of weeks three and four and five will bring. Once people in the region start dying from it, minds will be concentrated, mine included.
I don’t want this illness to finish me off, mostly because of the fact that the last Sunderland game I saw was an abject 2-0 defeat at Bristol Rovers.
If it does then whichever set of gates I arrive at, be they the pearly ones or the ones of Hades, someone is going to get an almighty earful for taking me before I had the chance to work that out of my system.
In the meantime, we try to stay as safe and sane as we can. It could be difficult.
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