The Coronavid 19 Diaries Pt 1- Waiting for the Wave to Break

And so dear reader fast forward into the past, in the week of 13.3.2020.

Already the streets of London were emptying out surreally. Anybody used to travelling from Brixton Tube in the last few months can attest that on many mornings the crowds have spilled pout onto the pavement, in  some cases snaking back in a long queue past Electric Avenue, so called because it was one of the first local roads to be electrified. A little further down the road Lambeth Council’s offices and the excellent independent Ritzy Cinema- one of the longest running cinemas in the UK dating back to the 1920’s.

And yet, in that week the carriages were empty. Travelling up from Brixton on the Victoria line nobody in the carriages had to stand unless they wanted to keep 2m distance from the next person. As the journeys are usually cheek by jowl by the time that we pass through the city there was something deeply disconcerting. On switching at Highbury and Islington to take the train into Hackney Downs the train was more crowded but almost everyone was keenly aware of where their neighbour was standing.

Then the occasion when the signals failed once again at Highbury and we had to take the No 30 bus. On countless times in the last few months we have found signal failures have shut down the east to west line from Stratford to Richmond. We are used to crowds milling about while we are told the train is minutes away, then watching it whiz by packed to the gills. Shuffling around on the bus, standing slightly closer than you wanted to, a few with facemasks, some with scarves, I wasn’t sure whether I was comforted as we snaked out down the gentrifying Victorian buildings of St Paul’s Road and through to Dalston Lane because it was business as usual, or whether I wanted something different. Distance.

London wasn’t a ghost city yet, but it was ghostifying.

On the Tuesday the local County Court was largely deserted. The bathroom in the robing room, so called from days when the lawyers could get changed into their gowns, now in the past as a ritual in almost all cases, was out of order. The bathroom on the same floor open to the public has running water and soap, but no hot water. Soap and hot water is the sovereign killer of the killer virus. How are we to keep safe?

The lawyers in the robing room are bemused, rebellious, worried. One points out tartly that as the symptom is not an upset stomach there is no excuse for the absence of toilet paper in the supermarket shelves. Another muses that he has been to 5 Courts that week in 5 days and they are a petri dish of infection. He says this as he dries his hands in the bathroom with a hot air dispenser that is presumably blowing micro-organisms all over us.  Others are worried for their livelyhood. They rely on hearings for their wages. Barristers are self- employed and don’t earn if they aren’t working. Solicitors are usually salaried, but worry about the earnings from their firms dropping off a cliff. There is an esprit de corps. We are key workers keeping the justice system working. We will keep on going.

We settle quickly with the case I am there for, and a District Judge who is experience and sympathetic thanks us all for being there. I discern some bemusement on her part that we are present at all. We scuttle off.

By Thursday my blood is boiling. I realise that however convenient it may be to nip in to the office to catch up on paperwork I am surfing a macho ego-trip. I’m proud to stop people being evicted but why are the Courts even allowing this to happen? Surely people shouldn’t have to travel in from all over London, taking a risk of infection, and then if they lose their case face the risk of death? I send off a 5 page letter. The practioners’ networks are buzzing like angry hornets. The emergency legislation hasn’t yet passed.

On Friday I attend the Duty Solicitor’s list because of, well, duty. The solicitor who manages our Legal Aid contract is there too. We are both grey with stress. She has been continuously lobbying all involved up to and including the Ministry of Justice.  People are sympathetic but nothing has formally changed.

I talk to Tim the security guard having a fag. He tells me that if the Courts close he doesn’t know what he will do. The security staff don’t have proper contracts so if the Court shuts he doesn’t know whether he will have any more work. Maybe he can get work at a supermarket. He lives alone, so if he gets sick he doesn’t know how he will manage to shop.  He gives me a pair of rubber gloves from his own supply.

I talk to Shirley the usher. She says she’s in a goldfish-bowl, lawyers come over to look at her list, hovering inches away, how is she to stay safe?

I have only one case (the lists have a dozen or so usually). The tenant is in horrible rent arrears. It is impossible to do what I usually do and try to analyse the underlying benefits problems. I tell the experienced and sympathetic District Judge she should adjourn the hearing on public health grounds. I fail. The Judge tells me there are no exceptional circumstances since, everybody at Court that day being under a similar risk of death (as I put it) there is nothing that makes my case stand out. We all swallow out tongues at this sophistry. It is a triumph for property rights over people's lives. I ask for leave to appeal and am refused. I lose my case. I feel angry for the Judge that she hasn’t been given clear instructions to make people safe. The hearing takes 4 hours. We all share each other’s germs.

On the way back home I keep 2m away from the person in front of me on the Tube escalator and hope the person behind me is doing the same. Meanwhile the people on the walking side of the escalator keep on descending past me 6 inches away reading their mobile phones making it all pointless.

On Saturday there are still no loo roles in the supermarket. All the flour has disappeared although evidence shows that in a usual week there is plenty because, let’s face it, almost none of you out there bake anymore. No eggs for love nor money.

In that week London was asleep yet awake. We didn’t know quite what we were doing. We all kept trying to keep carrying on. Yet it wasn’t clear why a cleaner or builder on the No 30 bus should have to keep on working, and why supposed key workers like myself were still going on.

If we are to survive this we shall need to treat each other with peace, love and respect. The things that didn’t work already will need to be fixed if we are to make the things that are newly broken work again.

As to the person who keeps buying 48 loo rolls, please stop it. As to the person who has suddenly taken up home baking. I look to tasting those delicious cookies when things are better.