Being Human

“We’ll always have Paris.”

A timeless line from a classic film, Casabalanca. Made in 1942 and released during the Second World War, I find myself thinking of my grandparents, going to the ‘Pictures’ to watch it back when nobody had TVs. They would have been in their early twenties, making do during life in wartime Manchester. 

This year I have found myself thinking of them more than ever. I wonder what they would make of the chaos currently reaching fever pitch in The UK; how they would be responding to Boris-Village-Idiot-Johnson’s erratic whims. As the pandemic grinds on and we succumb to fatigue, I remind myself to think of the hardships and emotional anguish that those generations suffered during the war. Living through this pandemic, it is easy to draw parallels with the World Wars. The uncertainty; the disruption of daily life; the border closures and inconvenience surrounding travel and movement. However, there are vast differences too.

For one, my grandparents’ generation endured rationing; shortages; air raids; not to mention the knowledge that death could happen at any moment. Saying toodlepip to a loved one as they popped out to the shop could very well be the last time you saw them alive, should bombs happen to fall in the interim. During the Wars there was a very real, definite enemy. People united to fight off the threat of invasion and occupation. During this pandemic, it all feels rather abstract. People are very literally divided; into tiers/regions and even their households. This is the greatest difference and what makes current daily life so different to life in wartime Britain: the isolation.

During the war there was undoubtedly stress, fear and trauma, but at least people had each other. They could pop to their neighbour’s or their parents’ house for a cup or tea, or simply a chat if there was no tea left. They could have a moan, a cry, a hug, a laugh; share their worries and support each other. We cannot. We have been told that visiting our loved ones puts them at risk. We have been told not to hug or touch or even sit next to each other. We have been separated from our loved ones and prohibited from behaving like human beings for almost a year now. I am not sure how much longer humans can tolerate this. 

Yes, Coronavirus is a strain on the health service. But what about people’s mental health? Their livelihoods? The long-term consequences of lockdowns and continued isolation will be far further reaching and dire than the short-term threat of contagion. Depression, anxiety, eating disorders, self-harm and OCD (to name a few) cannot be prevented nor cured with a vaccine. These are just as real as Coronavirus, and on the increase since the start of the pandemic.

So, while a wartime Christmas would have been a lean feast, unless people were away in the forces, at least they would have been able to share the joy of simply being together for the festive season. Separation from loved ones living nearby was not something my grandparents would ever have had to endure.