Stories of Riverside in the Pandemic: Episode 1: Our Initial Reactions to the Pandemic

As we mark the third anniversary of the COVID lockdown, it seems like a good time to do some reflection on the last three years, and this season of pandemic. As we all know this was like nothing else any of us had ever experienced, but I just want to reflect more locally on Riverside, and draw your attention to the audio archive Doorstep Revolution, a project I was part of putting together as part of Gentle/Radical.

In the first episode we hear about those initial reactions to what was going on in March 2020. I think it is easy to forget how scary it all was at the time. When I listen back to these stories I remember that sense of fear, and just a sense of not knowing what was going on. It was difficult to know how serious it was, how scared you should be. I know I had the Black Death in my mind, when a third... a half?... of Europe's population died. We didn't know it was that, but we also didn't know it wasn't that. We just didn't know how bad it was.

A lot of our residents talk about how quiet it was... "it was spooky.... where's life?" one person said reflecting on the quiet streets. We enjoyed sitting in our back gardens in the sun... those of us who had back gardens. For other people if was a time of reflection. One person said, "it makes you think about what life is all about."

You can listen to Episode 1 of Doorstep Revolution here (Scroll down to "Episode 1") or look through a transcript here.

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