Helping each other. Does that still exist?
All for one and one for all! Anyone remember that saying? It seems in today's atmosphere of fear and anger, that saying has been left by the wayside and became more like, all for me and no one else!
As we head into unknown times and uncertainty rules society fears grow at lack of information or false media reports. Yes, I’m talking about the coronavirus, the tiny terror that’s strangling entire countries and bringing them to a standstill. People have acted out of fear and greed in the last few weeks. Vulnerable people are left by the wayside and this causes more harm. I’m okay, who cares about anyone else, has become the mentality of the last few weeks.
I’ll share a story that happened to me Friday. I tend to do monthly shops, being disabled I find weekly shops wearying and quite frankly overwhelming. However Friday I ventured out with my three teenage sons to do a shop because it had been four weeks since my last one!
I got to my local Sainsburys and great! The fresh produce section looked amazingly full. So I wasn’t ready for the impact I found as I moved to fresh meat. I buy pork mince, (I was a child of mad cow disease and that horror stayed with me!) no pork to be had at all. Um, okay, I checked the chicken and beef and you guessed it, no mince there either. Suddenly everyone wants to make meatballs and chilli!
Giving up on that I moved to the sandwich meat aisle. I’m guessing everyone wants ham on their pizza, it looked like a meat lovers convention had hit the aisle. I finally found some organic ham and was pushed to the tinned/cooking sauce aisle. FREAK OUT! The shelves were bare. I hadn’t expected that however we managed to find the cooking sauces we wanted in the organic aisle. Hey, nobody seems to want to eat organically!
This set a pattern, tinned vegetables or fruit. BARE. Tinned snacks, meatballs, ravioli, GET REAL. Tinned sandwich items, spam, corn beef, NOT A CHANCE. Crisps… YEAH half empty, however, I now know why no ones eating healthy with half the snacks sold out. Who wants organic or half fat when you can eat a six-pack of crisps in one go?
Obviously, hand sanitiser, soap, bleach, cleaning fluid, GONE. Suddenly England has become a nation of OCD cleaners. Um. Okay, now the weird ones, cat food? Huh, can anyone understand why most of the cat food aisle is empty? You run out of the stockpiled food, are you going to make cat food stew? Is that the backup? I now have that scene from the Walking Dead running through my head, where they’re all starving and Carl finds a tin of cat food and eats it before Rick knocks it from his hand. Yes, I feel like Rick now!
Tortilla wraps, gone, pitta bread, gone, bagels, gone, sandwich thins, gone, bread, though was full. I completely don’t understand that. I would have thought after the state of the store, bread wouldn’t exist and yet there it was, nicely stocked up and full. Now my hungry for fajita teenagers, are glowering in a terrible mood. What do they do with no fajitas or enchiladas for a month! The horror. And the weirdest thing sold out? Stuffing and gravy. WHAT ON EARTH? I know we’re up North, I know we like our gravy, but suddenly there’s a rush on roast dinners that I missed out on? WOWZER.
However as my son’s pushed me around the mainly empty shop, no surprise why, I noticed things that maybe those being greedy and careless should have noticed. Old ladies and gentlemen struggling to find things they needed, in speaking to one I gave her three of my tins of beans. Hey, my kids can learn to hunt for food, she can’t. An old man had been looking for ham, I gave him one of my two packs, we can make egg mayonnaise for sandwiches.
I’m disabled with four sons living at home, anyone who has one teenage son knows they can eat a weeks amount of food in a day. By the end of the shopping trip, I am not going to lie, I was panicked. The items I bought every month were sold out and I have to question why. I, in the end, felt so bad I only did a two-week shop and even then I gave some elderly people items from my own trolley. They needed it more than me. Everyone is raving about the food shortages, but don’t you realise, you’re the ones causing it.
People had the check to buy trays of food in front of me and I watched as the two customers got so irate they nearly had a heart attack. The cashier explained that the store had limited items. Not good enough for them. After a few minutes I spoke up, I don’t like confrontation but enough was enough.
I said very loudly and firmly, that if people like them weren’t buying twelve and twenty packs of everything then there would be enough to go around. I asked them how they had the bare-faced cheek to berate the cashier about food shortages when clearly they were causing them. I pointed out the twenty-four packs of rice, the ten packs of tea, the two dozen, yes two dozen tins of beans and then pointed out my three boys and then my amount of beans. (Six of them) They didn’t like my honesty and began to argue which a manager ended when they came over and removed most of their excess.
I panicked, no doubt, four boys to keep fed and healthy. Over three-quarters of the food I wanted, sold out. How did I feed my children? I’d cheerfully starve to keep them going, any parent would but yeah, how do I feed them when stockpilers have grabbed everything. I mean seriously, stuffing was sold out and gravy? That’s ridiculous and crazy. Insanity. Low-income families can’t stockpile, they live week to week, hand to mouth. And you’ve just seriously affected their life because you think you need to buy everything in sight. No! Stop! Please just stop. Luckily I had family who spent a day running around and finding what I needed to feed my children. Not everyone has a family to do the same. Some people are looking at cupboards in tears because they can’t feed their children, because the value lines they rely on have been snapped up.
So what has become of the English spirit? Where is the spirit that carried us through two world wars and left us emerging victorious? It’s not completely dead, I can thankfully say. In small pockets the English spirit pops up, neighbours offering to fetch shopping for the elderly or disabled. People standing three feet down a path after knocking on a door and calling to the elderly/disabled neighbours, checking they are okay. Checking they have food and drink. I’ve seen a couple of my neighbours doing just that and then rushing off to the local shop to fetch what they need.
A new app called Nextdoor.com has groups with people offering to do shopping if people are self-isolating. I’ve also seen offers of sharing food on there, these are not from the stockpilers, mind you, just people who have a few tins spare.
Let’s go one step further, I know an elderly lady down the road, she’s got food but guess what people forgot to ask? Does she have gas and electric, she’s on key meters and her electric had run out. My lad ran down to her and knocked, then ran up the path to give her a safe distance. My lad, he’s not sociable, not “Hi I’m Blah and my mum lives at number Blah and mum says are you okay for gas and electric.” Poor dear got …“Mum said give me your gas and electric keys and I’ll go top them up.” Luckily she recognised him!
It’s not just food and drinks we need to think of. It’s keeping them topped up with gas and electric. It’s a knock at the door and “Hi, I know I can’t come in. How about you open a window and I’ll keep my distance and we’ll chat for ten minutes?” Those ten minutes may make the difference between suicide and survival. Loneliness may kill more than the virus in the end. People with depression and isolated will give up, no contact, no warm smile given to them, no one cares. We can’t enter their houses but they can open a small window and you can have a conversation!
I’ve been isolated, I struggle with social anxiety and agoraphobia, I know how it feels to be in your home day after day with no social interaction when the children are in school. How you can sit there, with the TV on because it is another voice, you’re not alone in the world. I’m up at six am every day, I see my children for six hours a day in total unless it’s the weekend. I’m on my own ten hours a day. It’s bloody lonely, but I know my kids will come home. What of those who don’t have something to look forward too? Isolated already, being told you can’t mix is even worse. This is the government saying you can’t mix, it’s for your own good. That doesn’t help someone struggling with depression.
Do you know someone like that, perhaps someone in your family or living on your street? Find out if they have a laptop, a tablet, perhaps you have an old spare one? Set them up on facetime, skype, anything that allows them communication with the outside world. Some social contact.
Stockpilers, take a look around you, yup you’re stocked for the real-life version of The Walking Dead. Great, meanwhile the elderly gent down the road is starving. Oh, you thought he looked like he lost weight, who’d have thought it. Give a few tins to someone in need, help a low-income family. You’ve caused this shortage and now children are going hungry. Come on find the spark of English decency inside and do something BRITISH! Share some of those greedy, guilt-laden piles of food and stand up, be proud, you’re BRITISH.
Today my four boys don’t get enchilada’s, they’re getting lasagne, and because I know how it feels to be in a desperate situation, I made two and my neighbour down the road will get one that should last at least three dinners for her. I’m not an angel, I’m not perfect, my own food situation isn’t great, but I’m buggered if I’m going to stand by and let an elderly person starve. Maybe tonight you can make extra and help a neighbour out? Food for thought.
