Page 113 - Through a glass brightly

There has been some discussion outwith the formal emails about when we should stop this. I am quite happy to let it run for a while and I think it would be good to continue until there is a definite break in the Lock Down. I think we would give everybody due notice that 'The Book' was drawing to a close so that everyone could get anything else they wanted to say into me. This is not to put a stop to the emails but just to recognise that may be, at some time, there should be endgame!
There has also been some discussion about “publication”. When I used the term inadvisedly I was really thinking of a comb-bound, A4, double-sided page booklet, with card and transparent covers. Like Ruth I have made a lot of these in the past and I have the equipment to do this. However, one or two people have mentioned formal publication and given details of firms who might be interested. My difficulty with this is that some of the material, including poems and illustrations, will be copyright. In many cases we won’t know who owns the copyright but if ever this went to formal publication the owner would appear! My own feeling is that we should keep it to the kind of booklet that I have mentioned above but I’m happy to take suggestions and recommendations. However, I’m not entirely sure that a wider audience would be that interested. (But see below!)
There have been some fabulous suggestions about where this informal copy might be placed including Barnet library and archives. I certainly would find out where information about how we lived during the Lock Down should be sent – and send them a copy! We might just get away with this despite the copyright issues. I was kind-of envisaging making something like 25-40 copies which would be distributed at next May’s lunch and posted to those who are unable to attend. I am still struggling with a way to put a flip-book version onto a website.
I do think that this has been quite an amazing journey. As we have said before, but is worth repeating, this is a record of how 'vulnerable seventy-five year old’s' (Val has reminded me that we're not all 75 yet!) coped with the coronavirus pandemic of 2020. (I am now taking part in research on just such a topic invited by a Master's student from Glasgow University.) Overall, I am astonished at how well we have all coped with the new technology! We are all spending a huge amount of time and energy getting up to speed with a whole host of technological programs, equipment, apps et cetera. I have never found learning so exhausting, not least because the next time I come to do something it either appears to be different or I have forgotten what to do! Amazon keeps delivering a plethora of equipment and I am downloading an equally amazing plethora of apps! Furthermore, I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time on my browser looking for help. Nevertheless, it is worth recording that when the challenge came we “vulnerable 74/75-year-olds' rose to the challenge!
But just as interesting are the reflections of 74/75-year-olds on their experience at a girls grammar school 60 years ago. I do wish that I could be here in a hundred years and look back at this document! I have spoken before about the thrill of reading how the pupils at the school coped with the Second World War. We are not quite in that league; nevertheless, this has been quite extraordinary period. I am reminded of “Three Men in a Boat" which reflected not only the human condition, laughter, comic situations which we all recognise but also loss and death, anxiety and worry. But not interestingly, despair. When I listen to phone-in programs and recognise the loneliness of many of our fellows I realise that this has been a very precious exchange – and one well worth documenting!
And now it’s time for tea!
From Maggie H at 19.16
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