Anthony Garrett, Janette Kerr, and Frances Hatch talk about isolation in the Alnbury area, where second homes outnumber permanent residents and neighbors rarely interact. They describe pandemic loneliness, a neighbor's husband who withdrew after illness, and the few local connections that kept them going.
Hi. Hello. Um, he spends most of his time over there. He goes out personally when he gets back about 6. He said to me, if they hadn't been there, I don't know what time would have done, um, cuz I'm on my own.
I've got— that's—
and there's a lady probably in her 60s who's moved from Poundbury, and she's working, so I see her about once a month, we have a little chat. But no, apart from that, it's very odd I think it hasn't had time. So that's probably been to your desperate point. Yeah, no, that's what I wondered about Alnbury, that there's— I don't know, but you know, there's never a feeling of sense of community or, as you say, established really people or a group of people. I mean, my guess is there, there's a lot of second homes, but having said that, um, I have a friend who lives in Weymouth. I see her about once every 3 weeks. We were doing the regular Sunday afternoon walk, but she works for herself and she's, she works, she's a cook and she's just been inundated with work in the absence, so she's been there with herself. It's been a very weird time, very, very weird, because only in grace— I don't know whether it's the way my family members are, or me, I don't know— only in grace of social isolation have I kept being there. Die or something like that. Um, I think they're very, very tiny. So small. On Tuesday, for the first time, people came and met in the back garden. It was the first time that nobody came to the living room.
Nobody came into the house.
They were not actually eating or using the cupboards or giving her drinks. Her husband, who used to be a very extrovert character, has got completely a battered I think because he was ill at some point. I've come to the point of it being phobic because he just will not do it. Yes, I thought, come on, this is ridiculous. And I've been on— I've got seasonal tickling in my tongue. I often, if I'm feeling a bit stir-crazy, I go there and I clean off the trees and that's really nice. The things I do, I just— I find it is very hard being That's 9.
That's 10. Right, well, you take that, give me a 10-pound bag. Right, so actually, going to pause. Sonia, have we got a sheet, some, you know, sort of cashmere sheet? No, I'm going to come up. I've changed that up for you. What is this? That was all going— Maybe there. The rope out— should be on the shelf if there is any there. Um, yeah, yeah.
Track it.
Must be down all the way forward.
