Coronavirus diary, Wednesday 18 March 2020

The situation created by the coronavirus pandemic in Britain, as in many countries, is changing so fast day by day it is difficult to assess the possibilities, what may lie ahead. To people of my age the only comparable experience was the war, especially the early 1940s. Today, 80 years later, life here is an even more uncertain, worrying time for Britain. 

1940 was the year of the Battle of Britain, followed immediately by the prolonged, deadly blitz on London, which also devastated cities like Swansea and Coventry. From the outbreak of war in September 1939, family life for millions of people changed almost overnight. Men from the age of 18 were immediately 'called up' for military service. I was living in Wandsworth, south west London, with my mother, father, brother Bert and sister Dorothy. Bert, 18 years old, had just started a job in the city when he left home immediately, 'called up' for service in the RAF. He got back six years later. 

Bob as a schoolboy

Dorothy and I, both at high schools, were, like most London children, evacuated. Her school went to Surrey, mine joined a college in Hampshire. I went instead to my mother's hometown, Cardiff. It was just days before war was declared. I heard the news sitting with my grandmother and my aunt's family in their Splott home on Sunday 3 September. No one imagined that six fearful, sad years lay ahead.

The mass separation of whole families was one of the worst aspects of those wartime years. But, in a way, our families are today facing an even more uncertain time, with the hope that it will be months, not years. If the threatened restrictions are introduced it may well be an even more difficult, unique era ahead. Even in the darkest days of the war we were not restricted to our home. Now we may need to 'self-isolate' - a horrible term, difficult and stressful enough for families, and even more testing for elderly people living alone. How will the frail and not so mobile cope?

The latest announcements from the government are the harshest so far. While, unlike some countries, Britain has not so far shut down the schools, shops, pubs, clubs and entertainment centres [editor's note: this began from Friday 20 March onwards], bizarrely we have been advised not to attend them. And schools, still open, are already struggling to cope with the absence of staff and pupils already affected by the virus restrictions.

Businesses, large and small, are sending employees home, temporarily, most without pay, while millions of people have been told to work from home. To help them, the government has announced a massive multi-billion pound programme of assistance.