December 12th New Zealand

The Christchurch Town Hall was not full but the centre sections of the gallery and the stalls were. It’s an annual event, The Messiah, that is, and for everyone there it was, I imagine, normal. For me it was extraordinary. It was the first live concert I’ve been to for about ten months.

As I had a couple of hours to spare I’d wandered through the town centre before the performance. There were people queuing outside the Theatre Royal in Gloucester Street for the ballet, ‘Nutcracker’. Then after walking through Regent Street, the wine bars and cafes already full, I passed ‘Piano’. There were people going in to what I discovered later is a small concert venue chiefly used for chamber music.

I arrived at the Town Hall three quarters of an hour before Messiah was due to start and was surprised at the number of people already in the foyer. Then I realised that as well as the main auditorium there’s also a theatre. There was a performance of Irish music and dance there starting at 7.00pm. Somewhere else in town some of my family were at the Court Theatre for a performance of ‘Jersey Boys’. It’s booked out into January.

Christchurch, New Zealand has a population approaching four hundred thousand. It was devastated by earthquakes in 2010 and 2011 . Much of the centre city still shows signs of the destruction, buildings shored up and empty city blocks where buildings have been cleared. The cathedral which was partly destroyed is in the process of being rebuilt.

And on the evening of Saturday December 12th 2020 in this comparatively small cathedral city there was chamber music, ballet, theatre, dance and Handel’s Messiah.

December 16th Beethoven and Canterbury

This morning, along with about a hundred others, I celebrated the anniversaries of the birth of Ludwig van Beethoven in 1770 and the arrival of the SS Charlotte Jane in what is now called Lyttelton Harbour, Canterbury, New Zealand in 1850.

The former anniversary needs little comment other than this. To be part of a gathering coming together on a sweeping lawn surrounded by trees in the late morning of a warm summer’s day and then to move into a large and elegant drawing room for a performance of Beethoven’s music, two Sonatas for Violin and Piano, and afterwards to mingle on a terrace sipping a sparkling wine, was an extraordinary and I suspect unique experience in the world as it is today. Here Beethoven was being celebrated in a way not possible, I suspect, anywhere else in the world. I think most New Zealander’s have no idea how fortunate they are.

The second anniversary, of the arrival of the Charlotte Jane, and therefore of ‘Founder’s Day’ for the Province of Canterbury, New Zealand, has, understandably, less international significance. We celebrated both. A toast was proposed, in Maori and in English, to Beethoven and to the Province, and we drank it with gratitude.

December 17th The Geraldine News

The weekly newspaper has a review of a musical presented by a local village primary school. The village is Woodbury. The musical ‘A Very Woodbury Christmas’. There were four performances in the village hall with a demand for an extension to the season. From the newspaper report I gathered there had been a good deal of local cooperation and support and that local characters and situations featured in the production which had been created by one of the teachers at the school. Every one of the 102 pupils were involved.

The musical was described by the newspaper as, ‘Based loosely on a Christmas theme in a rural community where everyone had forgotten what the real meaning of Christmas was about’. The community discovers the real meaning of Christmas amidst all the commercialisation and busyness. The show included Christmas carols with a local twist – ‘Jingle Bells’ became ‘Tractor Wheels’.

In due course a little angel, performed with considerable enthusiasm by a very young pupil, the newspaper reported, helped the community to discover that ‘the real meaning of Christmas is spending time with the people you love’.

I’m sure it was great and very good for a local community where the realities of Covid19, in whatever mutation, barely exist. However I am especially aware of so many of my family and friends this Christmas who, because of the law, regulation or common sense, cannot spend time with the people they love.

And I think of that even greater reality of Christmas which is centred on a baby in a crib, on God become human, and a message which goes further than being or not being together. Behind every authentic Christmas crib there is the shadow of a cross. And there is the star which is surely at least a hint of the light of the resurrection.

December 19th Blue Christmas

There was a service at St Mary’s Geraldine this evening for ‘Blue Christmas’. When we came in the music was a recording of Bach’s ‘Air on the G String’. The service was quiet, reflective and thoughtful. It was especially for those for whom Christmas includes loss, and was attended, chiefly, by widows and mothers whose children had died. During the service we sang verses of ‘O Come, O Come Emmanuel’ and we were reminded that this hymn is a song of people in darkness longing for God’s light.

We were invited to light candles of remembrance and the readings included the one from Isaiah chapter 40, ‘Comfort ye, comfort ye my people’, which I’d heard sung on Saturday the 12th, and from Matthew’s Gospel, chapter 11, ‘Come unto me all you who labour and are heavy laden.’

Among the Vicar’s closing words were,
‘As people who are familiar with the darkness, we also know that our way is illumined by the light of the Christ Child this Christmas Season. May the hope and light of Christ sustain us in our darkness.’

December 4th
On Sunday, as I did my circuits of the yard, one of my exercise companions said,
‘You go out tomorrow don’t you?’ And when I had said that I hoped so, he continued,
‘See you on the other side!’

The Isolation Facility was a sort of purgatory, a place of cleansing, between the reality of life under whatever tier of rules and restrictions apply in London and the heaven that life in New Zealand seems to be. And there are no Plenary Indulgences, not even for the Pakistani cricketers, a brilliant team, I’m told, who are finding the rules of their Isolation Facility very difficult to deal with. But however difficult isolation may have been, and it was difficult from time to time, it was difficulty for a purpose. A purpose achieved.

I left the Distinction Hotel with a letter which begins:
‘This letter is a formal confirmation of your completed stay in managed isolation.
We are pleased to confirm you have completed the necessary requirements for isolation after arriving in New Zealand, staying in a controlled environment under the supervision of the New Zealand Government.’

And the letter concludes,
‘We thank you for joining thousands of others in keeping our communities safe. Your efforts help us to prevent COVID-19 spreading within New Zealand. We hope that your stay has been comfortable and you have felt well supported.’
‘He wake eke now – we are all in this together.’
The letter is signed, a duplicated signature of course, by Air Commodore Darryn Webb, Head of Managed Isolation and Quarantine.

It was reasonably comfortable and I was totally ‘well supported’. I’m told that a family friend described the hotel as ‘Bulgaria 1954’. As he wasn’t born in 1954 and has probably never been to Bulgaria that is not altogether fair. The bed was fine, there were plugs for the bath – actually my room had a walk in shower not a bath so I don’t know that – and the people, all of them, military, security and hotel staff were, without exception, friendly and helpful.

I cannot begin to comprehend the complexities of organisation which are involved in achieving a Covid free New Zealand. Of course here it is possible to be border protected because we are so far away from anywhere else and the population of the country is only five million. Nevertheless it is surely a remarkable achievement.

December 9th The Other Side
I still think life here is extraordinary and I’ve been out of quarantine for over a week. I was required to wear a face mask on flights to and from Nelson last week. I do check in to restaurants and buses with the ‘Covid App’ on my mobile phone but I have given talks to a group of sixty, ‘In My Eightieth Year ‘, and forty, ‘Its Part of the Ageing Process’, with no one wearing masks so I was able to see people’s faces and gauge my response to their reactions. That was wonderful for me and as I wasn’t heckled or booed and no one walked out I guess it was ok for them. I’ve been to a small drinks party and a lunch for more than a hundred former staff of Christ’s College. No ‘social distancing’ at all. On Saturday evening I’m going to a performance of ‘The Messiah’ at the Christchurch Town Hall. Nearly every seat booked.

It is the normality that is extraordinary. As I hesitated to get into a lift with two other people in the hotel in Nelson, and then got in, I had to explain to them how wonderful it was to be in a lift with other people. I think they were a little surprised but said they had family in Yorkshire so they thought they understood. I still find myself smiling as I am able to ask directions of a stranger and I’ve stopped backing away to two meters distance when people approach me. I keep on having to tell people how fortunate they are – I must get over that soon! I’ve been to church and we sang hymns and there was coffee afterwards.

There’s an element of guilt floating around in me somewhere, guilt that I’m not sharing in the difficulties that others are facing at home in London. Still, I’m out to a Thai restaurant with friends this evening so I’m managing to live with it.

Being Together

We get to the exercise yard by going through the Gumption Bar. Not functioning at the moment. More’s the pity. I think the exercise area has been cordoned off from Cathedral Square. It is to the south of the Cathedral. There’s a tree with a raised patch of grass and benches around it inside our area and another outside beyond the double fence with the shade cloth. And at one end of the double fence there’s a small area with no shade cloth.

Every day there have been visitors to my fellow guests either standing on the benches around the outside tree so that they can see over the fence, or the other side of the two meter no go area where there’s no shade cloth. Those inside keep their masks on. Those outside don’t wear masks, they have neither need nor requirement. And they talk to each other or don’t talk all that much but are just there.

For all the telephone calls and video links, zooming and streaming and every bit of useful technology there is, it is very clear to me that people still just want to see each other and hear each other. They want to be together even at two meter’s distance, in the flesh.

November 20th Routine

The routine began well though ‘chapel’ happened before breakfast which didn’t arrive until ten past nine. Then it was PT. I didn’t use the lift to go to the exercise area but took the stairs, one hundred and twenty seven of them – extra exercise. There was a bigger army presence than usual and standing, correctly spaced in a row, were ten men, my fellow guests, clearly ready to line dance or something. I discovered they were all from Italy and were there for their morning briefing. What it was about I have no idea. Sadly I don’t speak or understand Italian.

After the briefing most of them went off to the smoking area to have a cigarette. The smoking area is next to the exercise area. When I’m first down the next group down are the smokers. I’ve now realised it is chiefly for them the area is open from midnight until 6.50 a.m. Thank goodness I gave up smoking nearly thirty years ago.

Maths has been added to my timetable. I now have the Christchurch Press, the local newspaper, delivered each day and it has Sudokus near the back along with the crosswords and the children’s cartoon. I can’t do the crossword so I do Sudoku. Strange in a way as I was useless at maths and figures at school and loved English and words.

November 24th Trend Setting

It’s easy to set a trend, I’ve discovered. And it only takes one person. I am that person and here in isolation I’ve set a trend. When we exercise most of us simply do circuits, clockwise. A few have sophisticated routines that include exercise mats, skipping ropes and very big rubber bands. The majority of us did not come so well prepared so we do circuits.

I was the first out yesterday morning and I remembered a friend suggesting, early in the first Lockdown when I was doing my circuits of Kennington Park,
‘Why don’t you sometimes do your circuits a the other way round? You’ll see things differently.’

So I set off around the very small exercise area – anti clockwise. I got a slightly strange look from the next person out but then everyone followed suit. And in the afternoon? And this morning? They’re still going anti-clockwise. If I’m first out before I leave perhaps I will reverse the trend.

Tattoos

Quite a number of my fellow guests are tattooed – probably more than I’ve seen because the weather has been cool so I’ve only seen legs, arms and necks. I see the tattoos when we’re doing circuits. Some have tattoos around their upper arms. One young man has six stars, not very professionally worked, down his right calf. There may be seven with the seventh hidden by his ankle sock.

A young woman has some words tattooed around her neck but I’ve not been able to read them because I’m not allowed closer than two meters and the letters are quite small. I don’t like to ask in case the words tell me where to go.

Another man has roses tattooed on his right calf, chiefly in red, and on his left, in lurid green, the face of the devil. He wears a sports shirt that has on the back KEEP THE FAITH which, on my first circuit, I thought a rather good sentiment until the second circuit when I thought, ‘Faith in who, or what? The Government? His doctor? Himself? President Trump? God? The Devil?’ I had remembered that faith doesn’t exist without an object. I decided not to ask him who or what was the object of his faith.

November 25th

I was late down this morning. Everyone’s still walking anti clockwise.

November 14th Heathrow Terminal Two

Everything was different. Not everything. The building was familiar and the check in counters were still in the same place and there were queues. But all the human interactions were different. Of course everyone was wearing a mask and staff were behind shielding screens.

Check in went smoothly, London to Christchurch with Singapore Airlines. After security clearance there were very few shops open and no restaurants, of course. Everything was strangely quiet.

November 15th In Transit

Being five hours in transit in Changi Airport, Singapore, was not a good idea. The Singapore to Auckland flight had a much shorter connection time than mine to Christchurch. The two families in front and behind me on the London to Singapore flight were both going on to Auckland. The family in front, mother, father and two children coped brilliantly. I spent a bit of time doing ‘Hide and Seek’, no, more ‘Peek a Boo’, with the four year old in front. I really felt for the family behind me. A mother with three young children one of whom was not at all happy, and made it known, for much of the flight. Hearing aids out, earphones and either films or Beethoven on and I was able to cope very well.

Not so in the Premium Transit Lounge at Changi Airport. There were only nine of us in the lounge. One of the nine had very loud phone conversations with his phone on speaker so I could hear both sides of the conversations even with my hearing aids out. I could hear but not understand because the loud conversations were not in English. That was frustrating on many levels not least because I usually quite enjoy listening in to what others are talking about. Still it meant I left the Premium Lounge and went for walks. I managed to do 3065 steps in the comparatively limited area in which we were held.

On either side of the five hours in transit were two long flights. London to Singapore was twelve hours and fifty five minutes and then Singapore to Christchurch was nine hours and fifty minutes. I’m not certain we kept exactly to the minutes. The flights were fine. I did manage to sleep for some of the time, even with a face mask, but it was the films and the music that saved the day – and the night. I watched four films that I would never have seen otherwise. One in German ‘Sealed Lips’, one French ‘Portrait of a Woman on Fire’, one Tamil ‘Karrupu Durai’ and one Hindi ‘Kalank’, all with subtitles, and all beautifully filmed, acted and, fascinating. The music was Beethoven and Mozart – mainly Piano Sonatas.

November 16th Arrival

After landing in Christchurch it was the New Zealand army who seemed to be in charge. Everyone was masked and instructions were clear. Ours was the only international flight arriving and there were just fifty people in the aeroplane that can take over 500. Our military instructor told us that we must always wear our masks – standard issue, provided – and that we must never touch the front of the mask once it was on. He promptly touched his to adjust it and said, ‘I’m not a good example!’

My isolation hotel is the Distinction Hotel. If you have read anything of what I have written about Payless, the shop in Kennington Park Road, you can apply it to Distinction. However the people are very friendly and extremely helpful. When I arrived I mentioned I was fairly deaf and found it difficult to pick things up from the floor, food deliveries for example. Within half an hour of going to my room someone had put a chair outside my door for deliveries and on it stuck a note which reads, ‘DO NOT MOVE’ and on food deliveries there’s a note ‘KNOCK LOUD’. That’s consideration!

The mistake is to think of the hotel as a hotel. It is not. It’s an Isolation Facility. My room, number 510, is the only place where I may not wear a mask. There is an exercise yard on the ground floor. It is small and fenced off from the outside world. A circuit is 100 steps so calculations are easy. Even I can multiply the number of circuits I do by 100. The high fence is covered so that we cannot see out nor local citizens see in and there’s an inner fence two meters from the outer so that proper distance is kept. There are set times for exercise and you give your name and number – room number that is – going to and from exercise.

In my room there’s an electric kettle and a fridge. There are also two plates and cutlery. There’s a menu and the choice of food for lunch and dinner is very limited but I understand I can order food from local restaurants. I will explore that option over the next few days.

No one may come into my room. There are soldiers in the corridors from time to time. Just checking, I imagine. I’m beginning to be aware that not only is this unlike staying in a hotel but also it is unlike self isolating at home.. There are many discoveries to be made I’m sure, most of them about how to cope with isolation.

November 17th The Routine

The key to life in isolation is, I suspect, to have a routine. I have chosen my boarding school routine.

Breakfast arrives here at about 8.30 then it’s Chapel for about twenty minutes. I say my prayers. From my window I can see the Cathedral and people working on it so that helps. After that I am dividing the day into fifty minute periods with ten minutes to get to the next class. P T is from 9.30 to 10.20. That’s within the allocated time for the exercise area. I know everyone else calls it P E Physical Exercise, for us it was Physical Training. Our P T master, Hector MacKay was ex army. The army present again.

After that it’s a double period for Art and Music. I’m determined to get drawing and painting again. Some of the family sent flowers to brighten my room. I can start with them or with the fresh fruit family have delivered. And the hotel have given me a radio which, with help on the phone from a member of staff, I’ve set to the concert programme.

Lunch is delivered between 12.30 and 2.30. Then I’m giving myself a period from 2.30 to 3.20 that I will call Relaxation – my afternoon sleep.

Another period of P T in the afternoon if it’s not raining. School finishes at 4.20 but then I have Drama as my extracurricular activity. I’m giving some talks when this time is over so I need to prepare for them. The evening meal arrives between 6.30 and 8.30 then it’s time for Prep – writing this.

There are no bells to guide or contain me, no one to say, ‘Hurry along, boy!’ and, sadly, no roll call. It’s only me.

Usually I look forward to long haul flights. Of course I panic five days before I’m due to leave and think it’s all a big mistake but after I’ve recovered from that I can even enjoy the packing and getting ready. Then there’s the drive to the airport and wondering whether or not I will get there on time. I usually do get there on time as I’m genetically programmed to be early. Once, in Bangkok, I arrived twenty four hours early but that was because my flight left at 00.30 and I knew that meant I had to get there the day before. That thought was so firmly fixed in my mind that I arrived at check in the day before the day before. 

The staff at the check in desk are always polite and I like the check in process and the feeling of relaxation after going through passport control and security and into that limbo where I have no responsibilities at all. I know the plane won’t go without me because my luggage is already on board and it would be less of a security hassle for them to find me than to unload my luggage. Then there’s the boarding call and getting on board and arranging everything for a twelve hour flight. The whole process has a comfortable familiarity about it which is not surprising as I’ve been doing it fairly regularly for more than thirty years.  

I’m due to fly out this Saturday, to Christchurch via Singapore. This time things are not as they usually are at all. I have the required documentation, my E ticket, my New Zealand Passport and, this is new, an Accommodation Voucher for my arrival. The Accommodation Voucher allows me a room in a government designated hotel as a place to stay in quarantine for a fortnight. I will not be allowed to travel without the voucher.

However I’m told by my travel agent and the New Zealand Government website that none of these things guarantees that I will be allowed to travel. I will discover more after 8.35 this evening, forty-eight hours before my flight is due to depart, when I can check in – if the flight is leaving as scheduled. The ‘not knowing for sure’ I find quite difficult to deal with. But so much of this second Lockdown is about ‘not knowing’ even with the glad news of a possible vaccine by the end of the year.

In Maslow’s hierarchy of needs which he presented in a paper in 1943 and which I must have encountered somewhere along the way, Maslow presents ‘security’ as a fundamental psychological need. Without security, he suggested, it was impossible to move to a ‘higher’ level. Certainly I have realised that ‘not knowing for sure’ leads to a lot of anxiety. I have also realised that much of the world’s population lives without security and that most of us, in the comparatively secure west, are incredibly privileged to live in secure societies. 

I do hope that the experience of the insecurity brought about by Covid19, or perhaps by the way governments and the media have reacted to Covid19, may make us all more aware of the much greater daily insecurity with which many of our fellow men and women live. Certainly the very significant number of Covid related deaths in the developed countries has made me more aware of the even greater number od deaths in other parts of the world from starvation and disease.

In 2003 I broadcast my thoughts about the whole idea of ‘Rights’. I think it ties in with this somewhere. You can find it under BROADCASTS