Daily Archives: May 30, 2020

The People

Letters from Cardiff in lockdown: Jamie Grundy

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Today’s instalment for the Letters from Cardiff in lockdown series comes from writer, researcher and trainer Jamie Grundy – who has had a bit of a rough start to 2020. Big love to you Jamie. We’re looking for your stories, so please contribute to Letters from Cardiff in lockdown! 

Down but Not Out

Up until mid-February this year things were going pretty well for me. I’d been self-employed for just over three years and finally it was paying off. I mainly work as a trainer supporting people with convictions. Most weeks I’m in and out of prisons, and my skills were in demand from the School of Hard Knocks, Youth Cymru, Inside Out Support Wales and others. I was due to go to New York with my book, ’90 Minutes of Freedom’ on the only prisoner football team in Wales. For the first time in 36 months I could breathe.

Life was good.

Then it all changed.

First my marriage broke down after 24 years together and we amicably made plans to keep my daughter in her home, to minimise the impact on her life. That meant I’d move into a new place, close by. I dealt with this difficult news in a practical sense: finding a new place to rent, scouring Gumtree for bargain furniture, leaning on the crucial support of friends who’d been through this before. Everyone is going through their own unique challenges with the coronavirus and the impending lockdown wasn’t the main thing on my mind at this time, unsurprisingly.

I have a colleague in South Korea and the photos on social media of her with a facemask on, self-isolating with her partner, seemed a world away. That couldn’t happen here – could it? But then my work stopped, one client after another pulled, over the course of a week. Next to follow were my speaking engagements in New York. One, then another until all were cancelled, with my contact there informing me everything was closing down because people were dying in significant numbers. Two days before my flight, the USA extended their travel ban to include the UK and the decision was made for me: I was staying put.

The hardest blow came next. As the lockdown was imposed and we all got used to a the new phrase of ‘social distancing’ and what it meant, I was unable to move out into a new property by the letting agent, because businesses were closing down and staff were furloughed. This stay-at-home isolation was not letting me move on to a new stage in my life, physically. It also provided the perfect metaphor of an enforced lockdown where, no matter how you may feel about it, you are remaining where you are. The additional body blow of a total lack of income from no work, hit me hard below the belt.

I couldn’t move out. I couldn’t move on. I couldn’t earn. I was together but alone. The only person who was going to get me out of this was me.

A glimmer of hope was announced with government financial support for the self-employed and at the time of writing I’ve made all the necessary applications and I’m waiting to hear what I’ll get. But I wouldn’t be able to rely on this to see me through. Plus, I was acutely aware, with a lockdown being witnessed globally, this could be a new normal – another new phrase we were hearing. One aspect of this was how incredibly technologically able we were becoming. Friends, parents, kids and everyone was on Zoom, Houseparty and Skype to stay in contact with each other. This I realised was my opportunity.

I purchased a webinar licence, Webinarjam, and had my website redesigned to sell online training courses. The previous sessions I’d run on supporting people with a criminal conviction for support workers were adapted. I ran a couple of test events including a training webinar for staff from the School of Hard Knocks, plus I did an online book talk, to learn through this experience. It worked and the feedback was positive! This new-normal of online learning could be my personal support mechanism through this time. I spent weeks developing additional courses and putting them online on my website. So far it is working. People are booking on them and I’m throwing myself into this to do the best I can.

Anyone who’s self-employed will know, if you don’t put the effort in, it’s unlikely to work out. I’ve spent more weekends and evenings than I can remember over the last six weeks to try to make this successful.

If it doesn’t work, then I’ve tried to create a back-up plan. I’m hoping to begin work as a part-time delivery driver soon. This won’t just give me a much needed wage, it will also get me out of the house. I will be driving beyond the two mile radius to the shops and back that I’ve not extended beyond in weeks. I will be providing a much needed service to people, bring the goods they’ve ordered online to them so they can stay home with their families. I’ll be meeting and talking to new people and I’ve missed that more than anything.

Having spent a lot of time in my previous work talking to former prisoners, I have heard first-hand the challenges they have endured and come through, because of their prison sentence: being forcibly isolated from their families, friends and children because of their conviction.

I have not known that type of incarceration, but the parallel is there with our current lockdown situation, albeit in diluted form. These conversations help me to know that I will get through this. I also think back to my grandparent’s generation: how they coped with the challenges of war and how they got through.

We are all going through our unique challenges, but by taking things a day at a time and not looking too far ahead, there will come a time when we will all be able to look back at this time as an historical, not present day, event in our lives.

Jamie Grundy is  an Independent Trainer, Educator & Researcher who works in Prison Education, Higher Education and Community Development. Follow him on his website jamiegrundy.net / Jamie Grundy on Facebook / Jamie Grundy on Twitter / Jamie Grundy LinkedIn


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The People

Letters from Cardiff in lockdown: Anonymous #5

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Today’s instalment for the Letters from Cardiff in lockdown series comes from an anonymous contributor. Please carry on sending your stories to Letters from Cardiff in lockdown.

Life as we know it has ended, this is what I had written in my journal in those early days in March. Got to find a way of getting through this unsettling period as unscathed as possible. Now seven weeks later I have reread my notes and see patterns emerging.

The first week didn’t seem real but I shopped for more than a single person would normally have in a week so I wouldn’t need to go out for a while. The worst was that my planned trip to England to see my granddaughter had to be cancelled and so far it looks like I might even miss her first birthday unless the rules change. Time I will never get back.

Then things started to speed up, my son lost his job in media, schools closed, and suddenly I was becoming socially isolated. Lots of emotions, up one minute, down the next, felt guilty if I wasn’t leaning new skills, having zoom parties or doing lots of exercises.

l live alone, and have lived in Cardiff for the past six years, having moved from England to be near family. It’s been hard leaving my friends behind and trying to make new ones but gradually that is happening. Who knew that this situation would test how strong those friendships are.

I am happy to say that despite the enforced social distancing I am able to contact both my old and new friends. I have never been one for constant tablet or phone use but it has been invaluable.

The biggest restriction is not being able to travel to meet family and friends.

By mid April I was getting tired of it all, feeling sad, unmotivated. I was starting to feel almost reclusive. Thursday’s seem to be my worst day, maybe as that’s the decision day and you always hope some good news will come. I dread the day if I have to self isolate, for my own sanity my son has kept up visual contact regularly and safely, he has been a lifesaver. I worry about how he will manage if he doesn’t work soon, a mother never stops worrying about her children.

I can’t say the road I live has come together much through this, only a handful of people come out and clap on a Thursday. As a nurse by profession it is disappointing to see this apathy but I am not surprised really, like  most services it’s not until you can’t get it you appreciate them.

I have gone back onto the nursing register but as I haven’t been practising for a number of years I requested to work on non frontline roles. So far no contact has been made with me. I also volunteered for the national request but it’s not for Wales. So I decided to do some volunteer work with a food charity I previously worked with. That didn’t last long as sadly they have a policy now of not letting anyone under 70 with a medical condition work. This is so frustrating as I am very well but I understand.

So now I feel rejected and useless, I can’t look after my grandchildren, I can’t volunteer, I can’t travel out of Wales to see my granddaughter.

We are being told that Covid 19 is here to stay and we must expect to get it at some time. This is my anxiety as none of us know how it will affect us. Now everyone knows someone who had had it or had a relative with it, some recovering, sadly others who haven’t.

Good things I find, I have been walking more, doing more painting and crafting, listening to nature and not just noisy seagulls. Technology has been good, vital I think. I feel for anyone on their own with no access to technology. I’ve appreciated my small garden too.

Bad things are I am eating and drinking too much. I think too much, my loneliness seems too great at times. Watching too much television.

I would like to think when we have a new normal that friends still keep in contact, roads stay quieter and people are still kind to each other, especially those who live alone or have no family. I am lucky I have family and friends albeit spread between Wales and England, and I look forward to getting to see them again.

Take care.

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