IN APRIL 2020, a month into lockdown, Ellen at Carers’ Hub Lambeth got in touch about running photography workshops with a group of their carers.
I’ve worked with the Carers’ Hub since 2015 as part of my South London Stories project, and as an ad hoc volunteer. We thought it would be interesting to hear stories from carers during this very strange time. What impact was the lockdown having on them and their loved ones?
In the initial workshop – via video call – we discussed some of the difficulties carers face generally, as well as during the pandemic. I talked a little about visual storytelling, about techniques for combining pictures with text to create a narrative – and then it was over to them.
Over the next two weeks they shot their own lockdown stories on their phone cameras in and around their homes. We then reconvened over a series of calls and emails to discuss what had been shot and to work on the text.
These are their stories – their photographs and their words – and I’m very grateful to be able to share them here as part of Carers’ Week. We hope you enjoy them.

The Busker Who Came in From the Cold

Jeremy has been caring for his best friend Mike, who is severely disabled, for the last six years. This is Jeremy’s lockdown story.

STILL MY HEART HAS WINGS

I met Mike in 1973 in a squat in Belsize Park, where we very briefly lived together – before being turfed out. It was at Hampstead Police Station, when we went to collect our belongings, that our friendship was really forged.

I was new to London, and it was all a bit overwhelming. I think I was very fortunate to meet Mike at that point, to be honest. It turned out we had a lot in common, especially music. I played the guitar and he played the bongos and we went on to perform together as buskers for the next 30 years. This is us in Antwerp in 1981.

AMONG MY SOUVENIRS

I fell in love with music when I was a child. My parents bought me a guitar, but really it was when my brother’s friend taught me to play The House of the Rising Sun by The Animals that the course of the rest of my life was set. I was 13.

My father bought me this box. He brought it back from one of his trips to the Middle East. My parents weren’t especially happy that I chose to become a busker, but looking back now, I think this box suggests that perhaps he recognised my guitar had become part of me by then.

ALL DRESSED UP AND NOWHERE TO GO

This is me, today, all dressed up in my PPE. The lockdown has been a rather strange experience. I took this photograph on my balcony, where I spend a lot of time looking out on a world that I don’t always feel part of.

PANIC IN THE LIFT

At first I didn’t appreciate how serious it all was. Colossal numbers of deaths were being announced on the news, but not one person I knew had it. There was a strange sense of unreality about it.

Then a friend of a friend, a lady in her 70s, became very ill and was convinced she had caught it from a lift button. When I heard that I became anxious – this lift is how I get in and out of my home.

BAD IDEA

What I find strange is how so many ordinary things, like lift buttons and money, have become potential dangers. I washed these coins before I took this photo!

OUT DAMNED SPOT – OUT, I SAY

I feel enormous guilt every time I go out. Even if I have a completely legitimate, necessary reason to be out, I feel guilt. Did I really need to go out? Was it worth it? I’m painfully aware of how easily I could bring the virus into our home and infect Mike. I could kill him.

ONE EGG SHORT OF AN OMELETTE

Early on in the lockdown I was still occasionally popping to the shops to buy food, but then I spoke to someone from the Coronavirus help centre. She told me that it would be safer if I didn't, and that she would sign us up for food packages. It was very kind, but also strange to think that if I needed something as simple as one more egg to make Mike an omelette I could no longer just go and get it. A bit like being on a desert island without the discs.

DOING CROSSWORD PUZZLES AND WORKING ON THE SUDOKU, NOW DON’T TELL ME, I’VE NOTHING TO DO

It is a tedious thing to be locked up in a room for 12 weeks. There are only so many crosswords you can fill out.

CARERS IN MASKS

The only other people I have really seen during the lockdown are Mike’s carers. Over time I’ve got to know them and I really like and appreciate them. Throughout all of this, they’ve had to go out to work every day and get on buses. They never complain. I want to pay tribute to them and to their kindness.

SOMEBODY LOVES US

Most of what comes through our letterbox is from life insurance companies or the landlord – dull stuff – and of course we don’t get visitors any more, other than the carers. So when a handwritten letter like this comes through the door it’s rather special. It shows that someone’s thinking about us, and that’s very nice.

YOU CAN FLY AWAY, IN THE SKY AWAY, YOU MORE LUCKY THAN ME

Do I envy the pigeon its freedom? I’m not sure. In a funny way, being locked into solitude like this has made my loneliness easier to face, because now I have no choice but to stay at home. The truth is, I’ve always been a bit of a solitary type. Maybe it’s something to do with being an entertainer…

Magic carpets of the mind:

A lockdown journey

Siobhan has been caring for her partner for 14 years. This is her story.

I’ve been an unpaid carer for the last 14 years. When lockdown kicked in I was fortunate that my husband was emerging from his depressive phase, which can last anything from five to eight months.

More than half of our life together has been dominated by his mental health disability. Ironically, the roles were reversed a little as I was sick at the beginning (I was recently diagnosed with diverticulitis), so he had to look after me.

The first four weeks were not easy and we had a terrible fight. But we recovered and walked and we made a pact that we would support and care for each other as much as possible.

Not seeing friends or family has been hard. My mother is elderly and very vulnerable and having travelled to see her just before lockdown, I realised how close I came to being with her in North Wales all this time. It seems a strangely lost opportunity as she is now 79 and has been a widow for nearly 20 years.

Caring does lead to isolation and loneliness, so lockdown was familiar. No planes, no cars, no people and extraordinary weather. Time has slowed down. Spring seemed to take forever…

As a musician, I’ve spent long hours, alone, practising. Learning how to travel inwardly does, in some way, compensate for the loss of self and opportunity that is often the result of being a carer.

I wanted to capture how music connects us both but also the silence of the imagination. The night pictures I’ve taken in our backyard reflect that. The magic carpet of the mind flying upwards to foreign lands we can no longer reach. Our little garden has become a sanctuary.

I also wanted to reflect self-care and self-neglect and I wanted to express the happiness I felt in Japan on our honeymoon last year.

I wanted to look at the person I was before I was a carer to show that we cannot predict the future nor how our lives will play out.

Primrose Hill, 1993. This was before I became a carer. Sometimes I feel like the person I was then has been erased.

This is my husband Martin. When he’s well, he loves playing music, often after months of silence. He's a fine DJ and I love this picture of him, captured mid-flow.

When I first moved in, our garden was barren. I’ve become obsessed with gardening, with bringing this space to life, and I love it.

My Mum’s house in North Wales is a bittersweet place. It reminds me of the absence of a person, of my dad, and now of the distance from my mum.

A month into lockdown, after our big fight. It was awful, but afterwards we made a promise to each other, and things changed from that point.

When you’re a carer, you spend so much time caring for others, you often forget to care for yourself.

This made me smile. We saw this on our daily walk – sticks to ward off all the bloody joggers!

I feel like at night our garden could be anywhere. I love forests, I love wild places. It feels like freedom.

We nearly didn’t make it to Japan last year – my husband was depressed and I was anxious. But we went, and it was wonderful. Kyoto is famous for its ceramics, and this pot, "Sparrows in Snow with Sakura", will always remind me of a very special and intimate journey.

The Glass is Always Half Full

This is a story of recovery and romance in lockdown by Karen.

During lockdown I’ve shared my home with two people and a cat. One of those people is my youngest son and the other is his girlfriend.

She’s been living with us since the day before lockdown began. She was sharing a flat in East London and it just made sense for her to move in with us – there’s more space and it means they can be together. I think she’s a good influence on all of us.

Since lockdown, the pace of life has slowed down, and I’m around. I get to see the things you don’t normally see when you’re at work all day. I get to spend time outside, with the cat - and with my son.

I feel fortunate that my family hasn’t been touched by the virus so far. I have a friend who was hospitalised, but thankfully he’s recovered. So many people have lost their lives and everyone is experiencing difficulties and making sacrifices.

During the lockdown, my son’s health has been good, and as a carer how you’re doing is so dependent on how the person you care for is faring. He’s well and I feel grateful for that.

I get on well with my son. It’s lovely to see him making progress, it feels like he’s really recovering.

He makes electronic music and last September he started studying Sound at college. He’s passionate, knowledgeable and very creative.

He’s always loved owls, there’s just something about them. He gets birthday cards with them on from people every year, and they always remind me of him.

In March I was told to work from home, but I can’t really do my job from home. I had to create a work space in the back room, which was a mess. They sent us an email about safe working from home, asking questions like “Is the pathway to your workplace uncluttered?” That made me laugh.

We’ve been clearing out the house together, as a sort of lockdown project. My son’s girlfriend is a very active, positive person and she’s helped us to get on with it.

As we’ve cleared the house, we’ve been discovering things, old photos, paperwork, clothes, and it’s been interesting to revisit some of these memories.

We don’t have a large garden, but we’re lucky to have one and we’ve appreciated spending time in it.

There’s an ongoing saga with the Eucalyptus tree in the garden behind us. It’s grown too tall and could come down in a storm, but I’ll be sad if it's chopped down. I think it’s beautiful and it’s been there a long time.

Our world has become very local. Our excursions, when we’ve taken them, have been to Clapham Common. It’s a time in which it's been possible to really appreciate the home environment and the immediate outdoors.

Normally I travel to north London by tube every day, but I’ve been furloughed from my job in the clothing industry since the beginning of April. I like the tube, but at the moment I’m glad I don’t have to use it.

I’ll miss this time at home when it’s over. It’s been good for us to be together. And it's been nice to get to know my son’s girlfriend better and have her in the house. She’s been a breath of fresh air, and she’s probably going to stay with us after the lockdown ends. I hope so.

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