Mark Brown spoke with Helen during a pop-up vaccination session in New Cross Gate, London, in May 2021.
TRANSCRIPT
MB: This is Mark Brown, for Lewisham Vaccination Stories. I am in the garden of — well, I’m in Besson Street Community Garden, and I’m here with…
H: Helen.
MB: So, Helen, you just had your vaccination. How was it?
H: Really lovely. If you could change the weather, that would have been a little bit better, but apart from that, lovely people. Ease of vaccine fantastic, and a cup of tea and a piece of cake afterwards; what more can you want?
MB: I don’t think there’s anything more you could want from that. So, was there anything that was worrying you beforehand about vaccination?
H: To be honest, no. I listened to the radio for the last year and a half, listened to the vaccines being developed, and the trials that were taking place, and I felt really safe about taking it. And I really want the world to get back to normal, so I want to be part of that process. So, yes.
MB: So, how has the last year been for you?
H: For me personally, it hasn’t been difficult at all. I’ve had one or two wobbly days, when I felt very isolated; I live alone. But more concerned about other people in the world. Particularly my mother, not being able to see her. But grateful for small things, like technology.
Yes, concern that we missed births and deaths, and things like that. But yes, it’s been dreadfully worrying, hasn’t it, across the world? But I’m just so grateful we’re in the place we are now, you know, a year and a half later; that we can just sigh a sigh of relief, and, sort of, get on with it, really, I think.
MB: There’s a lot of hope to what you’re saying there. What is it you’re most hoping for once we come out of this period of COVID and pandemic?
H: Well, there’s things that are not really connected to the pandemic in some ways. You know, like do we need to travel as much as we need to? I’ll probably never go to a concert again as long as I live, just because I don’t really want to be in large groups of people again. I don’t know, maybe that’s because I live alone, and I’ve got quite a, sort of, singular, sort of, isolated life. But yes, I don’t know. Yes.
MB: Do you feel like the vaccine has got the capacity to give us back some things that we’ve been missing for the last year?
H: Absolutely. I really, really do, yes. Yes, just being able to get on a train without fear or worry, or a bus, or stand in a line at the supermarket, and if somebody coughs, you’re not terrified. And yes, yes, I really do. Yes, absolutely. And to see friends and do the things that we used to do before has become — well, we used to take them for granted, and now we can reassess them, and see how important they were and are. Yes, like seeing friends, and hugs, and things like that.
MB: Super important. Thank you for that, Helen.
H: Not at all.