Vicky Walker and Mark Brown talked with volunteer vaccinator Mick at the Downham Vaccination Hub in July 2021.
TRANSCRIPT
VW: Hi. This is Vicky Walker for Lewisham Vaccination Stories. We’re at Downham Vaccination Hub, sitting outside at the back, at the end of a very slow vaccination day. I’m talking to a volunteer vaccinator called…
M: Called Mick Kemp.
VW: Hello.
M: Hello. How are you? Hang on, my hearing aid is coming out.
VW: Mick is one of our volunteer vaccinators. Started off coming in, as we all do, just wanting to help. What did you think about when you first started volunteering?
M: When I first started volunteering here I thought, “My goodness me, what a lot of people.” Of course, I didn’t start as a vaccinator; I started as a steward, like everybody else. After a couple of days of stewarding, I have to say this, my feet hurt so much that I thought, “There’s got to be a better way.” I thought, “What I’d like to do is something that involves sitting down.” I noticed that the administrators sat down. So I said, “Can I be an administrator?”
The lovely [volunteer coordinator] Juliette put me on the administrator one. Which consisted, at that point, of me taking hand-filled forms in and entering them onto the system.
VW: There is a lot of that grunt work of typing.
M: I suppose I had five thumbs on each hand. I was trying to work one of these things with a touchpad which, they’re the Devil’s own invention. I wasn’t very good at that. It took me a long time. I thought, “That’s no good. Is there something else I can do sitting down?” I perceived that the vaccinators occasionally sat down. In fact, at the Waldron, where I also had done some volunteering, they always sat down. They were able to if they wanted to, they could administer from there.
I thought, “Yes. I will go for that.” I taught myself on the vaccinator course. I did that. It’s supposed to take six hours; it took me a bloody sight more than that, I can tell you. Mainly because I think I answered all the questions as best I could with complete reference to what I’d just read. I later realised that there are plenty of shortcuts people are taking. That’s how you do it.
VW: There are, but it is a full series of training.
M: Yes. There’s a lot involved in it.
VW: Yes.
M: Including the NHS compulsory — You had to learn all about looking after vaccinating patients and fire prevention. All the things that I hadn’t really thought much about, but was aware of, because I actually created, through my team, when I was in the Department of Health, I actually created the fire code which they still use.
VW: Did you really? A lot of us have no medical background at all. Obviously, what you’re talking about is not specifically–
M: It’s not medical; I’m an architect. This has to do with fire prevention. I was, for a time, God help you all, responsible for fire precautions and safety in the entire health service realm. All the hospitals in this country were under my–
VW: For which governments were you working?
M: The Department of Health.
VW: Yes. But, what era? Who was in charge when you were —
M: It was under Thatcher and Major. I retired in 1992. I think it was still Thatcher actually. Yes, it was. Before, there was a Labour government, thingummy [Harold] Wilson. I’ve been around for a long time.
VW: I should mention that you’re not our oldest volunteer. I hate to tell you. We have another volunteer who came last week for a couple of hours, she’s 84.
M: Eighty-four.
VW: You’re just a spring chicken.
M: Yes. I’m just a kid, aren’t I?
VW: Yes.
M: I hate that bastard already. Where is he?
VW: Betty. You leave Betty alone. (laughter)
M: Betty, okay. Good on Betty. Tell her I’m hot on her heels.
VW: What were you thinking when you first came to volunteer? You had time on your hands because you were retired, did you want to…?
M: I don’t have that much time on my hands because I do one day a week anyway with the court service as a witness service volunteer. I look after worried witnesses and explain the legal system to them and things like that. Yes. I think there was a call in the Lewisham…
VW: Local?
M: Lewisham Live. No. There’s a website and they email people. They were saying they need volunteers. So I thought, it seems like a very important thing that’s going on, so I volunteered.
VW: You’re helping people feel better in the witness — in that arena, and now you’re making them feel better about getting vaccinated and helping them get protected.
M: That’s the hope. You get some of these large people who are terrified of needles. I’m not sure I make them feel that much better. But they come away feeling better, let’s hope.
VW: That’s right. I’m going to bring in my colleague who is here with me right now.
M: Right.
MB: Yes. It’s me. It’s Mark again. You’ve heard me doing other interviews for Lewisham Vaccination Stories. I want to ask you about this pandemic period that we’ve all been living through and also your volunteering. What do you think it is you’ll always remember about this time?
M: About this time? Blimey, it’s hard to say. I’m a pictorial person; I’m an architect. I see and remember things in a pictorial way.
I shall remember this place. I shall remember the Waldron and I shall remember St John’s. They are three different buildings with three completely different ways of stewarding. Remember I did a lot of stewarding to start with. Entirely to do with the architecture and the internal organisation of the buildings.
That’s one thing I shall remember: the complexity of the each building and the need for bodies to stand at corners and direct people around. That’s one thing I’ll remember. I remember the feeling I suppose, yes, the feeling of doing something. It’s a bit like, my parents were involved in–
I was born in the last war. I was born in 1942. It was over by the time I began to be aware of anything. I remember VE Day. My father died in the war. He was a volunteer pilot. He was a night fighter pilot and died and we dealt with that.
The thinking of doing something, this is our — It’s not a war, it’s nothing like as terrifying, but it is, it’s an important thing. Being able to do a bit is quite important.
VW: Mark has described it as being like we’re all doing our national service together.
M: Yes.
VW: We’re all mucking in.
M: There’s a bit of camaraderie comes out of it as well. I’ll remember the people I worked with. Yes. Yes.
MB: Thinking back…
VW: Like Vicky, because she was the first and most welcoming face I saw here.
MB: A wonderful welcoming face. For everyone at home who can’t see Vicky because we’re doing an audio interview, she does indeed have a welcoming face.
VW: What you can see of it.
MB: What we can see of it. We’ve all been wearing masks for the last six months, so we don’t really know what you look like.
VW: Yes, that is true.
M: Yes, it is. That’s, I suppose, something, it’s not just here, something that I remember. I have to wear a mask all the time in the courts as well, especially when anybody comes in. Myself and my supervisor, we don’t bother, we’ve both been vaccinated. If anybody comes in, we get our masks out and pull it up over the face. It’s like being surrounded by gangsters. You look at people and you think, “I wonder what their face…”
There is a guy at the Waldron, I won’t give his name, but everybody, including my friend, she said, “He’s the beautiful one.” He’s very tall and he’s of Anglo-Chinese birth. When he brought his mask down, he’s got a very English pointy nose and it looks completely wrong with Oriental people. I’m being a bitch here, but you know.
VW: Retract your claws for one second there. I think we’re going to be vaccinating for a good few months yet, but what are you looking forward to when we, hopefully, come out the other side of all of this?
M: I’m not sure I’m looking forward to it. At my age, it’s quite nice to feel useful. I shall probably be doing other things. I’m looking forward to getting on my boat and going away for two weeks. That will be, in fact, at the end of this month and beginning of next month, for two weeks. It won’t be over by then, we’ll be coming back to more of this.
I’m not really looking forward to it being over. I don’t want it to go on indefinitely, but it’s been, broadly speaking, a very pleasant experience. There isn’t anything about this that I regret.
VW: I have to say, and I am sure Mark would agree, it is so rewarding talking to so many people every day and hearing about their lives. I can’t say I’m putting a smile on their face because I can’t see their faces, but it is genuinely a delight to come and volunteer. Even if I go home and I just fall on the sofa and do nothing.
M: Yes. That’s certainly right. Adjust yourself to just standing up for long periods, my feet go into cramp, and I have to take my shoe off.
VW: It’s okay to sit down and vaccinate. I’ve seen some people go up and down and they get on their knees to talk to people. You can stand up. However you want to do it.
M: Yes. Any other…?
MB: As a final finishing thought, if there was one thing that you could tell people about what it’s been like to be involved in this vaccination effort, what would be the one thing you would tell people? What’s the thing you’re going to tell people in 10 years’ time about what it was like?
M: What do you mean? People who are thinking about volunteering.
MB: People who are volunteering. The future generations who might want to know something about this time.
M: I can understand now what people who did national service in wartime. Sorry, who did wartime. People say to them, “What was it like?”
This is going to be a complete aside. There was one bloke I know, he was a sergeant in the Second World War. His father, by then an old man, had been the same rank, he’d been a sergeant major in the same regiment in the First World War. He said to the old man, because he was about to go overseas with the British Expedition Force, not what was it like but, “Is there any advice you’d like to give me?”
He said, “Yes. The first time you hear the big guns go off, you’ll mess yourself.” He said, “Yes, I did.” That really isn’t any kind of an answer, but I just thought…
VW: It’s a great answer.
M: I don’t know if I could tell anybody what it’s like, only how it impacted on me. It sounds a bit overlogical, doesn’t it? It was a period of great stress for the country and for practically everybody I know. Fortunately I don’t. Yes, I do: I know one person that died from it and one or two people had very severe infections.
It was the stress of it being there. It’s the threat that’s worn people down. I’m sure it’s worn people down. People are losing their livelihoods and may not get them back. It’s not something I would recommend people go into.
But rather like the war, all you can say is it was hell for some people. It wasn’t hell for me, I’m ashamed — No, I’m not ashamed to say that. It wasn’t. I’m comfortably retired. I’ve got a decent pension. It hasn’t affected me really, I’ve saved some money in fact, as most persons have because I’ve not been going out much. What was it like? Well, it was a bad time.
VW: But then you’ve given your time and you’ve come and got in the trenches with us. We’re all mucking in together.
M: Yes. We’re doing something about it. That’s always far better than being a defenceless victim of it. Yes, absolutely right. Well done, you.
VW: Well, Mick, brilliant. Thank you very much, Mick.
M: You’re more than welcome.
VW: We appreciate you taking the time to talk.
M: You better cut out that bit about the Chinese, that’s not fair.
VW: That’s alright.