Mark Brown spoke with vaccination volunteer Rona at the Downham Vaccination Hub in July 2021.
TRANSCRIPT
MB: This is Mark Brown for Lewisham Vaccination Stories, and I am sitting looking out across Downham Fields, looking at a beautiful panorama of London. I’m at a vaccination clinic at the weekend and I’m here with…
RH: Rona, Rona Hall.
MB: So, Rona, you are a volunteer with the vaccination effort in Lewisham. The first question I have to ask you is why? I know why I’m a volunteer. Why are you a volunteer?
RH: Oh, Mark, it’s been something that I have wanted to get involved in for a long time.
When the pandemic sort of hit and lockdown happened, I had retired from being somebody working in the NHS, and I felt really helpless, really, and, sort of, thinking, “Well, what can I do?” You know, I wouldn’t put myself forward with clinical skills and things, but I just felt there must be something that, you know, I could get involved in.
It was only once the vaccination programme started up, and I did volunteer as a COVID champion in Lewisham as well, and that kind of kept me up todate with what was happening and gave me information so that I could disseminate that amongst my networks and my communities, and then I saw this advert to join and become a volunteer with the vaccine clinics. It just was really easy to do, and that was so enabling actually.
So, rather than being paralysed with thinking, “Oh, what can I do? Am I good enough or am I not good enough?” it just was dead easy and nobody was anything other– it was that being welcomed into the project as well, and being part of it and being part of the community.
So, that’s why, and also, since I’d not been working full-time, I’d volunteered working in a prison, and that had been not possible for me to do. That had been such an important part of my life. So, what I’ve had a chance to do through the pandemic is really think about not holding back from opportunities when they come along, to be part of doing something, giving back to my community. Feeling not hopeless and helpless. So, that’s what it did for me.
MB: Yes. I remember way back in January when we started on the vaccination effort, just how bleak and apocalyptic it felt. It wasn’t clear whether we were going to pull this off. It wasn’t clear what was going to happen. What do you think you’ll always remember about your time volunteering with the vaccinations?
RH: Well, being made to feel that I mattered and I had a value, and that the people who I was meeting were also part of it. It was like everybody is part of something in the vaccination programme, whether you’re receiving it or you’re, like I’m doing today, doing an administrative task.
It doesn’t matter what you are doing, whether you are coming to be vaccinated or not, I feel as if it’s that possibility of hope and a movement of togetherness in community and different communities, and being part of the human race rather than just all segmented out.
The vaccination programme is for everybody, and being here in Downham, you see, it doesn’t matter what social status you have got or whether you’re old or young or whatever. Just everybody’s coming through the doors, and similarly with the diversity of the people who are actually on the– as volunteers on the programme.
MB: Yes. So, how’s your pandemic been? It sounds like a really weird question to ask, but I think we’ve all got a different experience. We’re all part of one big story, but we all had a story of our own. How’s the pandemic been for you?
RH: It’s been really up and down at times. I mean, I feel very much better this year than I did this time last year, but that was mainly because my husband’s a vicar. Throughout the pandemic, he’s been incredibly busy, and our daughter moved back to live with us because she wasn’t in a place that was suitable for working at home. She’s got a really high-stress job as well. So, they were working 60 hours a week, 70 hours a week.
So, I went from being somebody who had quite a lot going on in my life outside of the home, because that’s what I’d always done, to being the sort of chief cook and bottle washer. So, I had to, kind of, reframe everything for me, and then finding ways of coming out again, coming out to be with people outside home.
So, it’s been up and down, but I think it’s so much easier now than it was, and having had two vaccinations myself, I feel so much better being around people. It shocked me because I’ve always been somebody who was, kind of– you know, if we’d just met Mark, I’m sorry, we would’ve had a big hug before, kind of thing, and that, of course, hasn’t been possible.
So, it’s been learning about myself and learning about how to be a person in a world that had a lot of uncertainty in it and a lot of loss, because, you know, obviously, in our communities, it hasn’t been straightforward for people. There’s been a lot of grief and sadness, and there are still a significant number of people that we know that are very uncertain and very afraid actually, of coming and being outside, even with people that they know.
So, I know there’s a lot still to do, but oh my God, I’m so glad we’ve got the vaccinations.
MB: I think that’s a wonderful point to end on. Thank you for that, Rona.