Vicky Walker met with fellow volunteer Gavin Cambridge in October 2021 at the Downham Vaccination Hub.
TRANSCRIPT
Vicky Walker: Hi, Vicky Walker for Lewisham Vaccination Stories here in the outreach room at the Downham Vaccination Hub. I’m here with my colleague:
Gavin Cambridge: Gavin Cambridge.
Vicky: Gavin is a fellow volunteer vaccinator, and he also has some interesting insights into the vaccination programme because you were on a trial. So tell me about that. I know I’ve heard about it, but tell us about it.
Gavin: I was on a trial run out of King’s College London for the Novavax vaccine. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was fully jabbed as of the 1st of December 2020.
I signed up for the register the government had started for… I forget the name of it, The National Vaccine Register or something to that effect. I didn’t hear back from it, but one of my friends on social media who also lived in Lewisham, for whatever reason he got on it. I think they’d had a pause in signing people up for a couple of weeks, so when it un-paused, they were fairly desperate to get people on. And then he shared the sign-on, on social media, and I sent them an email and I was jabbed within a couple of weeks.
Vicky: What’s involved in being on a trial? Do you have to go and be poked and prodded and assessed?
Gavin: Yes, but no more than you would expect for any tests at the doctor. I emailed them, arranged a time to go in, took bloods. Yes, they took bloods the first time. They took bloods every time I went in, to be honest.
I think that was to check my level of antibodies. I’d had COVID, not confirmed with a test because I had it at the time when you couldn’t get a test, but they took bloods, I presume for that purpose.
Gave me my first jab sometime in November, went back three weeks later, had more bloods taken, got my second jab. And I think I went back at three months, six months, and I was due back in at twelve months but I withdrew from the trial.
I was unblinded in January, actually, because I started volunteering at Downham. So I was offered the fully licensed Pfizer jab. So, when you’re offered the licensed jab, you’re advised to call the trial and say, “I have been offered the jab. Have I actually received the jab as part of the trial?” And then it was left to you whether you would take the licensed one, even if you had had it.
As it transpires, I had had the real thing. So I decided to leave the… to not take the licensed one at the time. The vaccine that I received as part of the trial hasn’t been approved yet. Long story short, it’s been getting approved anytime soon since about February when they got the first redact.
So it was around my birthday at the start of February they got data to say, “Oh, it’s an efficacious,” I think is the correct term — vaccine, and it was effective against coronavirus. Wonderful news.
Vicky: But then you could have had a placebo? Is that what you’re saying, when you came in, when you were unblinded? Is it possible you would have just had a placebo?
Gavin: Yes, absolutely. So, in that case, I would have almost certainly had the Pfizer jab. Funnily enough, I actually sent the link on to two of my colleagues at work, two managers, and they both got onto a trial. Ruth got onto the Novavax one as well, ran out of, I think it was Royal Free, and John a Johnson & Johnson trial run out of, I think it was Charing Cross Hospital in West London.
And I think Ruth has only come to find in the last couple of weeks that she actually had the real thing back in November because she hadn’t been unblinded yet. And the Johnson & Johnson trial completed because it was approved several months ago. And I think John had had it at that point.
So, yes, it was nice to know that I had a couple of colleagues, not directly as… Well, I sent them a link, so it’s nice to know that they were a bit safer as a result of me forwarding that on, which felt quite nice.
Vicky: Good for you, and then also, not only did you take part in a trial, you decided to volunteer, so you’ve been giving your time since the beginning of the year. Did you just have time to spare or you just thought, “I want to keep giving. I want to help out”?
Gavin: I wouldn’t say I had time to spare, but, when we all started this, no one could leave the house without a very valid reason.
Vicky: That was a big thing for me. It’s, like, “I get to go out. I’ve got somewhere to be.”
Gavin: Absolutely. And I’m a very social person at the best of times. So I do feel I go a bit stir crazy if I’m stuck inside at the best of times, and even with the best flatmates in the world, spending that much time around a person, you do just kind of want to wring their neck on occasion. Anyone you spend that much time with.
And it was a nice thing to do. You felt useful because in so much of the pandemic, you feel helpless in order to do anything about it. And this was just a really easy way to say, “I can help people. I can do something good.” And, to a certain extent, you think, “I would want someone to be really friendly and affable and try and make someone comfortable.”
I get volunteer leave at work. And prior to the pandemic, I was a volunteer tour guide for the Transport Museum. So I gave tours around disused bits of the Underground network, and that was really fun. You got to talk to people all day. It was something you were really passionate and enthusiastic about. So I wilfully gave away my time to talk to people all day.
So it didn’t feel like that much of a transition to do it from talking to people underground, to talking to people in a health centre. And actually, it was the happiest place you were going to ever encounter at that time of the year. No one was going outside. I think the third lockdown was the hardest.
Vicky: It was a very long winter.
Gavin: Yes, because the earlier ones, you had slightly nicer weather, everyone was going through it and it was novel. It was, “Oh, we’re getting through this. We’re doing the right thing.” The second one was a bit shorter, so it wasn’t awful, or at least you had a prospect of an end to it. But the third one was never-ending.
Vicky: Yes. Christmas was cancelled and everything got grim and it was so cold and dark and long.
Gavin: Exactly. And more than anything, I just thought… I’m my father’s son. I would chat to people in a bank queue. I will chat to people whenever you’re in a circumstance if somebody needs to start talking, I’m usually that person.
I just thought, if I was back in Scotland, I would want somebody to be doing this for my parents to make sure that they got around safe, and someone was stewarding them around and making it a bit easier. Because the centres, even though you would only have about five or six vaccinators at any given time, it took a team of more than 20 to 25 volunteers to make sure that when anyone came in, they were told exactly where they needed to go.
The queues were handled and everything as far as possible was socially distanced. It was safe for the people because at the time, we had the most vulnerable people coming through the doors and it just would have been heartbreaking if, as a result of them trying to do the right thing and trying to be safe for themselves and others, that one of them would have caught something.
So it was a meticulous operation that did really run on the volunteers. So it felt like a very useful thing to do at a time when you didn’t really feel that useful in many other things in life.
Vicky: I think a lot of us felt that way because we were sitting at home and we were being good by staying home because we weren’t spreading viruses, we weren’t putting other people at risk, but it’s very passive just to sit at home and do that.
If you actually come out and do a couple of shifts of volunteering, you get to help hundreds of people in one day and you go home with a warm glow. You go home knackered, but you go home knowing you’ve made a difference.
Gavin: Yes, absolutely.
Vicky: Are there any patients or people that stick in your mind that you’ve met over the past few months?
Gavin: The last few months? Oh, God, that’s a long time. It’s a bit different now because we’re getting back to dare I say normalcy, and when it was the young people, they were mainly doing them in the bigger vaccination centres, so you didn’t necessarily see that many people.
It’s not that no one had a particularly not unique story, but I just remember you saw some of the really old people who were just having an awful time staying inside and not leaving the house. I would see myself in their shoes in about 60, 70 years’ time, just stuck at home. The most sociable people not speaking to people, it must be absolutely awful.
So, to be able to provide them with some hope and some relief and just make their lives a bit less anxious was really helpful. I think there were a couple of people that came in when I was doing admin, and not in a malicious way or anything, but you just look at somebody and you think, “You are not well. You’re not a naturally vivacious human being.”
Vicky: Yes, but they’d made the effort to get here.
Gavin: Yes, and just thinking that that person has got their jab and every moment that passes, they’ll be a bit safer while this thing works. So it was really rewarding.
I come from a family of farmers. We can’t stay still. So, yes, it was just a combination of me being too chatty to stay in one room and too hyperactive to stand still for any amount of time. It’s been the most rewarding thing I ever could have done in the last 18 months. And, more than anything, it feels like a wee family here.
Vicky: It does. It really does. We’ve all gone through a baptism of fire or whatever you want to call it together. We’ve all seen the same things and we’ve all got 1,000-yard stares sometimes, but we did it together.
Gavin: Yes. So originally I volunteered at a clinic in St John’s because it was circulated around my flat development’s WhatsApp group because it was a health centre next door, so they were just looking for volunteers. And they’re in a bit of a denser bit of Lewisham, so they were fairly oversubscribed for volunteers at the time. So they sent me to Downham.
So I’ve been to St John’s, Downham, and I also went to the Waldron in New Cross, and even though I’ve been to the other ones and they’re actually a lot easier to get to from where I was living, Downham just felt right for me so much more. It’s a much more open space and it just feels like, like I said, a family.
I think it’s reflective of the neck of the woods you’re in that, this bit of Lewisham, and by extension, Bromley, it’s a place that people live. I don’t think it’s a place people live for a couple of years. It’s a really big community here, and that’s reflected so much in the centre and the way it works, it’s really open. Everyone’s really chatty. You actually get to speak to people and make friends, whereas in other centres you’re there almost to do a bit of a job.
Vicky: It’s more of a chain of command [at the Waldron]. You get them through the door, you walk them down the hall, they go in the room, and then they leave. It’s one at a time almost.
Gavin: Yes, and, to a certain extent, you can completely see why that works for them. As soon as I came here, I was almost hooked a wee bit, and even though I don’t live in Lewisham anymore, for a while I lived in North London, so even though it was a real trek to get here, it’s a nice way to spend your days off. I’m quite lucky. I get paid volunteer leave, so I get five days a year.
Vicky: More companies should do that. Put the word out. Spread that around.
Gavin: I’ve tried to get people from my business to come down. It’s annoying because people who work in this bit of the business in Southeast London, I wouldn’t necessarily have a lot of contact with, but, yes, it’s just such a valuable thing that it’s exactly where we have it that you’re doing good and you’re providing back to the community. It’s not just corporate social responsibility. It makes you feel good on the inside.
Vicky: It really does.
Gavin: So I think so many people should do it.
Vicky: So if you have friends or neighbours or colleagues who want to volunteer, even though we’re winding down the vaccine programme, would you still encourage them to do it?
Gavin: Absolutely. If anything, I think the need for volunteers has increased because we’re getting to the booster jab season, we’re doing flu jabs, and we’re getting a lot of those vulnerable customers that we saw back in January, February, March, April, and they’re the ones that need the support.
The reason we could do those big vaccine sessions at football stadiums was because they were young people and they didn’t really need as much support. They got there on public transport, whereas this is really a community hub, and it really is just to serve the people who live in the local area.
And, quite often, this is not the wealthiest bit of town, and all those heartbreaking statistics about wealth and race and income feeding into heartbreaking outcomes. And just absolutely, it shouldn’t be there. And me being here hopefully helps try and right that a wee bit.
I’m not saying that to be down on Downham at all. It’s an absolutely lovely neck of the woods. Everyone’s absolutely lovely, and it feels like a place that people live, not where people exist when they come home from their jobs in the city.
Vicky: Yes. They’re more connected to their neighbours in this part of London than they are in some others, definitely.
Also, I like it when they come in and they’re waving. They’re like, “Oh, there’s my neighbour. There’s Sue at number 62,” or whatever. So it’s almost like you all know each other and you’re all really good at coming to get your vaccines. It’s brilliant.
Gavin: Yes, exactly. I had my first repeat customers today, which was a strange feeling. Two people. I think I recognised one woman who I jabbed before, and a gentleman who I jabbed before recognised me. So that was a bit strange. But it was nice to follow up with someone because you have this existential dread that you would give someone a jab at one point and you think, “Oh, God, I really hope I did that right.”
Vicky: And they go away and explode.
Gavin: Yes, exactly. So, to think, “Okay, this person has made it this long. I didn’t do them harm, because otherwise they might have not been here.” So it felt really good to see them.
Vicky: In the nicest possible way, I hope we don’t see them for a fourth booster, but we don’t know what lies ahead.
Gavin: No. They’re doing all these amazing trials, and I’m still on a newsletter for the trial database I signed up for. So I’ve shared them with the other volunteers at Downham because we were obviously jabbed fairly early on in the process. But because we’re made up of volunteers from the community, we’ve got a wide range of different ages, different ethnicities, different backgrounds. So those are the exact type of people you’d want for a trial. You don’t just want all the, as nice as possible, people of a certain age group who are largely jabbed first. So hopefully we can help out even more, because I think Downham is just a testament to how much people want to help out.
They really do want to do right by their community. It doesn’t quite bring a tear to my eye, but it definitely warms the cockles of my heart.
Vicky: It warms my cockles and it brings a tear to my eye. So when we’re through all this vaccination programme, assuming we’re going to be through and we’re out the other side into a new normal, how are you going to look back on all this?
Gavin: I don’t know. I’ve chatted to a few colleagues at the pub when we’re in the office now, and they quote it as quite a noble thing.
But, to be honest, I choose to come down here now. It’s not because I feel obliged to, although the obligation after having a difficult day, I feel a certain level of responsibility because it feels like a family down here. No, it feels nice to say, “Oh, I did something. I came and helped out, made some awkward jokes and put some people at ease,” because I think that’s what you really want when it’s a really scary time. You just want it to feel a bit normal, and actually someone just putting a smile on your face at a time–
Vicky: And that joke that you’ve been telling today, would you please…?
Gavin: Oh, God, no, Vicky, you’ve heard this 1,001 times and you’re wilfully bringing it on again. So just say you asked me to do this.
So, when I’ve jabbed someone and, all going well, in the vast majority of cases, they don’t bleed once you’ve jabbed them, I’ll just check them with a bit of cotton wool because obviously you don’t want any blood to get on their clothes. Just check them with a bit of cotton wool.
And the joke is, “Not a speck of blood. The vampires are going home hungry.” I really don’t know where these vampires are, but obviously they’ve starved at this point.
Vicky: They’re all withered up hanging in the corners of the trees. They’re waiting a very long time. Well, thank you very much, Gavin. We appreciate your stories and thank you for sharing them with us.
Gavin: You’re very welcome.