What were you doing this time four years ago? Memories of empty streets, stories from frontline key workers, and reflections on many days and weeks spent at home is up next as we look back at the coronavirus pandemic four years on from the very first lockdowns. Here's what people in a city near you had to share with us.
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00:00 Four years on from the first lockdown, what were you doing this time four years ago? Do
00:10 you remember?
00:11 Yeah, I was in March now, aren't we? So I was just about to finalise my nursing degree.
00:17 I was actually impressed and then so I was just going into nursing. You know, what do
00:24 you call it? Head first into nursing in the deep water, yeah. But I was so well looked
00:30 after by the NHS.
00:32 It was like unbelievable. It was like, this can't be real. It was very much like, it happened
00:39 so quickly. It was very much just a shock. And I was more worried for like family members.
00:44 We continued working right the way through lockdown, working online. I worked in a college,
00:50 so we saw our students online and we continued doing that. So yeah, it did change our practices
00:55 and I think we saved money doing that, to be honest. But looking back, yeah, it was
01:01 quite a scary time, wasn't it? At the beginning of March, you were working offshore. We didn't
01:06 know if you would get stuck offshore for the whole duration. And at the time we were told
01:11 12 weeks.
01:12 I was home. I didn't catch it, but I wasn't allowed out.
01:17 And what did you do in lockdown to keep busy?
01:21 Just watching the telly.
01:23 I think the first lockdown was a novelty. Also, the weather was very good as well. So
01:27 I spent a lot of time outside in the garden. I was lucky in that I wasn't furloughed. I
01:31 was able to work from home for the entirety of both lockdowns. I would say that the second
01:35 one was much harder because it was in the winter. And frankly, by the time we reached
01:39 Christmas in the second one, I was pretty much in despair. So if we could possibly never
01:45 go back there, that would be good.
01:47 I kept working because I had a job I could do remotely. And I thought, we didn't know
01:52 where Covid was going. It could have been going anywhere, you know. We've been the edge
01:55 of the end of humanity. But I thought it would be lucky to have a job. So I kept going.
02:01 We were really scared at first. Everybody did as they were told. I think the older ones
02:07 found it more scary than the younger ones.
02:10 OK, this time four years ago, I was working at my job. I never got any time off in between.
02:17 We were key workers. So I worked the whole time. Now I'm a student in Glasgow. It's much
02:23 better.
02:24 Just abiding the rules like everybody else. And looking back, maybe it wasn't such a great
02:30 idea with all this mask and that. Didn't really do a lot.
02:34 It was an absolute awful time. My daughter was supposed to get married. They had to put
02:40 their wedding on hold. They'd got a house. And they just managed to get the keys on the
02:47 day that the lockdown came in. Or else they wouldn't have been able to get the completion.
02:53 They should have locked down earlier. Should have done. You know, and that's the government.
02:58 And it's a time that people will never forget.