Voices from all over the world come together to help people with Covid-19 and Lockdown
1st April 2020
Global Voices unite amidst Covid-19, in the form of a group of people, who want to help each other, during the current Covid-19 pandemic. They’ve joined forces to write and produce a book. And all in the space of a week.
The book, Surviving the Coronavirus Lockdown and Social Isolation is available as an e-book. Any monies raised will go to a mental health charity. All the participants have given their time, knowledge and support free of charge.
This collaboration includes 65 contributors, all committed to helping people in lockdown. and experiencing social isolation. They come from:
China
Hungary
Italy,
Japan
Malaysia
Portugal
South Korea
Spain
Switzerland
Sweden
Thailand
and United Kingdom.
How the book is arranged
The articles in the book offer ideas, advice, tips, and experiences that readers can draw from. They’re arranged under the following headings:
Conquering social isolation
Mastering mind and body,
Understanding COVID-19
Community, learning and teaching,
Work and organisations
Personal stories and the future.
Contributors include the thoughts of children, teenagers, business owners, retired people. And also those with no convenient label but yet have something to say that can help others.
Using the hashtag #LetsResetNormal, the intent of this collaboration is: 1.To galvanise the positives and 2. Give people hope, direction and inspiration as we move towards an uncertain future together.
Nobody knows what the new normal will look like. We hope this is a positive way of bringing these ideas together to influence politicians, business owners, and, most importantly, citizens that good can come from the situation we are in. If we work together.
This is a movement towards radical, positive change.
All have given their time for free. There is no commercial angle to this and the book will be widely available free of charge. And what also makes this project exceptional is its short production time. From conception to publication, the process has taken a mere ten days. That demonstrates the commitment of all involved, to help others.
Richard Wintle, known to many Swindonians as the man photographing Swindon’s history through the decades, has been busy! As you’d expect for a press photographer, Richard has a VAST archive of photographs. And he’s put some of them into a book: A Picture Is Only the Start of The Story.
NB: Not only Swindon of course. Richard’s work took him far and wide.
Surrounded by my archive of about four million film-based and digital images, gathered over more than four decades of press photography in Swindon, I’ve discovered connections that run through the archive that weren’t obvious at the time.
In the book I reveal the connection between the Magic Roundabout and the Seekers pop group. And the connection between a Eurovision Song Contest entrant and a flight over the North Atlantic. I show how a work experience boy saw history made, as well as the story behind finding an unknown Swindon pop idol.
Then you’ll see how come there were twelve winners of a Miss Thamesdown competition.
During the book’s meander I explain too, the pictures we took that were published at the time but can’t be published now.
A Picture Is Only the Start of The Story takes you on a voyage. A voyage of picture stories covered by Calyx Picture Agency. The journey traveres the decades, linking the protests, as the Railway Works closed, to Honda announcing it closure.
Richard Wintle: Photographing Swindon’s History, meanders through a series of interesting links as it wanders the modern-day Swindon story. As it goes it visits many events and places. At the same time it explains some of the technological changes to the industry during and the back stories associated with the agency.
“Richard’s life as a press photographer gave him with an excellent vantage point to document major local events.Drawing on his vast archive of images, Richard has created a truly unique book, capturing local life in a way unlike any other publication “The Local Studies team, Swindon Libraries
How to get hold of the book
The Covid-19 pandemic has rather put paid to a physical book launch. But fret not!! For you can still get a signed copy of the book through the Calyx website by following this link here.
NB: At the time of writing Richard has only about 20 copies available.
Contact: richard@calyxpix.com
£1 from every sale goes to Neuroendocrine Cancer UK. The book will be available through local outlets when COVID-19 passes and life as we have known it returns to something like normal.
5 Swindon Books to Read Now – and yes two of them are mine … to pass pandemic purdah time
So, we’re in the grip of the Coronavirus pandemic and at best are faced with a prolonged period of social distancing. Or at worst, lockdown, as we have at the time of reading.
So here’s five of the MANY Swindon books out there, fiction and non-fiction, written by Swindonians, with which to pass some fruitful time. Well, in fact, the title’s a bit of a cheat. Cos it’s four books and a DVD!
If you haven’t got them on your bookshelves now (and you might but not have read them) then head to the shop in Swindon central library as soon as you can. That said, some of the books included are available on mail order.
So – in no particular order:
1. A Swindon Wordsmith – George Ewart Hobbs
By Noel Ponting & Graham Carter
‘George Ewart Hobbs’ vivid writing provides us with a unique and brilliantly observed insight into everyday and so-called “ordinary” life in Swindon a century ago.
When we’re not on lockdown you can find Secret Swindon in our central library and Waterstones in Swindon. I have some copies, so if interested contact me on my Born Again Swindonian Facebook page – link below – or via this blog.
There’s a map in the front of this one. The buildings are divided into areas. So, maintaining social distance of course, you could always go exploring with book in hand.
‘As the industrial revolution and the coming of the railways transformed the Wiltshire countryside Swindon women were on the front line of change, shaping the new industrial town and transforming the old market one.’
It’s a great read is this one.
5. Railway Town: Martin Parry
Okay – so this isn’t a book it’s a DVD. I bet some of you have got DVD players gathering dust. Dig them out!
Well listeners. This Swindon in 50 Drinks post No 10: Arkell’s Ales, is something of a milestone. Not because it’s the 10th post in the series. Oh no. Rather, it’s because today is the day after our current Prime Minister, Boris Johnson, put the country into a condition that is lockdown in all but name. The reason for that being the pandemic Covid-19 – also known as the coronavirus.
It’s all rather frightening TBH. And of course it’s curtailed my plans to progress this series of the blog – for obvious reasons. But – I happened to have a couple of bottles of Arkell’s in my store. Thus this post – the last for a while.
Me on YouTube with a rather unfortunate stop point!:
About Arkell’s Brewery
If you’ve got a copy of Swindon in 50 Buildingsyou’ll be familiar with Arkell’s. If you haven’t got a copy – why not? I have some – get in touch. 🙂
The Arkell’s website’s history page has an informative timeline of their history – it’s well worth a look – and a detailed history.
Here’s a small extract:
‘John Arkell was a remarkable man. Born into a farming family in 1802 in Kempsford, South Gloucestershire, he emigrated to the New World in his late twenties and took with him a group of local people who sought a refuge from the tough conditions endured by agricultural folk at that time. It was a brave step.
They arrived in Canada and established the small community of Arkell – which still exists today – but three years later, John returned for love. His fiancée preferred to live in England so he came home to marry and set up home in Stratton St Margaret, near Swindon, where he grew barley on his farm.’
The step from there to brewing beer was an obvious one. At that time, many pubs and even private homes, brewed beer. But John Arkell’s foresight saw the potential for supplying beer to a string of other pubs along with his own, recently-bought Kingsdown pubs.
With immaculate timing, he picked a moment when Isambard Kingdom Brunel, Swindon’s founding father, chose Swindon to site his GWR Works. Thus the once-sleepy market town was already growing into a thriving – and thirsty – industrial heartland.
The Beers – No 10: Arkell’s Ales
It’s clear that Arkell’s have a rather large selection of beer – and I only have two of them. The two that you see in the picture below.
‘Since its release in 2013 to celebrate our 170th anniversary, our lager, 1843 Craft Lager, has become one of our most popular, award-winning brands.
This is a classic ‘craft’ lager brewed using pale malt with some wheat added for extra body and mouth feel and traditional lager hops. It is gradually fermented at a much lower temperature and matured for 3 weeks in tank at an even lower temperature to produce a pleasant, light, refreshing beer.
This year as part of our 175th anniversary and after consulting some of our loyal drinkers we have decided to update its name to Malthouse Craft Lager, named after the old Malthouse that was built here at the brewery by our founder John Arkell in 1877.’
And that’s it for now, for #swindonin50rinks See you on the other side I hope!
I’ve no idea how much public art other towns have but it seems to me that Swindon has an astonishing amount.
‘When I began blogging about Swindon, the public art was one of the first things I turned my keyboard to. Not that I even knew the term then. Back in the corner of Derbyshire I left behind, the closest I got to it was an ancient village pump, a cenotaph and a redundant and rusting pit-winding wheel. Hence, discovering all the public art in Swindon was quite the revelation. It’s not possible to write about all of it here but, if you’re so inclined, Born Again Swindonian contains oodles of posts about Swindon’s public art – in particular the West Swindon sculpture trail.‘
Thamesdown Borough Council commissioned the pieces that comprise the West Swindon sculpture trail in the period from the early 1980s to the early 1990s. Funding came, in part, from the housing developer’s contributions to the Percent-for-Art public realm scheme.
My Sculpture Favourites
Within this blog I’ve written about much if Swindon’s sculpture and outdoor art installations. Thus there’s no point in my going over it all in this overview post. You should find it all in this section of the blog. But I will give special mention to a couple of my faves.
And one of my very favourite pieces is The Blondinis. Such a shame that they’re now languishing in a park in Gorse Hill. I still miss them.
Part of the West Swindon Sculpture Walk this one is located on one of the many superb big green spaces that West Swindon features, it’s quite easy to forget that one is in the middle of a big conurbation. It needs little imagination to see the artist’s intention for the sculpture as a relic of a long gone civilization.
