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The story of why....
The story of why....
Preface
Since the commencement of COVID 19 much work has been undertaken into a better understanding the impact on a variety of factors, but mental health was always my main concern. This affected individuals, their education, their work and society as a whole. There weren’t many places in the world that didn’t experience some disruption due to the pandemic. Figures subsequently released by the WHO quoted that the pandemic triggered a 25% increase in the prevalence of anxiety. I read those statistics and found myself nodding, the words silently passing through my head ‘snort, like that wasn’t expected’
But some people; some people who spent time in various Defence Forces, serving world-wide, in isolated locations, limited social contact, limited time to speak to family, unable to get home easily, often confined to one location, sometimes to even a building…we knew. We knew how this was going to affect us. We knew how it would affect others. Did it then make us act differently?
Did we go back into some survival mode? Maybe…. And I think this was mine.
In 2003, I served with the Royal Australian Air Force in Iraq. I was located in the Air Traffic Control Town at Baghdad International Airport. It was one building. One building in the middle of the airport. I stayed in one room. One room with thirteen others. We ate (and shared) Ration Packs. We called home when we could. We were isolated. My survival mode was to write a weekly email to a group of friends, and hope they took the time to write back, either by email or an actually physical letter. Mail days were so important.
My mother looked at these e-mails as a way to monitor my mental health. When the humour was lacking in the emails, she knew the humour was lacking in her only daughter, her only child – and she would intervene. Twenty years later, I have decided to turn this story into a book. The aspirational release date is November 2024, and the title? One Night in Baghdad.
In early 2020, when Australia started to see the effects of COVID lockdown and all the associated restrictions, I was the CEO of Bankstown and Camden Airports. My Board at the time, correctly asserted their due diligence and asked me to look at deploying the staff to work from home. I pushed back and presented a plan that was well within the NSW Health guidelines that would allow the staff to continue as a group, supporting those operational emergency services and airfield staff, whilst supporting each other.
My main point to my Board was, I felt I knew the effect(s) of being locked down with greater or lesser levels of support; and trying to normalise what could be normalised in an abnormal situation, was paramount. They listened, asked many questions and ultimately agreed, as long as I was adhering to all the correct health advice and regulation. I have always appreciated that support.
In 2021, during the second large phase of COVID and it’s associated lock-down, I was undertaking an Interim role at a large Western Sydney Grammar School. Approximately 1000 students, over 150 staff back at school and a requirement for increased focus on the health and well being of all concerned. The previous year seemed like a walk in the park with 20 people and 10 rooms. Then we hit the second mandatory lock down and for a variety of reasons, I was one of the first to go home – kicking and screaming admittedly.
Thinking back to those deployments and my weekly emails, knowing this time I was well and truly on my own, in my apartment, away from family, away from friends, I wrote a daily diary of my experiences and thoughts. This was undertaken with much sarcasm, a laser focus on the daily events, a lot of mirth and an unfailing desire to push the limits, safely, but at every opportunity.
This is my story of those few months.
If you are reading this and expecting over one hundred references to Hugh Jackman, and whatever saucy thoughts, I was having of him, you’ll be disappointed. Whilst I started clinging on to that delusion, and it helped me a lot, this isn’t a filthy book about HJ. It’s memories of COVID, just ‘cos in twenty years, I won’t remember any of it and probably neither will any of the readers. But you will eternally remember Hugh, because good grief, who could ever forget him?
Finally, I am Scottish. When I write it narrates in my head with a Scottish accent. I can often feel like I am projecting that sometimes forthright blunt, risqué humour. When you read this, channel your favourite Scottish voice and overlay it. Enjoy.
Lockdown Day 1 - 10
Lockdown Day 11 - 20
Lockdown Day 21 - 30
Lockdown Day 31 - 40
Lockdown Day 41 - 50
Lockdown Day 51 - 60
Lockdown Day 61 - 70
Lockdown Day 71 - 80
Lockdown Day 81 - 90
Lockdown Day 91 - 100
Lockdown Day The Rest and Freedom
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