TOM UTLEY: I got off lightly during lockdown but here’s why I yearn for liberation day

At the risk of provoking howls of envy, I must admit that the past 67 days of lockdown have hardly affected my life in any material way.

I have certainly suffered nothing that could remotely be described as hardship.

I’ve taken only a small pay cut, and that was voluntary. I’ve lost no friends or relatives to this vicious virus. 

Indeed, as far as I’m aware — name-drop alert! — the only personal acquaintance of mine who has actually tested positive for Covid-19 (though many others may have had it without being sure) is a certain Boris Johnson, who was a colleague and friend when we worked for the same paper a couple of decades ago.

What’s more, my own health remains robust, as does that of my wife and sons, none of whom has needed a doctor or a dentist.

I haven’t even required a barber, since earlier this week I finally allowed Mrs U to attack my straggly locks with the kitchen scissors (to be fair, I reckon she’s done a reasonable job — though she says she’s made a hash of the back, which luckily I can’t see).

Eerie

Meanwhile, thanks to the magnificent way supermarkets, delivery drivers and our local butcher have stepped up to the plate, we’ve had plenty to eat.

And after a terrifying few days at the very beginning, when panic-buyers stripped the shelves bare of wine and beer, we’ve had lashings to drink, too. Almost too much, I sometimes think.

To put the icing on the cake, I have a pleasant little garden in which to while away the hours and admire the fruits of Mrs U’s green-fingered labour in the eerie silence of locked-down London.

All this, and with one wife, one dog and the youngest of our four sons permanently on the premises, I’ve had quite enough company to spare me from feeling the loneliness suffered by so many since the world juddered to a halt.

As for the inactivity enforced by the lockdown, that hasn’t bothered me at all. 

To tell the truth, I’ve revelled in idleness since my four-fifths retirement 18 months ago, and I’ve loved almost every minute of vegging out in front of TV shows such as Tipping Point and The Chase, or just staring into the middle distance, doing nothing.

So, yes, I’m a lucky so-and-so, with infinitely less to complain about than parents cooped up with screaming toddlers in tower blocks, breadwinners thrown out of work, exhausted doctors and nurses on Covid wards, cancer sufferers denied operations to ease their pain, teenagers bored out of their minds with longing for the disco, students robbed of the joys of university life, grannies yearning to hug their grandchildren, or bereaved families barred from attending the funerals of the people they’ve loved.

Yet, like so many others who have much greater cause, I loathe this lockdown with all my heart.

I won’t get into the argument about whether or not it was strictly necessary, or whether it will turn out to have shortened more lives than it has prolonged. On that point, I’m as clueless as the scientists to whom the politicians defer.

All I will say is that after so many other countries had imposed house arrest on their citizens, Boris had no political alternative but to follow suit. If he had left us free, his enemies would have accused him of murder every time anyone died after testing positive for Covid.

In the same way, those of us who don’t like to be reviled as killers have no choice but to follow the Government’s guidelines to the best of our ability.

That applies even when the rules defy common sense (why was it ever thought wrong to drive to a deserted moor to walk a dog — or to sunbathe in the park at a safe distance from others?)

But, as I say, the lockdown hasn’t made very much material difference to my life. I’ve been walking the dog in our local parks, as before, without ever feeling any strong urge to go further afield.

Solitude

I’ve never been much of a one for sunbathing. I’ve long lost the urge to travel, since airports became such a nightmare, and I’ve always hated discos. Nor do I much like eating in restaurants, where I’m forbidden to smoke.

Call me a monster if you will, but although I’m very fond of our two-year-old grandson, it doesn’t break my heart — as it does my wife’s — that we haven’t been allowed to hug him or even to see him, except via WhatsApp. It’s enough for me to know that he’s healthy, growing fast and getting more interesting by the day.

Certainly, I miss the local pub — and if it survives this madness, I’ll be among the first through the doors when it reopens. 

I miss our local art gallery, too (Dulwich Picture Gallery, since you ask — home of Rembrandt’s sublime Girl At A Window and Guido Reni’s wonderful St John The Baptist In The Wilderness), where I whiled away many a happy afternoon after my retirement, before the Covid terror struck.

To my great surprise — and again, I know I’ll excite envy from the lonely — I find that what I’ve missed most during this lockdown is the solitude I enjoyed when my wife was at work and my son was on his travels in Colombia. Much as I love them both, there are times when it’s bliss to be alone (as I’m sure they’ll heartily agree).

These minor annoyances aside, however, nothing very radical has changed about my life over these past few weeks. Nor will it, I suspect, when this strangest of interludes comes to a close.

But although I’m among the least affected, in any material way, I yearn for this lockdown to end and rejoice that at last it’s beginning to ease.

I’m not just thinking of those grim, stilted TV chat-shows, interviews and conferences with colleagues conducted over Zoom (‘Sorry, Neil, you seem to be breaking up’) — though the first thing I’ll do when it’s all over is delete my Zoom app.

Freedom

I’m not even thinking mainly of the hefty financial hit that awaits us all, for generations to come.

No, what disturbs me most is how ready so many of us have been to surrender our freedom to the whims of our rulers, ranting against ‘covidiots’ who don’t do exactly what they’re told.

It’s as if nobody had ever died before Covid-19 came along. God knows, death is terribly sad — at whatever age it happens. But happen it always has, and always will.

I yearn for the day when the Government stops trying to frighten us with the latest death figures — recited like the football scores, as my colleague Richard Littlejohn memorably put it. 

I wish TV correspondents would stop putting on special solemn voices to deliver their reports, seeming to wallow in morbidity.

I’ll get furious hate-mail for this, I know, but I even feel a little queasy about the clap for carers. God knows, they do a wonderful job — and I’ve dutifully clapped for them myself on Thursday evenings.

But, just lately, I’ve begun to feel there’s something a touch totalitarian about the moral pressure on us all to bang our saucepans. I wish there was some way of making clear that I’m not applauding the unwieldy bureaucracy of the NHS, but only the heroic individuals who work for it.

Tens of thousands of Britons have endured tragedies enough over the past few months. But it will be the greatest collective tragedy for all of us if we lose our love of freedom.