war time effort

I have attached a picture of a poster that was used by [name of county] commerce. I found it so interesting on many levels. It’s very ‘invoking’ of the war time effort. I wonder if it will have the retro feel in years to come like the land army now. It’s interesting they thought students would fill the gap where migrants had been working. If students wanted to do the land work wouldn’t they have been doing it, therefore no need to bring migrants into [name of market town]. It didn’t work.

Sally is a white woman in her 40s, She identifies as white British. She voted to remain in the EU.  Sally also contributed quotes via private correspondence as well as interview.

they’ve changed quite a bit

Cathrine: Ok, so, I’ll start with the “Christmas lunch with cousins in April, including crackers”. So, tell me about that. 

Lucy: That was in the Easter holidays. My [husband’s] sister and family who live in [the South-West] came up to stay at a lodge a wooden lodge in [the middle of England] and we obviously hadn’t seen them since last August [when we were] at a family wedding…So, we hadn’t seen them for a long time and, I hadn’t realised, but [husband]’s sister did say that she was going to do a roast turkey outside at the lodge and I was thinking ‘

Oh God’, you know. But when we turned up, she’d actually saved crackers from Christmas as well and we had Christmas crackers on the tables and that photograph of people, obviously we haven’t got the paper hats on and things like that, but it was like a Christmas lunch you know, full Christmas lunch outside sitting on the sort of terrace of the wooden lodge they were staying in. So, it was just really nice for the cousins who get on really well you know, to be able to see each other and at that age as well they’ve often changed quite a bit. So, it was quite interesting you know they’re all most of them are teenagers basically, and they’ve all changed quite a bit [during the pandemic when we have not seen each other].

Lucy identifies as British and as middle class; she is a White woman who was born and raised  in the North East, and is currently in her early 50s. Lucy voted Remain in the referendum.

the coffee van has featured quite heavily

Cathrine: So, let me see what’s the other, the other picture.   Oh, here it is: “First get together post-second lockdown”?

Lucy: Yes, so that was obviously, again I can’t remember the date but it’s some point where we were allowed to meet up with six people outside. That [picture] was the first weekend.Oh, I know when it was, I think it was 29thMarch when the regulations relaxed so just before the Easter holidays. That was the Thursday or the Friday night and that’s a group of my, that’s my sort of you know really good friends, and we usually meet up regularly we usually meet up every Saturday morning early and go out for a coffee every maybe once every couple of months or something; we have a curry night with the partners, the husbands as well, just, you know we just go round to various houses and obviously we haven’t been able to do very of that.We’ve had walks, the coffee van [in the neighbourhood that began operations during lockdown] has featured quite heavily… in the last few months.So, that’s been like a hub of social activity for me! So that’s been nice but obviously a lot of the time…we’ve only been allowed to meet with one person and then sometimes it was meant to be just for exercise, or you obviously had to make sure you were walking, you weren’t just sitting, you couldn’t sit on a bench or anything like that so, yeah, so that’s definitely been quite a you know social sort of hub over the last months, yeah.

Lucy identifies as British and as middle class; she is a White woman who was born and raised  in the North East, and is currently in her early 50s. Lucy voted Remain in the referendum.