Not all those who wander are lost
Date published 10 December, 2020
Eerie and Empty
The date was 5th December 2020. The location, Newcastle International Airport. The total number of outbound flights all day was just 3. None of those flights were full.
And so, unsurprisingly, the airport was not busy. Equally unsurprisingly, almost nothing in the airport was open. The picture at the head of this piece shows a restaurant/bar that would normally be busy. Full, in fact. But it was not alone. Whole chunks of the airport were like this. And I could have taken similar - maybe even more stark - pictures of other airports.
This sits in stark contrast to the media suggestion that everywhere was heaving with people breaking social distancing rules during the COVID pandemic.
But that is not my point here. It is the shocking image of economic damage, however justified. The stark depiction of the massive impact to normal life. I have other pictures like this - of beaches in the peak season with just one person sitting alone on them. High Streets with rows of closed shops. Town centre car parks with just a handful of cars dotted around them.
For most of us, locked into our homes to at least some extent for lengthy periods of time, this was difficult. But here is where the nations tills stopped ringing, and when that happens they do not instantly spring back into life. The whole set up, from supply chain, through to marketing, and training staff, becomes broken and creaks imperfectly back into recovery. When recovery becomes possible.
Everyone will have their own memories of this time. For too many, those memories will be of tragic losses, or the unimaginable tensions of working on the front line of health care, or other essential services. And those memories more poignant, really. But it was the stillness of this scene that grabbed me. The utter lack of activity. The way so much of life really has stopped completely in its tracks.
It was like a place to reflect right in the middle of the situation. Well, let's hope not the middle. Let's hope we are past the middle as 2020 draws to its close, just half open.
We are happy snappers!
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