On Saturday 26 September 2020, I married Steve, my partner of 11 years. It was a small gathering sandwiched between the spring and autumn lockdowns, with just two witnesses in the register office. We put a marquee outside the house so that later in the evening we could celebrate with our families and friends. It was cold, but the champagne helped. Only three weeks later, Steve died of Covid. We never would have dreamed that as we mourned, Boris Johnson and Rishi Sunak, who have been given fixed-penalty notices today, would be carelessly breaking their own lockdown rules.
My husband was larger than life and drew people towards him. He was a retired Metropolitan police sergeant who had trained hundreds of police officers in high-speed advanced driving. He was a magical driver who could reverse at high speed and roll a cigarette at the same time.
We’d decided to get married when Steve was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer. We knew we didn’t have long, but he was strong and full of life and we were determined to spend his last days together. I promised I wouldn’t leave his side.
In the days after the wedding, his health began to decline. After eight days I called an ambulance and when it came to take him away, I thought I would never see him again. In fact, I would see him one more time when they took him off the Cpap machine, because then there was nothing more that could be done for him.
Steve was vulnerable to the virus because his lungs had already been damaged. In 2012, our flat caught fire and Steve tried in vain to put it out. He ran out to get fresh air, but the door slammed behind him, leaving me inside. He broke down that door and saved my life, but in the process inhaled smoke that would leave scarring in his lungs.
Because of his medical history, we were told categorically that he was not a candidate for ventilation. Steve was told this news alone in his hospital room. I had promised him when we found out about the cancer that I would be by his side to the end, and I had to break that promise. That was the hardest part for me. He died the day before his 66th birthday, on 18 October.
I planned the funeral for the anniversary of the day we had survived the fire, 3 November, a date we’d come to see as our joint birthday. The funeral was beautiful, but it was nowhere as big as it could have been. We were only allowed 30 people in a building that held 100, and many friends had to stand outside. After the coffin was lowered into the grave, I sat in my house with my children and grandchildren, but we couldn’t celebrate his life with the others. We did the right thing, we did what millions of people did to stop the virus from spreading – I wouldn’t wish Covid on my worst enemy. We didn’t do what the people in government were doing.
I was one of the people invited to go to Downing Street to meet the prime minister last year as part of the Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice support group. We were given a few minutes to talk about the people we’d lost. I’ve told my story to so many, and it’s so shocking it never fails to affect people, but I could see no flicker of compassion or hurt behind Boris Johnson’s eyes.
Finally, we know he was breaking his own social-distancing rules, but I’m not surprised. If he were a decent man he would have resigned a long time ago. He made decisions that led to the deaths of hundreds of thousands. There were so many moments we could have acted earlier – over PPE, over masks, over social distancing. The same goes for Sunak; he knew the pandemic was not over when he encouraged people to eat out and mix in the summer of 2020, leading to the wave of infections that would take my husband. He chose the economy over people’s lives. Losing someone you love is awful under any circumstances, but losing someone under circumstances you know could have been prevented is unthinkable.
For whatever reason, these politicians and advisers thought they were untouchable by the virus and public opinion. The least they can do now is to acknowledge that people are still dying, still developing long Covid, and do something to ensure that no more lives are taken too early.
Source: Guardian
