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Original poster

Lockdown started two years ago - what did you all think was ahead when it was announced?

178 replies

goaskmum · 23/03/2022 19:39

So the very first lockdown started this day 2 years ago! I can’t believe that.

I remember hearing earlier that day that BJ was to do a big televised announcement in the evening and then being on edge not knowing what came next.

I also remember taking my dog out at half 7 that night for a walk because I wasn’t sure if it would be made illegal after he did his announcement!

What were you all doing and what did you make of it/think was going to happen?

OP posts:
purpleme12 · 24/03/2022 11:10

@EvilPea yes loads of parents I knew saying they're using the children as Guinea pigs and I totally felt like they thought I was sending her to the wolves 🤣

But like you a couple of parents decided to send their child a bit later which I thought was interesting....

I just think a lot of people said stuff like it's not safe to go back, children shouldn't go back etc etc like it was fact and that's that but I don't think it was so clear cut as that

Echobelly · 24/03/2022 11:12

We certainly were sure by the time they announced lockdown that our daughter's bat mitzvah, scheduled for mid June, wasn't going to happen - it was clear by then that restrictions would have to be in place for at least the next few months.

My office had shut down the week before and I remember saying to my colleague as I left the day before 'Well, see you in a few weeks or months' - now been 2 years since I saw him IRL, as he's quite anxious about it and hasn't come back into the office since. Have seen a few other colleagues since last September.

IncompleteSenten · 24/03/2022 11:14

I feared it would kill a lot more people than it actually did. I was very frightened.

SartresSoul · 24/03/2022 11:15

I was pregnant so told to shield. I just remember turning to DH saying ‘I can’t stay indoors like a prisoner for weeks! I can’t do it, no way!’. I did do it, stayed inside for four months solid aside from midwife appointments and time in the garden. It was bloody awful.

SartresSoul · 24/03/2022 11:17

@IncompleteSenten

I feared it would kill a lot more people than it actually did. I was very frightened.
I thought so too. I was absolutely terrified of catching it, so much so we didn’t even go for walks incase we caught it from someone walking past us. We ordered our first take out in the June for DD’s birthday and I was petrified the boxes would have covid on them.
bert3400 · 24/03/2022 11:23

We were due to move to Spain, had our house there but no residentia. We left the UK on the evening of the 23rd, not really knowing what to expect. Driving through France was bizarre, no traffic apart from the occasional lorries. All services shut apart from petrol . We got turned away from Spain and spent 7 weeks in the pyrenees....it was an adventure to say the least. But also quite scary as we really shouldn't of been in France, but we also had no home in the uk . Did not regret our decision to leave that night as we wouldn't of got to Spain until July

diamondpony80 · 24/03/2022 11:27

I remember feeling relieved when lockdown was announced. Other countries had already gone into lockdown and I was a bit worried about sending the kids to school as we really didn't know what we were dealing with.

I found shopping quite scary though. Shelves were empty of so many basic things because of panic buying. Everyone was talking about stocking up on things like pasta etc. and I almost felt like I'd let my family down by not having cupboards full of pasta, pasta sauces and toilet paper! At that time we didn't know that most things would be back on the shelves again within a few days or weeks.

MarshaBradyo · 24/03/2022 11:27

Evilpea yes I remember that part. Ds was year 5 so no space but the opposite happened at our primary they didn’t have enough room with SD in place for all the years that were meant to go back. I would have done the same as you if in the right year.

RomeoOscarXrayIndigoEcho · 24/03/2022 11:38

Life was weird. I'd already worked from home (since July 2019) and all of a sudden I had to share the dining table with my DH and 2 DC!

DH's job very broadband hungry which caused a few problems.

Both of us were putting in extra hours for our work. Neighbours in area were living the high life! Great weather, on furlough, no family who were at risk.

Immediate neighbours, one was CEV and opposite neighbours was NHS.

Our wee cul de sac was split down the middle.

Reading all these posts makes me feel very emotional.

My DD has now had 4 years of interrupted primary schooling and is heading to secondary this year. The other class in her year group has only had 2 years of interruptions and the difference between the two classes is stark. It's incredibly worrying.

lljkk · 24/03/2022 11:52

Worried the economy would collapse. Never could I imagine that lots of benefits would be made available for a super long period (many months) by a Tory government to help people take months off of work.

Worried about kids disengaging from education (which did happen).

stripeyflowers · 24/03/2022 12:06

@IncompleteSenten

I feared it would kill a lot more people than it actually did. I was very frightened.
That's because the government, medical and media propraganda machine achieved it's desired effect on your consciousness. The best we can do it is learn from it. They do it non-stop.
stripeyflowers · 24/03/2022 12:06

*its

JessyCarr · 24/03/2022 12:22

I was already 8 days into my illness with Covid. I think that was the day I started coughing up blood (first pulmonary embolism). I was carer for my Dad who was also ill with it at age 86. We both came through it, but it was a lonely and scary time.

MrsBerthaRochester · 24/03/2022 12:24

I had my fb over for a shag and we joked about covid and what were single folk going to do. Never saw him again(wasnt actually single. Prick)

CloudPop · 24/03/2022 13:43

@RomeoOscarXrayIndigoEcho

Life was weird. I'd already worked from home (since July 2019) and all of a sudden I had to share the dining table with my DH and 2 DC!

DH's job very broadband hungry which caused a few problems.

Both of us were putting in extra hours for our work. Neighbours in area were living the high life! Great weather, on furlough, no family who were at risk.

Immediate neighbours, one was CEV and opposite neighbours was NHS.

Our wee cul de sac was split down the middle.

Reading all these posts makes me feel very emotional.

My DD has now had 4 years of interrupted primary schooling and is heading to secondary this year. The other class in her year group has only had 2 years of interruptions and the difference between the two classes is stark. It's incredibly worrying.

Why has your daughter's class had 4 years of disruption?
ITSupport · 24/03/2022 13:54

That lockdown was being demanded by social
Media and 24 hours news hype and that in fact sucking it up and getting on with it would be better in the long run

Nothing that has happened since then has changed my mind

The average age of death from Covid is still over 82 and a large proportion of the rest were with Covid not of.

Yes some young people did and would have died but that can happen from any disease. Like is a lottery and we’re all dying from the moment we’re born

userxx · 24/03/2022 13:57

@stripeyflowers I'm still so fucking angry about it all, just as much as at the time. It's completely ruined people.

CaptainWentworth · 24/03/2022 14:53

I remember crying loud, angry tears in front of the TV while watching Boris’s announcement, then ranting at my DH (a GP) when he got home from work. I felt utterly outraged that the government were basically telling me that I didn’t matter, that my job didn’t matter and I just had to be a housewife now, sorry about that.

I spent the next few months until nurseries opened again in June either working all hours DH wasn’t at work, looking after my 16 month old who was just learning to walk (and feeling like a leper as people veered away from us in the park- we didn’t have a garden) or trying to get a few hours of sleep. I also wanted to kill all the neighbours who did the fucking NHS clapping every night just after I’d put DD to bed and switched my laptop on to begin my day’s work. I felt I did my bit to support the NHS by facilitating my DH to go to work.

I’m on maternity leave with DD2 now and still not been back to the office. I cannot stand working from home!

CaptainWentworth · 24/03/2022 14:55

Sorry it wasn’t nhs clapping every night. It felt like every night at times!

upinaballoon · 24/03/2022 15:01

I was quite impressed by the way shops got their marks on the floors, and then the perspex, and in the main we got used to it. At that early point we weren't using masks and we hadn't been vaccinated. There were lots of empty shelves - flour, pasta, frozen veg, loo rolls, soap, sanitiser. Strangely, Yorkshire pud rises when it's made with plain flour but not when it's made with S.R. flour. I just couldn't get plain flour so I used S.R. and I called the results "Lockdown flatties".

upinaballoon · 24/03/2022 15:10

Morrisons had a big sign outside saying that they were giving discounts to NHS workers and then to teachers, and I was minded to write a letter to the paper and to Gain Lane, Bradford (and should have done) to ask if they were also giving discounts to all delivery drivers and shelf-stackers and till assistants and loads of other people who were key workers and probably had much lower wages then the KEY WORKERS.

sophienelisse · 24/03/2022 15:44

I thought it would last a month tops. I still cant believe the last two years. It's been so surreal.

WhereYouLeftIt · 24/03/2022 15:47

@SophieSoSo

I thought it was going to be for a couple of weeks.

How naïve!

Yep. I thought 'six weeks, I can do that'.(I have no idea where I got the 'six weeks' from.)
TokyoSushi · 24/03/2022 15:54

School very much presented it as, we'll be off for a couple of weeks now and come back after Easter when everything will be back to normal, so I thought it might be about 4 weeks or so, how wrong I was!

Porcupineintherough · 24/03/2022 16:04

I was relieved tbh. But I also thought it would be for 6 weeks or so. Then I started getting symptoms and spent the next month sick and terrified in bed.