It's not even 7 o'clock in the morning.
It's Friday and a queue has formed outside ASDA.
I know from experience ordinarily there was going to be nobody here.
These have been the scenes where I live in Frome in Somerset,
or are going to be for the foreseeable future.
It's quite a sight but this doesn't look like panic buying to me,
it looks like pretty unpanicked people who need food.
We actually made the first Anywhere but Westminster here 10 years ago
at the dawn of austerity.
Welcome to my adopted hometown of Frome in Somerset,
it's a town with a population of around 25,000
and a really vibrant, interesting local atmosphere,
which is part of the reason I moved here.
Now, the cafe I go to most mornings is closed.
You are sitting out here outside our life's work and it's shuttered up ...
Yeah, don't make me cry, John.
Indefinitely ... I'm not trying to but ...
I've cried over the last 72 hours far too much.
At the end of the day, that's money, lives are more important.
Keep safe. — I will. See you soon, June. Thanks again. Bye.
Right, now strictly following the rules of physical distancing.
I'm on my way to Frome Town Hall,
which is the HQ of our food bank, Fair Frome.
How is it going?
Supplies are not coming in like they used to be.
The volunteers that normally run the food bank,
a lot of those are older.
People who actually donate food are the those people who are the poorest people, yeah?
Because they've been there.
The people we deal with aren't able to panic buy because they haven't got any money
and there's more and more of them because as we're seeing daily, you know,
people now are coming to us and say 'I just lost my job, got no more hours,
I've been on zero hour contracts, I haven't got anything.'
How many hours are you putting in as a volunteer at the moment?
We are just doing what we can.
It's actually bringing the community together,
and talk about how we can support one another.
And I think that's a thing that we need to emphasise.
About bringing people together because if nothing else,
we might need that for the future as well.
[Phone rings]
Hello! — What's the matter with that? It's good!
Is that fine as an intro?
Great. I love the supermarket [inaudible]
You've got to give me props here, with the digital watch and everything.
Well, you've learned from me, haven't you? I've taught you for 10 years.
That's John, the producer, and other half of Anywhere but Westminster.
He's stuck in South London and I'll hand over to him now.
Radio presenter: Schools across the UK are closed until further notice ...
[Bell rings]
Daddy!
Is that your tiger book?
Yeah, and I can move the tiger side to side and up and down.
I'm breaking out the emotional music here because that's definitely how we all felt.
I contacted Lewisham ASDA.
I was there at 6 this morning.
There are bags under my eyes, I've been up since quarter to four.
Someone said, why have they got so much toilet roll?
Were you getting dirty looks for carrying ...?
I was getting dirty looks and it's like,
I felt bad that I've got all these bags with toilet roll
but they are actually for families not for me.
That's Claudine who looks after the vulnerable families at the school.
She's been urgently putting together food boxes for the families that are going to need help.
Did you spring into action pretty quick? When did you realise this was going to be needed?
Last week I thought, I better do something quickly.
I am going to put some recipes in the bags just of what people can do with just water or milk and flour.
A lot of the families that have come in and said bye, they've been so tearful ...
I think a lot of people who are on universal credits, they were doing part-time work,
they are really worried, they are worried about their rent,
then it's paying the bills and then depression kicks in and I also I think
mental health will probably start to unfold a bit more
with a lot of people.
We would need to look at when kids started coming back of what they've had to go through so ...
I am hoping we'll go to get food and everyone can keep strong.
And just keep going, really.
And how do you feel?
How do I feel?
I had to keep my distance and film on the zoom lens
but actually all I wanted to do is give her a hug.
Elbow snugs! Elbow snugs!
And then blowing kisses and catching them.
He's a year six teacher, I'm a year four teacher
and I think it's been a real ... a test of times, it's been something you can't even write,
it's been something completely mind-boggling for us
and I think at times, during the day, we've been really positive with children
because you should do but there's been dips where we were like ...
So, for primary school [child] to try and understand it, it's so hard.
But regardless, this woman is incredible.
What she has done here ...
It's not just about this, it's about what Claudine has done throughout her whole year.
This is just a glimpse into how hard ...
And the way she's just thought about these ideas as well,
not even probably following something just thinking 'actually this needs to be done,
let's just do it.'
We really appreciate you. — Thank you.
I appreciate everyone too, so ... you know?
I'll start crying now, so I better get some tissue.
John Harris: It's quite uplifting as well.
It's emotional watching it, you feel moved.
— Yeah. And hopefully you feel moved by the Frome stuff, so ...
Normally at this stage of a film,
we video some vox-pops and perhaps a busker on the high street
which is why we asked for your help.
And we eventually found a virtual busker doing a coronavirus-themed song.
Alright, we are going into the city centre in Norwich to see what's going on,
it's been about four hours since Boris Johnson order all bars and pubs
and clubs to close.
10 o'clock, Friday night.
It's got about an hour's worth of drinking.
As you can see not a single soul in sight.
Right, so we are now outside as I say.
A little walk that I do just to keep me a bit sane really.
The amazing array of video Anywhere but Westminster viewers have sent in
really captures what's going on across the country and what's most striking is the
amount of footage showing people getting together to try and deliver some of what
their communities need.
It's the Freegan boxes.
If you order them online, from the Real Junk Food Project,
they will deliver a box of food that would normally go into landfill.
Hi, my name is Gareth. I'm 54, I live in Cardiff and I have been working
part-time as a delivery rider when I got my business started.
We are the people who deliver your parcels, we cut your hair,
clean your homes, we bring you meals when it's cold and wet and you can't be bothered to cook ...
Are you really gonna turn your back on us?
Tomorrow is a big day for us, I'm just going to turn the camera,
because it's our little boys birthday.
He's turning five.
So you can see, there are some ballons, cards and bits here
and we will be having a party.
[coughs]
Gloves and all.
I'm the third person in my household.
To now come down with the virus.
Checked my husband's temperature at 8 o'clock and he was 36 degrees.
An hour later I heard thud and I ran downstairs
and he'd passed out.
Knocked himself out on the toilet.
Smashed his nose ...
They said that he had been, in normal times, the nose was so badly broken,
that he would have been sent for surgery. That wasn't gonna happen, obviously.
Currently I am in the unfortunate position of having relapsed
into heroin use about a week ago.
I would usually be able to access a script of subutex.
The only clinic that can prescribe me is closed for seven days.
I am self-medicating with the co-codamol and some small amounts of Valium ...
I'm kind of feeling OK right now.
Hello! It's Tudor Evans, leader of the Plymouth city council here.
Trying to keep you safe but we're doing it from a safe distance.
Am I still hanging my washing out? Yes.
Am I still loading the dishwasher? Yes.
Am I still still shaking hands with my neighbours? No.
Am I still going to Argos to get items to furnish flats for care leavers?
Yes!
Am I still drinking wine?
Well, only at weekends and in the evenings when I finish work.
Alexa, play BBC Radio 4.
Alexa: Here's Radio 4.
Radio presenter: the headlines this morning,
the most stringent and far-reaching restrictions on people's lives in the UK
in modern times, are beginning to try to curb the spread of the coronavirus ...
All over Britain, mutual aid groups are now springing up.
We thought we'd go back to someone who was doing real on the ground mutual aid long before this crisis.
Four different collection points!
Inside the back of this van there's boxes and crates.
Jim Slaven co-runs Helping Hands in Edinburgh, an amazing grassroots
organisation who have been providing food and supports of people for years.
Sorry, Jim, I can't get the thing to record, I'm just going to have to film it off the screen.
How is it going, Jim? That's the question.
Busy, chaotic.
We've been delivering hundreds of survival packs for people.
We are working with local businesses, so if there's bars, restaurants forced to close,
we are working with them to try and get the food into their kitchens,
and then into the community.
You depend on volunteers, right? In large number ...
We are all volunteers.
How does that work in the midst of the so-called lockdown?
What we focus is to make sure it's much more localised.
Previously, in the last week we've had a large scale, teams of volunteers
from across the city with vans doing that. That's obviously not possible.
So what we are saying to volunteers is, look, if you can't help everyone, help one person.
So look after the elderly neighbour, look after the family down the road that you know are struggling,
make sure that they have the priority and then tell us what needs lifted.
And then we can see what the terrain is like and then we can maybe
start asking some questions:
Why is it that the politicians don't live in our communities?
Why should we be voting for them? Who cares if we saying we're putting billions
into this and billions into that.
Walk round the corner like everything's closed, they're gone.
The only people left here are us and our neighbours and we are in this together.
God.
There's a really sort of, we're finally on our own kind of feeling?
I mean, I think there is and if that's how you're feeling in housing schemes in Edinburgh,
which is as I say, a very wealthy city and economic hub.
Then I can only imagine that that's amplified
in so other around the country.
Forget charity, forget missionaries, there's no saviours here, it's just us.
It doesn't dilute my sort of faith in community,
solidarity and action, quite the reverse, but it's just really sobering
that that's all there is now.
But even here in Somerset it feels a bit like that, do you know I mean?
I mean, I live in a pretty nice place, notwithstanding that fact that it's got
high levels of deprivation and need in certain parts of town
but I haven't seen a policeman here in a year and a half, two years.
My county council, not that long ago, was on the verge of bankruptcy
but you know, for as long as there are people like Jim around and Fair Frome, Claudine,
the woman at your school, you know, at least some of that vacuum is filled.
But I am not sure all these analogies with the war will work because the state was a sort of
central presence there but we've had ten years of the state being attacked
and hacked back.
And now we are reaping the effects of it all.
I just thank God for people, you know.
Right, it's time for another Anywhere but Westminster call-out.
First of all, we just want to say a massive, massive thank you
to everyone who sent us video.
A great deal of which is used in the film you've just seen, it's brilliant stuff.
So thank you!
Please, keep it coming in
within the confines of physical distancing rules, the self-isolation if you're in the midst of all that,
please carry on sending video that gives us a sense of this crisis,
how you're living through it, how you're coping with it,
the issues that you face ...
On top of that, we're also after some more specific stuff now.
The next film, with any luck, it's gonna be about the so called gig economy.
Maybe you're a delivery driver or a courier, maybe you're self-employed
but you're not really and you're uncertain of your position in the midst of all this ...
We'd like to hear from you. Again, it's really important that you
stay within the bounds of the physical distancing rules.
We want to hear your opinions, your view of things what you've got to say.
But also turn the camera around, give us a flavour of your immediate surroundings,
the world as you see it.
The email address is shown, you can follow some of the tips that are under this video
and that's the plan.
This series continues ...