Radio presenter: A very good afternoon, welcome to the show, it's all happening, there's a press
conference at Downing Street at five with Boris Johnson.
We'll be taking that live.
This is about the sort of 7th time, we've been to this town, isn't it?
Already it's easily the strangest.
Excuse me! Sorry to interrupt, can we talk to you for a minute?
This series has always tried to get beyond numbers and metrics, prefer
enchanting counters and moments of raw humanity.
Nine months of social distancing and lockdown has been the opposite of all that.
So we've decided to come off zoom and talk to people face to face about life in this crisis.
This are the precautions we have to take, I don't like these.
These are very Hannibal Lecter, I don't think you can ask people
to talk to you ...
It's just not right.
Can I talk to you for a minute?
You're homeless at the moment?
What were you doing?
Working in a factory, metal work.
I'm just following the rules like not a lot of other people.
Not a lot of other people?
No, I don't think it was worth it at all.
I'm 50, I worry a bit more about it maybe than you do.
I mean, my mum and dad are about your age and my mum and dad ...
Thanks for that! Great.
Glad I met you.
I think it shouldn't be closing everything down now. Life's too short, isn't it?
My mental health's gone down and I could be sick a lot.
My mental health has been affected and, like, no one's asked like ...
I'll ask you, if you don't mind.
I mean, how have you been?
Very lonely, I feel like I didn't
have anyone to talk to, like.
I get scared to come out. — Really?
I suffer from a really bad depression, if it weren't for me kids
come and fed me, I don't know what I'd do.
I'd just disappear, I think.
I don't think people think of this as some bolt from the blue that turned everything upside down,
it's like one more thing and
this is the biggest thing so far.
So what are you guys ...? — We worked for the Guardian, the newspaper.
OK, what are you asking questions about?
About covid.
Yeah, lockdown has been the beggars' nightmare.
Has it?
I busk a lot, really, but nobody carries cash anymore, do they?
Made it impossible some days to pay for somewhere to stay each night and stuff like that.
I've been sleeping in a tent a lot of the time.
If i was to ask you right now, 'what do you need?', what would you say?
Some support really, more, I guess, companionship.
In the past, Walsall has told us what happens when people feel disempowered and treated like a number.
A lot of people are struggling, look at them and they are sat over there and then they're struggling
then they get the kids to talk ... because then they go on the wrong way.
The benefit cap? — Yeah,
it's caused me and my partner to split up.
What about politics?
Now it feels like a warning that rebuilding human connections is more urgent than a lot
of people realise.
I miss my friends so much!
We did the best we could with him.
He didn't obviously see anybody except me, his dad and a baby for six months as well so, socially
that's where he missed out.
The baby he doesn't know what facial expressions look like because he sees everybody behind a mask.
He's not been able to socialise with any babies his own age at all.
I really don't want them to keep hearing about all the work they've missed and all the things they've
got to catch up on.
The big thing that they've missed out on is being together, socialising.
It has been going wrong for some time, I think, before covered even, you know, when they're tested in four
out of the seven primary years formal statutory tests it's not what they need.
Because next summer after all this anxiety and maybe trauma in some cases,
sats are coming around the corner as usual.
Radio presenter: these tougher tiers strike a balance.
We've got to see something that's very hard to find in the midst of this crisis.
Music, there's a band rehearsing and a pub somewhere.
It was a big, big blow, you know? Personally I've already lost the whole of November,
December and now I'm also having to lose January ... We're talking over 50/60
shows, that's just myself. There's multiple promoters and multiple venues.
It's going to cost the Birmingham economy millions of pounds.
That's true but it also,
do you know what I mean? We need music to live, do you know what I mean?
Absolutely you do,
I already feel quite moved, it's been this deathly silence for nine months and
this is like a little break, isn't it? And it's a little reminder of what the world used to sound like.
How's it going? — Alright, it's first time I've heard live music
in about a year.
Mad! What a shame it's us.
Do you worry about this place? — Well, definitely.
Small venues are gone and the only place you can go is somewhere that offers a safe show
with people in yellow shirts.
My worry is that people will have nowhere to play, I mean, it's like imagine
teenagers, a very formative year of their life when they would start going out see their first gigs.
I mean, people like us in venues like this, you know,
we've been getting kicked at the ass for the last 10 years like, it's not working, I mean, we've got to
think about how we get European visas in January and like our main source of income which are shows
in Europe is just ... that's next as well.
I mean, that's a completely separate ...
Like, on a more positive note with people like us are nothing if not resourceful and we'll
make it work, whether it's warehouses and car parks and fuck knows what.
How have you been nine months of silence? How's your life?
You need a year's worth of tax returns to show and I haven't been self-employed for that long.
I was doing really well for myself, I was picking up, was doing well, this happened, I lost everything.
And I've got two kids, mate, so it's not just me.
Now I've got a really angry missus and two disappointed children.
And you must just miss them.
I miss it all, mate, absolutely! I have got the best job in the world.
It's a thriving city and this is nobody around.
It's just Deliveroo drivers everywhere, aren't they?
Sad, ins't it?
It's Friday morning in Manchester, I spent a huge amount of my teens and 20s here, right, and it took
40 years of work to turn this part of town around and it was just all about
all the businesses that are now shut.
Look at it.
It's dead, isn't it? — It's weird.
You're obviously still working.
It's been busier than ever. — Has it?
Yeah.
Horrible.
Is it? - Yeah.
In the very first lockdown it was really busy because it was the only place open in town.
When the lockdown came off it was ... Nobody came back to work, the offices were closed.
You're worried? — Yes, we won't last until April.
You won't last until April?
And if they say, oh well we have to do this to save the NHS and protect people's lives and all that?
I don't believe it. I think this is all about money, isn't it?
It's a nice village.
Isn't it a beautiful pub?
It's a beautiful pub.
People get together and it's just what life is about.
If you want to come in, you're more than welcome.
We have to be masked up.
What do you think? — Well, it's a lovely place.
She gets very busy and we have live music, you name it, we do it.
You talk about the pub like a ship you call it she.
She because she's mine, she's a girl.
Well, you're in tier three, right?
Yeah we can't open.
But even if it was tier two ...
Even if it was tier two, we couldn't open because
we don't do food, we're just a wet house. You know, this is when you close your community pub, things
like this stop.
Customers have brought donations in. This is what your community pub does.
This is where people come to get helped, this is where people come to grieve.
Should we take the masks off? Should we go and sit and bear the cold?
This is where lads come in and get work, do you know what I mean?
There's always somebody in a pub that wants a job doing in the house, this is where people get to
know each other.
This government carries on the way he's doing.
Your historical English country pub, you know what I mean?
It will be gone.
And you think about closing down?
I think about it every day but for the love of God, she won't close.
I'll do me damn best, do you know what I mean, to keep her open.
My mum had to wait there, God rests her soul,
It needs sprucing up.
It does need sprucing up.
You know what I mean? You don't see anything anymore, nothing for the kids to play on.
Yet, booming thriving in Manchester's only ten minutes drive down there.
Why does that happen?
Money talks.
Last question, how are you voting in this referendum?
Out. — Out.
Well that goal post, you filmed that goal post.
No, it's the same as it was in the Summer of 2016.
That was it, these are the remains of it.
That used to be a pub.
Well, we often used to say, didn't we? We're often said, right,
in doing these films, the people always said places that voted for Brexit perhaps a disadvantage,
left behind that was the cliche, wasn't it?
But you and I always had the sense that what those places had experienced,
you know, the rest of us were somehow about to experience.
The cutting edge. — Yeah and that's very real here because
Collyhurst is smattered with disused pubs.
You know, places that once were at the heart of the community.
Hello! Can we talk to you for a minute?
As part of something called the Northern Gateway project,
there are plans to redevelop this area and build hundreds of new houses.
But questions about who will benefit and what will happen to the existing community
are impossible to ignore.
I want it to be a new Collyhurst for the kids growing up now, young kids.
What's it like? — It's horrible, it's an horrible estate like,
you see ... now it's all been renewed.
That's what needs to happen around there all maisonettes out the background there they've
pulled all these down they've been down for a few years now.
And there was a pub there as well, right?
The Billy Green's pub, yeah that's me local, they had me 21st birthday in there.
And how's life been to you over the last nine months with covid and all?
It's been horrible, like, over there, Eastwood square, at the shops and that,
like that was all a nice caffe that four or five years ago, sunbed shop, news agents ...
It has all been closed for years but I see a change around here now and I
think most people do.
Are you working at the minute? — No, not at the minute.
When did you last have a job?
I was working on building sites about seven months ago.
God and how are you in yourself?
Alright, I'm alright, you know, just keeping myself to myself been doing my own thing really.
This is not quite what it appears in the sense the reason that's empty is pending development.
But it's a lot of pending and no development, isn't it?
Can we talk to you for a minute?
We were here four years ago and that was was exactly the same.
They should knock that down and put a little Tesco Express, it will make more from it, it's just sat there.
We don't understand this, it's like if you go into town now, you still have people out homeless.
Do you think it's been worth it? Lockdown and shutting the shops?
No, not really.
Do you?
I'm not sure. — I don't think, I just think it's all crud to be honest.
What? The virus?
Go on.
People that have passed away and they've poured coronavirus on the death certificate ...
... underlying health conditions, it's a flu, isn't it? That's what they're calling it,
it's attacking people who's always got underlying health conditions do you know anyone who's
died from it?
No, not people who've had it, I know people who've had it,
I know people who've had what they call long covid and were still feeling terrible.
It's like a flu so there's no really need for lockdown.
So why do you think it's happening?
In the long run though, all this it's just ruining the economy for everyone else, like, people that have got their
own businesses ... everything. Do you know what I mean?
Obviously, like, Tesco's and all is alright,
it's businesses, isn't it? Barber shops they'll survive definitely because everyone needs a haircut
but all the little restaurants are not going to be able to open again.
I think as the time goes on, they're just going to have everything online.
Only work that you're going to end up getting is in these big factories that offer support.
Everything is going to be online, everything's digital, computerised, they know everything that you're doing ...
The 5g network, all that conspiracy as well, just don't believe what you believe, isn't it?
You don't know what to believe, they tell you one thing and then another thing comes up.
What about the vaccine when it comes?
You know what you're going to get a vaccine for? Because we're going to get microchips,
So when we go through airports, doctors, everywhere like that,
we can all get scanned so it's all easier.
So whatever it is, a postcard or a letter lands on your doorstep,
next spring and says, 'right, it's time for you to get vaccinated', presumably you're not going to do it.
No, I don't. Not really, no.
No, it's not the news, it's on the internet, the Guardian, the newspaper.
She got made redundant after eight years of employment
and then when she went to universal credit, she went two months without any money.
I thought I'd be on a camera. — Have a nice day!
Thank you. — See you later.
Thank you very much, man.
I don't know what to say about that.
What's interesting about conspiracies for me anyway is where ...
It's the conditions that give rise to it, right?
I know what you mean that the combination of that
and what they say is somehow very powerful for reasons I can't quite articulate but ...
Well, they're talking about the new world order and how everything's gone online, right,
and it's sweeping away everything.
That's a story that accounts for all the change in the world, isn't it?
There's something comparable to Brexit and I'm not sure quite what it is
but Brexit was just about the idea that the people in charge were not listening and were sort
of caught up in their own projects and you've got a sort of more extreme version of that four
years on which is that pandemic is just it's all about this quest to completely remake the world.
— But it's also peppered with sort of truths, isn't it?
I'm not sure whether it's peppered with truths.
Well it is! Amazon is sort of taking over the world, right?
The news agent and whenever, they were closed, do you know what I mean?
But what makes people more open to those stories is living in circumstances
where they have no power ...