A Covid-19 Conversation Capsule by Alice Proctor

Amongst the tumbleweed of local lockdowns, fading furlough, too much twitter and the erratic Manchester weather, this summer for 5 Tuesdays I had something written in my diary. In pen! Confirmed. A plan, a job to do. The simplest job description in the world, to connect. A 45-minute phone call once a week with someone I’d never met before.

Sitting in my office bedroom, armed with questions to start conversations and ideas of how to get creative over the phone, week one was spent getting to know each other and what the world was looking like for each of us in these weird times.

I would have no problem chatting to a lamppost and one participant said they ‘could talk the hind legs off a donkey!’, another ‘I’m aiming to be eccentric’, and another ‘everyone’s got a story to tell’. So, after week one I was sure we wouldn’t run out of things to chat about. And we didn’t…

From supermarket stresses to sharing life lessons,

Family relationships to staying cool in 30 degree heat,

Careers in nursing to the power of song,

A KFC 9-piece bucket to what love really means,

Maps and their meanings to The Arctic Monkeys,

Reusable sanitary towels to ‘have we known each other long enough to swear yet?’

Book club thoughts to social care reform.

A Call for Change

The final thing I want to squeeze into the Covid-19 Conversation Capsule is inspired by 6 women’s words that clash and meet. I want to put it in last so it’s on the top of the pile because we’ll need to keep reaching in to have another look as we begin to move forward.