From a sky more blue than a manic depressive, oven hot rays of golden yellow illuminate the famous red brick façade of Eastbourne College, an outstanding place of learning that has lain silent since March; a travesty of justice. To its front, College Field sports a fresh look, having been closely shaven in perfect light and dark green broad stripes by the recently unfurloughed groundstaff, who tend their turf with Erosian love in the fond hope that the empty cloisters may yet echo to the once familiar sound of leather on willow; a sound rendered depressingly absent by WuFlu.
Meanwhile, barely three hundred yards distant, the tills are rattling at Fusciardi’s seafront ice cream emporium, with hungry, scantily clad visitors queuing round the block. The miles of shingle seashore lie camouflaged by thousands of scarlet bodies, pressed shoulder to shoulder in flagrant disregard of social distancing and threatening the progress made by months of Lockdown. How crazy. Where will it all end? The sadness of the whole situation was highlighted this afternoon as the departing Year 13 girls of Watt House socially distanced around our lawn in a final appearance before scattering to the four corners of academe, their final term having drowned in a sea of coronavirus seclusion.
BoJo is now threatening to close beaches if people don’t play by the rules. “Houston we have a problem”. The whole Lockdown easing is dependant on the great British public using their “common sense”. It’s rapidly becoming apparent that such a quality is in short supply. An expert on Radio 4 yesterday explained the differences between intellect, intelligence and common sense. Clearly they are different, but the idiots who are travelling long distances to come and pollute out beautiful beaches are patently lacking in everything! Stupid, stupid, stupid. Welcome to Donald Trump’s world. With a mighty show of arrogant, conceited narcissism, we can repel this unseen menace. The scientists scream that we must have effective test, track and tracing. How on earth is that going to work when you’ve just shared a beach with thousands of people who will scatter to the multitudinous winds with no hope of identifying and tracing them?
We have been fortunate in Eastbourne that COVID hasn’t so far had too much impact, but that could all change very rapidly with the alien invaders behaving like……well, alien invaders. And where are all our children quite naturally gravitating to? Schools will re-open just in time to close again. If all these stupid people really want to go in the sea they should get there via Beachy Head……and enjoy the jump!!
ADayInTheStrifeOf 