An inmate at a Dorset prison. Credit: In Pictures Ltd./Corbis via Getty Images
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Lockdown can be hard. We are not used to being confined and forbidden to socialise. After more than three weeks of it, and with at least three more to come, the strains are showing in us all. But I know that this sort of isolation can offer a way to a new happiness if you are able to prepare, schedule, self-discipline, train, innovate and surrender. The process is challenging before it becomes satisfying. Yet, in time, the discoveries of an isolationist journey can be delightful.
I assert this confidently because my training ground for today’s Covid-19 isolation was a single cell in HMP Belmarsh, 21 years ago. Those conditions were tougher than they are now.
As I was confined in a far smaller space for 18 hours a day (23 hours a day at weekends) with no modern distractions — no mobile phone, no internet or TV — I had to be resourceful. Nevertheless, the basic ground rules for surviving isolation are surprisingly similar then as now.
The preparations are all in the mind. Your world has been compulsorily changed. If you resent or rail against the restrictions, your mental health will suffer. The trick is to attempt, no matter how hard it seems, to train your mind to accept confinement calmly, to ask the question: “How can I make the best of it?”
Penal, as opposed to medical isolation, had its own challenges: guilt, the cacophony of prison noise and spartan conditions. Staying emotionally and mentally stable was the name of the game. Yet the Belmarsh pressures did concentrate my mind wonderfully in some challenging directions.
The first priority is to create a schedule and find the self-discipline to stick to it. In prison, I pinned my hour-by-hour timetable on the bars of my cell and rarely deviated. It was no draconian schoolmaster’s regime. My schedule now, as then, was a patchwork quilt of colourful commitments and curiosities.
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SubscribeAre we really expected to take thisman seriously. Belmarsh was a ‘delightful experience’ – for a man who was getting 50 letters a day from wellwishers, who had the intellect and the education and the physical resources to study Greek in his cell and elsewhere in the prison. I am prepared to believe that every word of this is true, but isit really of any relevance at all to tge far less privileged and far more typical prison inmate or for that matter the typical less-educated person in Covid lockdown. Sadly, this article comes across as a piece of arrogant and smug self-satisfaction from someone who has no idea how the other half lives. And he is apparenly now a clergyman as well!
Well said….JA chose to end up in the Nick….I don’t recall getting a choice about ‘Lockdown UK’….
Great article and agree with pretty much you have said here. Life will not go back to what is was, either socially or in the business sense, life has been reset, by nature! People will empower themselves and take more control of their life and hopefully their health! Whilst we can only change those things that are directly in our remit, we can ‘hopefully’ influence governments to act on our behalf for the good of all.Unfortunately, wealth will become even more polarized as more people will buy distantly, a trend we all know too well, but one heightened by these dreadful times. Likes of Bezos will become richer and hold more influence, social networking will become stronger and advertising will move even more in to this medium without doubt, beware the swathe of influencers that will emerge on-line! But, we have to take positives where we can and that for me is realising who really matters in life, family, friends and the heroes on the front line, across multi-sectors! Who really cares anymore about overpaid footballers and certain Youtubers who add nothing at this time, hey I like football but!! So, keep calm, go for a walk, enjoy the tranquility where you can, and think how you will reset your own life once this virus passes. By the way, our body is full of viruses, we have ways of dealing with them, eat healthy, stay fit, take your vitamins, sleep well, try and de-stress (heart goes out to those who are struggling right now) – turn off social media and keep positive. Stay safe one and all and keep the posts coming!
Great piece
It would be interesting to get Mr Robinson to do a piece too. The difference in time and attitude would be illuminating
It would be interesting to get Mr Robinson to do a piece too. The difference in time and attitude would be illuminating
I suppose I am not allowed to mention NHRN. Shame on you
Thankfully I’ve got lots of books to read during lockdown and I’d hope most readers of Unherd don’t need someone to suggest reading. I don’t read anything religious as that’s beyond pointless, but a bit of Dawkins is worth revisiting!
Why pointless?
Does “Oxford” usually offer places to read theology to those leaving prison – any prison – Belmarsh where dangerous ppl are or Sheppey -Elmsley where cat C ppl are? Thought not. This is not the only reason why the article and its author are truly remarkable
I can’t say that I am a fan of Jonathan Aitken, but there’s no denying that he has a very touching writing style. Redemption suits him!