What Belmarsh taught me about lockdown
by Jonathan Aitken, UnHerd:
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?”
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