THE day in early March that was to change everything started pretty much like any other day for Downpatrick GP Una Ferguson.
Looking back, she remembers the reassuring normality of the morning; the same breezy chatter from husband John and teenage daughters Caireen and Rhianna; the same energy, the same rush to get out the door.
The only small cloud on the horizon was that her youngest was unwell and staying at home, but that was nothing to worry about as Una headed off to her surgery to deal with a full caseload of patients, many presenting with everyday ailments and many more worried about the growing threat of ‘Covid-19’.
But it wasn’t the mysterious new virus that was to throw the doctor’s life into a chasm of grief that day: her healthy husband suddenly became unwell while at home with his sick daughter and died of a stroke five days later in the intensive care unit of the Royal Victoria Hospital in Belfast.
An electronic engineer and keen historian, John’s death rocked his family to the core, but Una gains comfort from the fact her beloved husband’s organs were donated and successfully transplanted in three people whose lives also hung in the balance due to conditions unrelated to the new coronavirus.
Dr Ferguson's story is one of many diverse and moving personal accounts compiled in Voices of Covid, a compelling new book documenting the experiences of ‘ordinary’ people as well as more familiar faces across Northern Ireland during lockdown. Among the more well-known contributors are rugby legend Rory Best, Camlough doctor and athlete Caroline O’Hanlon, singer Philomena Begley, Justice Minister Naomi Long and retired Northern Ireland goalkeeper Pat Jennings.
All share stories of sadness and anxiety, but also of hope – something Una still embraces despite her own deeply personal loss and witnessing the loss of others through her work as a GP.
“My motto in life is to just push on with things,” she says, simply. “John would want me to be positive for the girls. I am now back at work helping people and that’s why I became a GP in the first place – that hasn’t changed.”
She is also back to her passion of powerlifting after kindly friends and neighbours rallied round to help her install equipment in her garage after gyms were forced to shut due to the restrictions.
“It hasn’t been easy, especially after I fell off a mountain bike in summer and broke my ribs, but I have missed my training,” confides Una, who, pre-pandemic, competed in several competitions after discovering she had a hidden talent for lifting weights.
“I started to train in 2019, to get fit, initially, but my personal trainer thought I might have a knack for it – I've always been strong and I'm used to hard work because my sister and I run a farm together. John always came to the competitions to support me, so I hold on to those memories.
“My priorities have definitely changed – before all this, I would have pushed the girls to be successful in terms of their careers, but success doesn’t always bring happiness. Now, I just want them to be healthy and happy, whatever they choose to do.”
As well as emotional and physical pain, the pandemic has caused a disturbing rise in the number of young people suffering from mental ill health, according to Professor Siobhan O’Neill, new interim Mental Health Champion for Northern Ireland and another contributor to Voices of Covid.
A single mum to Annabelle, who's three, the professor of Mental Health Services at Ulster University admits she found lockdown “hugely stressful” herself when working from home, preparing lectures and writing research papers while looking after her young daughter.
“I was scared that I would lose another parent and that I too would get the virus and end up in hospital with pneumonia again,” she says. “The possibility of death on an unimaginable scale terrified me. Eventually, I reached acceptance, rearranged my life and office and just enjoyed being at home with my child.
“The aftermath, though, is still with us. At a lecture I took on Monday [online], I asked students about the mental health impact of the pandemic and loneliness and isolation were the main problems they aired. I think, in some ways, we have lost sight of the huge mental health impact on our young people.”
Some of the stories have lighter tones, as seen in the heartening words of Colm (Bootsy) Fearon from Camlough, who recounts his attempts to lift everybody’s spirits in his small cul-de-sac by hosting Saturday night entertainment with socially distanced card games, bingo, quizzes and even an outdoors disco.
“I took [music] requests from as far afield as Argentina, America, Russia and South Africa after it went live on social media,” says Colm, who literally helped his 18-year-old daughter Zoe, a pupil at Rathmore special needs school in Newry, climb a mountain during the lockdown.
“When I went out on runs on Slieve Gullion and the mountains, I thought of things I wanted to achieve,” he says. “One of them was getting my beautiful daughter to the summit of Camlough Mountain – to the huge star erected on the Camlough side and put in place for the Starburst night walk in aid of Rathmore School.
“Many parents from the school had started to take their kids up the mountain, so I put a plan in place so Zoe could get to the star too. With the support of friends we did it – we did it together – and it was such a proud day for us all.”
Joy amidst the despair also takes the form of new birth, as recorded by Newry diversity blogger and campaigner Dan Gebski, originally from Poland. His wife Aislin gave birth to daughter Lucy a few months before the lockdown but Dan’s parents have yet to meet their new granddaughter.
“My dad is not well with kidney failure and we were forced to cancel flights back home three times,” he recalls. “It’s been hard but I’ve reflected on how I didn’t appreciate just being able to get on a plane when I wanted and the small things like taking my wife out for a meal. I will never take things for granted again.”
The very ordinariness of each voice in this extraordinary book is what will make us all stop and take stock, believes its inspired creator, social worker Bronagh McKeown from Newry.
Bronagh, who heads up disability day services with the Southern Trust, decided to pull the book together as a social history record for people in this “unique time” and also to raise funds for charities which have been severely impacted by the pandemic.
“For me, it has been a labour of love and one of my most rewarding experiences, reading how people have reacted, helped others, suffered, but still have hope for the future while reflecting on what is important now,” she says.
“More than anything, the stories show the human spirit’s yearning to connect with people above all else. I hope in this season of goodwill that people will consider making this book their gift of choice and so continue to help others.”
Copies of Voices of Covid (£10) can be purchased from Pips Hope and Support, Newry, and from Marie Curie. Copies also available from the Buttercrane Shopping Centre (customer services) and Veritas bookshop, Newry.
