Do you have a garden? Do you live on the 17th floor of a tower block or in a castle? Coronavirus is making old divisions sharper, clearer and more damaging than ever
How does your garden grow? My local neighbourhood app is full of people swapping compost while my Facebook feed is full of photos of daffodils – little explosions of hope and rebirth. Who can resent that? Well, quite a few people, actually; the hashtag #selfishpricks has been trending on Twitter. The selfish pricks are people who go to parks and don’t observe social distancing. This may well be selfish, but another kind of selfishness is growing alongside it, from those who fail to recognise many people don’t have outside space. To live through this pandemic is to feel this viscerally; so much inequality is being played out.
One can refuse this knowledge or fake it. Every time I see a Tory minister saying they know what it’s like being indoors all day with small kids, I catch myself thinking: “What do you actually know? Have you ever lived in a tiny flat with small kids and no garden? Do you really know what it is like not to have a tiny scrap of land where you can sit outside, set up a swing and still know you’re at home?” I lived this way with two kids until my mid-30s. The memory of acquiring a small concrete yard stays with me. To this day, I cannot garden, but to be able to sit outside is a luxury.
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