Rosie’s #Bookreview Team #RBRT Writedown: Lockdown in the Galloway Glens at the Time of Covid by Margaret Elphinstone et al @marysmithwriter

Today’s team review is from Judith. She blogs here https://judithbarrowblog.com/

Judith has been reading Writedown: Lockdown in the Galloway Glens at the Time of Covid by Margaret Elphinstone et al

At a time when we are once more in Lockdown/Tier whatever/ or equivalent, it was interesting to read the accounts of the twenty-two writers in the first Covid lockdown earlier this year.

This is a thought provoking collection which instantly recognises the strangeness of 2020 ( and maybe the first few months of 2021!). And yet it also shows how adaptable, as human beings, we are. However much we resent situations. These stories, accounts and poems, (which I viewed as individual diaries), reveal the uncertainty, the stoicism, the fear of unexpectedly losing the life we took for granted, the half-forgotten memories which became precious because of lost loved ones, or because of the anxiety that those times might not be repeated.

There is poignancy, humour, sadness, anger here. But, threaded throughout, there is also, a strange feeling of relief in being able to step away from normality, of not ‘having’ to do something, of not being tied to duty. And being able to look at the world around us, to see nature in all its glory; to appreciate it. In this collection I was glad to see what I saw in those months – an underlying sense of freedom

Writedown reveals a fascinating glimpse of an extraordinary time in our lives and I have no hesitation in recommending this book to any reader, as a reminder of 2020 in the years to come.

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