In conversation with Harold Symons, Hackney’s 100 year old resident, on Covid-19 and being a “good neighbour”.
“It was a sunny, Autumn day on September 3rd 1939,” Harold Symons reminisces, “War was declared at 15 minutes past 11. As soon as Chamberlain finished his address to the nation an air raid warning went off. A declaration of war was something tangible, this virus is something quite different because it’s quite mysterious. That’s why it’s frightening.”
Harold, or Harry, has lived in Hackney for 80 years. A lifelong East Londoner who turned 100 years old in November.
His grandparents were Jewish immigrants who were trying to escape the violent, anti-Semitic attacks in Warsaw. In the 1930s, Harry and his mother moved into the same block of flats he lives in now. Harry “left school at 14,” and worked different jobs through his young adulthood.
Harry has been living on his own since the 1960s. Sarah Marshall lives next door to Harry and described him as “sharp, healthy” and defiant enough to “refuse all offers of help”.
Despite this independence he appreciates the help everyone has offered him amid the coronavirus panic, “people have helped me magnificently. They knock on my door to see if I am OK, they are happy to run errands for me.”
In spite of the escalating national health crisis, Harry seems most upset by the prospect of having to cease volunteering at a local school, “I resent that I don’t get to help out now.”
He says that the lack of clarity surrounding Covid-19 is what scares him most but he is grateful for his support system, “my neighbours are very, very kind…it’s not been too bad.”
