Sheffield life during the coronavirus crisis recorded for future generations

Sheffield archivists, academics, museums and individuals are recording life during the coronavirus crisis for us and future generations to remember.
Pete EvansPete Evans
Pete Evans

The story of how the world was turned upside down by covid19 is being written all the time in journals, drawings, photographs, poetry, videos, newspapers and on social media.

In the space of just a few months the deadly virus has already taken the lives of hundreds of thousands of people, caused businesses to go bust and forced us all to stay home in seasons when we would usually be spending more time outside.

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Planes were grounded, schools, shops and offices closed, people stockpiled toilet paper and tinned food and events – some for the first time in their history – were cancelled, postponed or moved online.

Public noticesPublic notices
Public notices

Wildlife was spotted roaming urban streets while communities found new ways to come together as they kept apart – putting rainbows in windows, dressing up bears, making characterful scarecrows and ritually clapping every Thursday evening.

As many fear for the immediate future with all the uncertainties around what will happen next, some are already preparing for a time when we will be looking back.

Peter Evans, archives and heritage manager at Sheffield Council, and his team at Sheffield City Archives – like others – have been collecting material on all these changes since lockdown began.

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They look after around 60,000 items which date as far back as 1150 and Peter predicts the coronavirus collection alone will include hundreds of pieces.

Queuing at supermarketsQueuing at supermarkets
Queuing at supermarkets

He said: “A 2020 diary would go inside one of those boxes, alongside the ancient manuscripts because in the future it will become a historic document and will be safely looked after in the archives.

“I don’t think people always realise but we are part of our city’s history, when you’re living it today you don’t always appreciate that we are living in history.

“Our children and grandchildren will look back and wonder what life was like when this happened. If we don’t record it that will be forgotten.”

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As well as policy documents, minutes from council meetings and notices of closures, Peter says they are keen to have the public involved as much as possible to help tell the human story.

A thank you posterA thank you poster
A thank you poster

“What’s most interesting is the individual man and woman and how their lives have changed,” he said. “So as well as that official record, what we’re very keen for is people to record their own feelings, activities, and take their own photographs of their area.

“And at the moment the archives team can’t go out to places so we are relying on people to help us out.”

So far, people have already committed diaries which are being written now and sent photographs and artwork which they created.

But anyone can join in and send what they like.

SupermarketsSupermarkets
Supermarkets
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Peter said: “I think your story is an important story, no matter what your age is, your background, what you do during the pandemic – working or not working – your story is important and it’s your story that people in the future will want to read. Nobody’s story is unimportant, you are important.”

Some ideas Sheffield Archives gave for how to record experiences included: writing poems, songs or sketches, creating a scrapbook or artwork, gathering leaflets like those from volunteer groups offering support, recording audio, taking photographs or videos that show something unique about the impact of coronavirus such as your commute to work or queues at supermarkets and keeping a journal of your thoughts and feelings.

Others have also been documenting this time in different ways, such as planting time capsules or taking part in the hashtag viralarchive on social media.

Museums Sheffield also asked people to donate objects which reflect what they are doing, for example one family shared Star Wars characters they made out of toilet rolls and another made a sign outlining social distancing rules and reminding people that you “can’t catch covid19 from smiling at people”.

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Sheffield Archives’ physical collections have been closed to the public during lockdown but Peter encouraged anyone wanting to send in items to hold on to them until they can reopen and email [email protected].

While they have been gathering records of the current crisis, he said there had also been a spike in interest in material from the 1918 flu pandemic.

LeafletsLeaflets
Leaflets

Peter said: “We were looking back exactly a hundred years ago in 1920 when the Spanish flu was still raging and there are lots of documents in the archives that tell us about how they dealt with that pandemic and how it affected social gatherings.

“In many ways it was very different because the death rate was much higher and they couldn’t deal with it as well as we can but in other ways it’s very similar – they had to socially distance and some of the schools had to close, public transport was reduced. So even though a century has passed, our response is pretty similar but more effective in the 21st century.”

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He added that headteachers’ diaries from the time showed pupils and staff were off sick and that tramways were short on drivers, while adverts in the local newspapers tried to reassure audiences that a new ventilating system in the cinema would prevent people from catching germs.

Peter said: “Their world was turned upside down and fast forward a hundred years to now, our lives have been turned upside down with this pandemic.

“We only know what happened in the Spanish flu by the records our ancestors left behind. So we want to make sure that in 2020 all our experiences and all our different walks of life are fully recorded so we can preserve them and we can all look back – even in just a year from now who knows what we’ll be thinking about.”