HELEN BACH COLUMN: Living life as in The Truman Show

There have been anti-war protests at major cities around the world

The crisis in Ukraine is beyond dreadful, and I can’t imagine what those poor people are going through.

I feel particularly helpless.

I don’t understand Russian politics, I’ve read things, but sorry, I don’t understand.

Why invade Ukraine now? What’s the endgame?

I remember feeling like this as a kid in the 1980s, constantly hearing about the Cold War on the news, and Sting writing songs saying that he hoped the Russians loved their children too.

Now, as an adult, I’m none the wiser.

I feel particularly fed up about this though because we’re just emerging from Covid and two years that have been hellish for most people.

It sometimes feels like we’re in a drama – like The Truman Show – and now the Covid storyline is hopefully drawing to a close, we’ve got to have more gloom to deal with, instead of being able to enjoy life again.

You might think this strange, but when I went into my local pub last week for the first time since Christmas Eve and it was busy, I felt panicky because there were lots of people in there.

Some of you will scoff and say ‘get a life’, but maybe some of you also feel a bit like that. We’ve been scared witless for so long, perhaps it will take time to readjust back to what life was like before March 2020?

Now the restrictions are finishing, it would be good if we could respect each other’s decisions regarding wearing face coverings etc, and be aware that not everybody feels confident that the Covid nightmare is c0oming to an end.

We can but hope the decisions being made regarding C0vid now are for the right reasons.

It would be awful if they were made to deflect from other issues, like the eventual publication of Sue Gray’s full report, for example.

I guess only time will tell.

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