"Welcome to Lockdown Diaries, Week 13 and this week we're going to do something slightly different. I want to do a couple of interviews with people so you hear directly from people about what they've been doing. So, I'd like this way to introduce you to Val.

Now Val, if you can come onto the screen now. There you are. Morning. Tell us who you are and what you do at Warwick."

"Hi I'm Val Elvin, and I'm a chef De Partie, part-time at Roots kitchen."

"Val, you've been brilliant because you've written to me every single week of the Lockdown Diaries. Tell me what's been going on and there's amazing stuff been going on in your community, in your streets. Just tell us a little bit about what's been going on in your street."

"Yeah, there's quite a few people that work at Warwick Uni in our street. Jane Oakenshaw, who works in Estates, and Richard Harrison but, quite some time now, they set up play streets in our road, where they cut off the streets, and from that Jane was able to set up a WhatsApp group and there's about 50 odd houses in it now. So, that was the beginning of it and from there we've gone on to support people really. We've gone on to dropping stuff at the door for people and they've painted all the road signs. They've painted all the coupling stones and planted our plant pots on all of the streetlights and the children have got involved with that as well. They've been painting all the tin pots to tie on and it's just a real sense of caring for each other really."

"It's a real community isn’t it? You've really got a strong community there."

"Yes, yeah and if somebody wants something, there is a joke that you have to have it on their doorstep within 3 minutes so it's always a race. If you put if you put a call out there for baking powder, it has to be on the door and 3 minutes. That's been really really good and also, they've had, we've had about 3 gatherings so far, we have another one coming up or a 50th wedding anniversary so I've been baking scones. People have been making cakes. We've also had the coffee van come into the street every Monday and we have Food Bank Fridays where we drop off Food Bank stuff onto Yvonne's doorstep and she takes it in. And, we've also set up a, Jenny set up a prayer group as well within the street so that's been really good because people can come to her if they've got any prayer requests. So, really, it's just about, just getting together really and doing things for each other."

"That's fantastic, I mean, we're at moment now, aren't we, where, you know, shops are opening up, people are going about more and maybe we're at a kind of change moment. What are your hopes? What do you hope for the future as we move through this stage of the pandemic?"

"That this sort of and community spirit will, will carry on and it will grow in other areas because we have, we have been really an example to other people and we share it with our family and friends so they're very up for it. It only takes one person to be brave. To put that note through the door to say, do you need anything? So, I hope that that will continue and obviously the support that we've received from Warwick in that community. I hope that that will continue we'll just be looking out for each other and it would just make people a little bit more aware of their next-door neighbour and, you know, just people in the street generally. I think that's been a case that, when I walk in the morning to get my paper, people say good morning and that's something that didn't always happen before. That needs to continue really."

"I know, because you keep telling me. I mean, obviously you're on furlough at the moment. I know you're quite keen to get back to work, aren't you?"

"Very much so, yeah yeah. Very much so."

"That's great. Val, thanks ever so much. That's brilliant. I want to try and do one or two of these over the course the next few weeks, just so everyone gets to hear other voices. Thanks Val."

"Great, thank you. Bye."

"Well, of course, there's been lots of other things that everyone's been up to this week. And, one of the themes from last week was, we've got all these kinds of ongoing conversations now which is a great thing to see. And, I think one of the things that I've seen quite a lot of this week is, is still quite a lot of concern and of interest but also desire to learn around all the issues that's emerged from Black Lives Matters. And, Ray, for one person, has been in touch to say, what are we doing? Where can we learn more? Where can we see what's going on? So, I thought I might just draw everyone's attention - some you will know this already but just to draw everyone's attention - to the Diversity Task Forces that we've got in the University which are there to share experiences. To help people understand and to learn but also to make some advice on actions as well and what are the things that we can do within our community within our University. The Equality and Diversity Inclusion webpage has information about the Task forces. How you can join, if you want to join, but also helping just to build out the resources so we can all learn more because none of us are complete experts in the way in which we all want our society to become and that's one of the things our task forces to help is with.

There's, I think, quite a lot of interest that some of you have shown about the conversation we've started about the face masks, the visibility face mask. Jenny was certainly in touch and I know Jenny's doing her own work on this, as well. Carol, Carol was also in touch to talk about how important it was to her family and also looking at the different products - some people making these masks, of course but - there are some products. And, as a community, we're going to need to make some decisions about - collectively - the wearing of face coverings, face masks, and issues around visibility over the course of the next few weeks. Thinking about that full return to the campus later on this year.

There's also been - I'm delighted to say - a few comments about football after the discussion last week. So, Nicola was in touch. Deeply critical of my mug as a good sky blue. She also said, incidentally, that and she'd been walking around - living near to campus - walking around and could see the really sad sight of lots of our office plants having wilted and died over the course of the last few weeks. I think we're all gonna have a lot of cleaning up to do - those of us who are going to be going back in at some point later on, this year. Michelle, Michelle was one of the people who asked me about that pennant behind me and what I couldn't quite realise Michelle is, is that you and colleagues we're running a little scheme to raise some money for charity at guessing what it was and that's, of course, why you were one of the people asking me, what is it? so somebody could win that and that money could go to charity. Well, for those of you - I know not everybody likes football - for those of you do like football, one thing you all know is that, if you're an Aston Villa supporter, one of the club's you really don't like is West Bromwich Albion. So, guess what Michelle and her colleagues did? They decided that the person who said that was something to do with West Bromwich Albion was the winner of that particular charity competition. Heart-breaking.

But also wanted to share with you, if I may, a story Rachel sent. It's fantastic story about 1988. Let, me just read it out to you because it's much better in her words than it is in mine. This is, I think, just one of those great football stories. Rachel, she says, 1988 - I was working for a computer leasing company in Richmond. My boss, Terry, was a bit of a lad and knew a lot of people on the London scene. One day, I was in the office when this larger than life chap walks in, sits at the desk in front of me. Puts his hands behind his head, his feet up on the table looks at me and says "Hello Rachel, I'd love a cup of tea". Me being me, I stand up and I say, "Does Terry know who you are?" He looks at me horrified and realises, I've no clue who he is. Sits up and says "Terry's just parking the car and will be up soon." I get him his tea and say, "I don't know your name". Again, he looks horrified. "It's Bobby Moore" he says. "Nice to meet you Mr. Moore". We chat, as you do, while waiting for Terry. Terry walks in, takes Bobby out for lunch. When Terry returns, He asks me if I know that football. "Yes, I know about the offside rule," I say. He then asks if I know about the World Cup in 1966 when England won. "I was not alive then", was my reply. Terry starts to laugh, explains that the man out there was Bobby Moore, the captain of the England Football team in 1966. He said I was the first person, that he had met, who didn't know he was and found it rather nice that he can chat with someone about something else in life. Absolutely brilliant story. Thanks ever so much, Rachel, for that. Lots of great things everyone's doing this week.

So, Mary is involved in the Oxford vaccine tests going on at the Queen Elizabeth and by now, Mary, you must have done those tests, or at least, been assessed as to whether you've had Covid or not and whether you can have that test. So, let us know if you're able to go through the test, it would be great for us to understand what's going on and share that with the wider community. In a different vein, Annette has sent me this amazing photograph. Annette is one of the many of us who do mindfulness and Annette has sent this amazing picture of the pebble stacking - you've probably seen pebble stacking - the most incredible thing and I have to say that clearly my ability to engage in mindfulness is utterly hopeless because the thought of one wretched pebble falling off another as I'm trying to build something just makes my blood boil as I speak about it. But, what a fantastic act of patience, to be able to work through that in that kind of way.

I've got students doing brilliant things. So, as we all know, as you can see in the media in the moment, theatres are in crisis. Theatres are on the edge of bankruptcy everywhere but a group of our students, fantastically, have been engaged in something called Students Saving our Theatres which is a crowd funder to raise money to try to stop some of our theatres for going out of business. Very brilliant, wonderful thing to see and one other thing I want to share. So last week, I wanted to do this sort of big reveal about this fantastic thing - I've been doing steps - but I failed to get my target but now, I've done it. So, my lockdown steps in this period have been 1 million. 1 million steps and I have to tell you, honest truth is, physically I feel so much better for doing it so for those of you who started with Joe Wicks and lost then, started with some of the things that we've been doing through the Warwick Sports Hub and let them go, started the steps and let it go, get that back. Get that back. It is a great way of just feeling better and getting a positive out of this period of time that we are all in. In the world of our education, loads of stuff going on. The exams of now finished and it's been an extraordinary amount of work that people are put into to get all of that assessment online, fantastic. Dave was in touch to say it has just been a magnificent achievement by everybody but quite rightly, he particularly says it's been wonderful to see the patience and the fortitude of our students who've just got on with it and that's absolutely right. Fantastic to see. I think by now we are at, or very close to being at, the 100th PhD viva conducted online through Teams or Zoom or whatever and that's the extraordinary thing, as well, to see the way the graduate school and colleagues have just got on with things and helped our students through their PhD programmes. And also, in Student Opportunities, they've started a mentoring scheme particularly aimed at students from WP backgrounds. Giving them support, thinking through what to do next in the world of work. What we can all see around us at the moment is that, existing educational inequalities and many others of course as well, are just been exacerbated in the course of this pandemic and the way in which Covid-19 is impacted on us and so the things that we can do to try to stop those inequalities widening is all fantastically important.

A few other good things that people have shared, Gillian's shared a picture of a fantastic new lockdown puppy that they call, apparently, Baby Shark. All of us who have had puppies know the little sharp teeth of a puppy. They look sweet and lovely but gosh when they nip you, you certainly know it. The Baby Shark puppy. Kate has written a brilliant poem again and I'm just gonna, I'm just gonna read this to you, if I may, because I think this is a wonderful thing. This is a few lockdown lines that Kate sent in. If I can find the right thing, I'll be able to read it to you. You can tell this is not enormously well-rehearsed, can't you? A few lockdown lines. A time capsule is going to record our varied emotions, and how we stockpiled on antiseptic lotions, we've panic bought loo roles, leaving shelves empty, despite being told if we're sensible they'll be plenty, the way it's panned out it's kind of surreal beyond imagination, who would have expected we never get to host 20/20 graduation? we all got rather scared by the numbers getting ill, compounded somewhat by there being no vaccine or pill, I was yearning to hug my adult sons such a strong feeling, at the same time my cancelled special birthday holiday had me reeling, but compared to others this loss there's nothing, for others the suffering was completely crushing, I found in my daily exercise I watch makes you more closely and all his prowess, why had I never noticed before the oak trees have flowers, there are green spaces in my city that I started to explore, and people that I talked to who lived just next door, people getting too close outside initially left me flustered, I needed some comfort food so I'm told myself and that turned out to be custard, sometimes with crumble and sometimes without, it made me feel better without a doubt, whatever only normal turns out to be, will now think more broadly than just me. Thanks Kate. Brilliant and that certainly, will be going into our online project time capsule. We're having the first meeting of starting to put all that together next week because we've got, I think, enough materials now to really keep people in flavour of how our lives have been through this period of time but please, if you've got other things to send in, please do. It's not like a book - there's a limit. It's an online resource so there will be no limit. We can keep adding things in.

Thanks again to Val for being interviewed this week. Next week, we're going to do another interview. I've got a medical school student who's spent some time in the hospital during the course, working during the course of the pandemic so we'll hear a little bit about how things have been there as well. But, thanks to you all.

Next week is the end of term. The most extraordinary term that the University of Warwick has ever had or indeed any University across the country's ever had. Last week of term, there's still a huge amount of work to do. Thank you to everybody for everything you're doing and for supporting our

community. Speak again next week.

Thank you.

Vice-Chancellor, Professor Stuart Croft