At the start of the lockdown Boris Johnson's government utilised descriptors of a Blitz spirit from WW2, and invited all of us to make direct parallels with a wartime experience. We were summoned to “fight” and “conquer” the virus, “win the war” against Covid, to stay “confident and calm” at home. This evoked a combination of thoughts about what life must have been like during the Blitz, and the extent to which the government was simply fictionalising the actual reality of life in WW2 to serve their management of the public within this pandemic. The government introduced emergency legislation with powers that were unparalleled since wartime, and sent us into a lockdown.
I recalled Don McCullin’s photograph of The Guv'nors - showing his local gang posing for him in a war bombed building, Campbell Bunk, in 1958. The street formerly known as Campbell Road, is now called Whadcoat Street.  It is just around the corner from where I live.
Research into the history of the street lays bare of the reality of life for people in such property until it was finally demolished in slum clearance in the 1950s (Jerry White - The Worst Street In North London: Campbell Bunk, Islington, Between the Wars (History Workshop), 1986).  Official figures for 1940-41 estimate that 8,200 tons of bombs were dropped on London alone. and the effects of bombing can be seen in the modern flats throughout the area. I have an allotment very close by which was originally requisition land from people’s gardens for the positioning of artillery weapons in WW2.
The street is also the same place where on 19/06/2017 Makram Ali died and 11 other people were injured, after a white van ploughed into a group of worshippers who were standing in Seven Sisters Road pavement after leaving the Mosque during Ramadan.

In my work I have incorporated a background of the bombed-out image of Campbell’s bunk from McCullin’s The Guv’ners, alongside local houses, and my drawings of observations and reflections throughout the lockdown period.
 
I have intentionally varied the scale of figures to evoke the differing degrees of emotional colonisation I felt during lockdown.  This infiltrated through in microscopic detail from both the effects of the pandemic and from the government’s surreal handling of message and strategy.

Life in the Time of Covid (2020) - detail

At the start of the lockdown Boris Johnson's government utilised descriptors of a Blitz spirit from WW2, and invited all of us to make direct parallels with a wartime experience. We were summoned to “fight” and “conquer” the virus, “win the war” against Covid, to stay “confident and calm” at home. This evoked a combination of thoughts about what life must have been like during the Blitz, and the extent to which the government was simply fictionalising the actual reality of life in WW2 to serve their management of the public within this pandemic. The government introduced emergency legislation with powers that were unparalleled since wartime, and sent us into a lockdown.
I recalled Don McCullin’s photograph of The Guv'nors - showing his local gang posing for him in a war bombed building, Campbell Bunk, in 1958. The street formerly known as Campbell Road, is now called Whadcoat Street.  It is just around the corner from where I live.
Research into the history of the street lays bare of the reality of life for people in such property until it was finally demolished in slum clearance in the 1950s (Jerry White - The Worst Street In North London: Campbell Bunk, Islington, Between the Wars (History Workshop), 1986).  Official figures for 1940-41 estimate that 8,200 tons of bombs were dropped on London alone. and the effects of bombing can be seen in the modern flats throughout the area. I have an allotment very close by which was originally requisition land from people’s gardens for the positioning of artillery weapons in WW2.
The street is also the same place where on 19/06/2017 Makram Ali died and 11 other people were injured, after a white van ploughed into a group of worshippers who were standing in Seven Sisters Road pavement after leaving the Mosque during Ramadan.

In my work I have incorporated a background of the bombed-out image of Campbell’s bunk from McCullin’s The Guv’ners, alongside local houses, and my drawings of observations and reflections throughout the lockdown period.
 
I have intentionally varied the scale of figures to evoke the differing degrees of emotional colonisation I felt during lockdown.  This infiltrated through in microscopic detail from both the effects of the pandemic and from the government’s surreal handling of message and strategy.

Life in the Time of Covid (2020) - detail

At the start of the lockdown Boris Johnson's government utilised descriptors of a Blitz spirit from WW2, and invited all of us to make direct parallels with a wartime experience. We were summoned to “fight” and “conquer” the virus, “win the war” against Covid, to stay “confident and calm” at home. This evoked a combination of thoughts about what life must have been like during the Blitz, and the extent to which the government was simply fictionalising the actual reality of life in WW2 to serve their management of the public within this pandemic. The government introduced emergency legislation with powers that were unparalleled since wartime, and sent us into a lockdown.
I recalled Don McCullin’s photograph of The Guv'nors - showing his local gang posing for him in a war bombed building, Campbell Bunk, in 1958. The street formerly known as Campbell Road, is now called Whadcoat Street.  It is just around the corner from where I live.
Research into the history of the street lays bare of the reality of life for people in such property until it was finally demolished in slum clearance in the 1950s (Jerry White - The Worst Street In North London: Campbell Bunk, Islington, Between the Wars (History Workshop), 1986).  Official figures for 1940-41 estimate that 8,200 tons of bombs were dropped on London alone. and the effects of bombing can be seen in the modern flats throughout the area. I have an allotment very close by which was originally requisition land from people’s gardens for the positioning of artillery weapons in WW2.
The street is also the same place where on 19/06/2017 Makram Ali died and 11 other people were injured, after a white van ploughed into a group of worshippers who were standing in Seven Sisters Road pavement after leaving the Mosque during Ramadan.

In my work I have incorporated a background of the bombed-out image of Campbell’s bunk from McCullin’s The Guv’ners, alongside local houses, and my drawings of observations and reflections throughout the lockdown period.
 
I have intentionally varied the scale of figures to evoke the differing degrees of emotional colonisation I felt during lockdown.  This infiltrated through in microscopic detail from both the effects of the pandemic and from the government’s surreal handling of message and strategy.

Life in the Time of Covid (2020) - detail

At the start of the lockdown Boris Johnson's government utilised descriptors of a Blitz spirit from WW2, and invited all of us to make direct parallels with a wartime experience. We were summoned to “fight” and “conquer” the virus, “win the war” against Covid, to stay “confident and calm” at home. This evoked a combination of thoughts about what life must have been like during the Blitz, and the extent to which the government was simply fictionalising the actual reality of life in WW2 to serve their management of the public within this pandemic. The government introduced emergency legislation with powers that were unparalleled since wartime, and sent us into a lockdown.
I recalled Don McCullin’s photograph of The Guv'nors - showing his local gang posing for him in a war bombed building, Campbell Bunk, in 1958. The street formerly known as Campbell Road, is now called Whadcoat Street.  It is just around the corner from where I live.
Research into the history of the street lays bare of the reality of life for people in such property until it was finally demolished in slum clearance in the 1950s (Jerry White - The Worst Street In North London: Campbell Bunk, Islington, Between the Wars (History Workshop), 1986).  Official figures for 1940-41 estimate that 8,200 tons of bombs were dropped on London alone. and the effects of bombing can be seen in the modern flats throughout the area. I have an allotment very close by which was originally requisition land from people’s gardens for the positioning of artillery weapons in WW2.
The street is also the same place where on 19/06/2017 Makram Ali died and 11 other people were injured, after a white van ploughed into a group of worshippers who were standing in Seven Sisters Road pavement after leaving the Mosque during Ramadan.

In my work I have incorporated a background of the bombed-out image of Campbell’s bunk from McCullin’s The Guv’ners, alongside local houses, and my drawings of observations and reflections throughout the lockdown period.
 
I have intentionally varied the scale of figures to evoke the differing degrees of emotional colonisation I felt during lockdown.  This infiltrated through in microscopic detail from both the effects of the pandemic and from the government’s surreal handling of message and strategy.

Life in the Time of Covid (2020) - detail

At the start of the lockdown Boris Johnson's government utilised descriptors of a Blitz spirit from WW2, and invited all of us to make direct parallels with a wartime experience. We were summoned to “fight” and “conquer” the virus, “win the war” against Covid, to stay “confident and calm” at home. This evoked a combination of thoughts about what life must have been like during the Blitz, and the extent to which the government was simply fictionalising the actual reality of life in WW2 to serve their management of the public within this pandemic. The government introduced emergency legislation with powers that were unparalleled since wartime, and sent us into a lockdown.
I recalled Don McCullin’s photograph of The Guv'nors - showing his local gang posing for him in a war bombed building, Campbell Bunk, in 1958. The street formerly known as Campbell Road, is now called Whadcoat Street.  It is just around the corner from where I live.
Research into the history of the street lays bare of the reality of life for people in such property until it was finally demolished in slum clearance in the 1950s (Jerry White - The Worst Street In North London: Campbell Bunk, Islington, Between the Wars (History Workshop), 1986).  Official figures for 1940-41 estimate that 8,200 tons of bombs were dropped on London alone. and the effects of bombing can be seen in the modern flats throughout the area. I have an allotment very close by which was originally requisition land from people’s gardens for the positioning of artillery weapons in WW2.
The street is also the same place where on 19/06/2017 Makram Ali died and 11 other people were injured, after a white van ploughed into a group of worshippers who were standing in Seven Sisters Road pavement after leaving the Mosque during Ramadan.

In my work I have incorporated a background of the bombed-out image of Campbell’s bunk from McCullin’s The Guv’ners, alongside local houses, and my drawings of observations and reflections throughout the lockdown period.
 
I have intentionally varied the scale of figures to evoke the differing degrees of emotional colonisation I felt during lockdown.  This infiltrated through in microscopic detail from both the effects of the pandemic and from the government’s surreal handling of message and strategy.