On Sunday July 18th we received the call we were dreading. One of Charlie’s colleagues had taken a Lateral Flow Test and tested positive. Throughout the Pandemic Harris had only a handful of confirmed COVID infections. Despite this, people living and working in Harris haven't been complacent. We have followed the guidelines, sanitised, social distanced, worn our masks, taken tests and cheerfully accepted our jabs. However, in a small close knit community the spiders web of connection between people can have an immense effect. As a busy working family we have a high amount of (safe) contact with visitors coming to Harris as well as contact with friends, family and colleagues who live here. Our family is like many others in Harris. During the summer we take on extra jobs to help the local businesses that look after the thousands of tourists who visit the island. I work at the grocery shop An Clachan in Leverburgh and on a Saturday I do a holiday home changeover. Charlie is now finished at school and has been working full time at the Anchorage Restaurant. In the school holiday Sarah works in an Art Studio during the day and at Flavour Restaurant in the evening. Nick and Spud make beer! Between us we work for six local tourist businesses.
We knew Harris wasn't immune to the virus but that late night call on Sunday was our wake up call.
Charlie tested and was negative. Nick and I tested and we were both negative. Sarah tested and we watched expectantly as the control line appeared … closely followed by a second. She had tested positive. Our immediate thought was that the test must have been wrong, so we did another. The second test was also positive.
We rang all of our contacts and arranged a PCR test at the Western Isles Hospital in Stornoway on Monday morning...and then the phone started ringing. Almost immediately we started getting calls from friends and neighbours offering to bring shopping, prescriptions and treats. Our fantastic local Doctor (Dr Andrew Naylor MBE) rang to check in on us and the test and protect and COVID response team at Comhairle nan Eilean Siar rang us to offer practical and financial support.
All of my friends at the shop tested first thing on Monday morning and were all negative so thankfully the shop, which is such a lifeline to the community, didn’t have to close. The Anchorage Restaurant were told they could open after a deep clean but the owner took a typically community minded decision that to protect her staff and customers she would close. One of Sarah’s fellow workers at Flavour Restaurant also tested positive and so they closed and despite testing negative their other staff isolated. In all six people in Harris tested positive that day and many businesses in South Harris were affected. “The Harris Six” as they quickly became known were a real shock to the community. The virus was in our little corner of the world, in our workplaces and in our homes.
So for the last four days we have been isolating, and we've taken it very seriously. We have only left the house to walk Spud on the Croft and have our PCR tests. However, being “stuck” at home hasn’t been a hardship. We have had some lovely weather during our isolation week. We have finished painting the porch, done a little weeding in the garden and I have read books I didn’t think would ever make it off my bedside table. We have also been reminded how many local friends we have, so many people stepped forward to help us…and help keep our spirits up!
On Tuesday morning we had an unexpected surprise when a visitor joined our isolation bubble. This uninvited guest first appeared several years ago in the Bays of Harris. A four foot tall Father Christmas has been standing and patiently waiting in the Manish bus stop for the last six or seven years. In this time he became a bit of a minor local celebrity and gained further notoriety in 2018 when Billy Connelly visited his bus stop for a photoshoot with John Maher. John was the Buzzcock’s original drummer and now lives and works in Harris as a photographer, this is one of his shots from that meeting.
Being responsible hosts we let him isolate in our little yellow van where we found him on Tuesday morning and took him with us to the mobile COVID Testing site in Tarbert to get the all clear. We also let him take advantage of such a rare outing from his bus stop to have a quick selfie at “that Layby” and introduced him to Isle of Harris Brewery’s finest!
As soon as we finish our isolation on Monday we will all be back at work and Father Christmas will be back home in Manish where he belongs. Thank you again to everyone who has come to our rescue this week or just given us a reason to smile!
