APRIL 15th, 2020
Camberwell Chorus – sounds of lockdown
My experience of quarantine has been characterised not by silence but by sound. Confined within the same walls of a small flat, day after day, sight soon became monotonous and mundane. I live above a shop on a busy street in Camberwell, South London, which is always a hectic hubbub, but it seemed to reach a zenith during lockdown. Perhaps in an attempt to escape their walls, people’s voices in conversation, argument and song, flowed freely into the shared voids. Music was projected outside and private parties became public through the open windows of parked cars, or strolling microphoned boomboxes. Nature reclaimed the airwaves, with birds singing their dawn chorus cacophony clearer than ever above the downstairs refrigerator coolers whirring like cicadas of the Med. But ripping through it all have been the relentless bursts of sirens and the deafening drone of medical helicopters, sometimes six a day, flying overhead on their way to King's Hospital. A jarring reminder of why we were all stuck inside in the first place.
what is something you'd like to do that you can't?
Celebrate my Grandad's 90th birthday and go out out.
