As it is the 75th anniversary of VE Day, I watched few nonagenarians being interviewed on the news expressing their delight when they first heard that the war in Europe was over. Much to my surprise, a few of them claimed that this pandemic is turning out to be almost as bad as the war! I mentioned this while chatting (at a certain distance) with an elderly neighbour on my walk the other day. Her facial expression implied that she disagreed, but she was polite and replied, “Ah yes but nowadays we all have hundreds of distractions. We never had any of that in wartime.” I agreed and thought about it as I walked home.

During the war they didn’t even have television. Hard to imagine. The radio played a crucial role in the war and was the main form of news, information and entertainment. It was essential in keeping one’s spirits up and besides the news there were music programmes, talks and comedy shows. The famous singer Dame Vera Lynn had her own radio programme.

We on the other hand have more possibilities than we know what to do with. As the Age of Aquarius dawns and technology advances, our heads are spinning with social media sites and apps galore. There are thousands of online classes available. At City Lit, for instance, you can take a drumming class or learn a selection of languages from Icelandic to Swahili. Via Zoom, you could have a consultation with a local dietician or with an astrologer halfway across the world. We can download RSC Shakespeare plays and stream Broadway musicals, or listen to thousands of podcasts on BBC sounds. Or maybe you prefer to listen to a motivational speaker on YouTube or listen to a new list of songs downloaded from Spotify.

We are truly spoilt with options that can put us into the creative zone and stave off boredom. If it’s not learning or entertainment that you’re after, you can catch up with all of your friends and relatives by facetiming and setting up a WhatsApp family group. Fortunately, there are PlayStations, Xboxes and Disney Plus keeping kids sane and Netflix keeping adults engaged in hours of entertainment. I’ve joined my daughter, who is watching Elite, a tense teen drama set in Spain, and am getting a chance to brush up on my Spanish. Or for a mere £8 a week my next-door neighbour has taken up virtual yoga classes. For something mesmerizing it’s got to be Minecraft to Candy Crush, or for brainboxes it could be the Scrabble or digital chess.

That’s all very well but unlike wartime we are more or less under house arrest. Our boredom is making us feel both lethargic and restless at the same time. We’re isolated and in many ways this situation is arguably harder than anything we have faced in the past. So, we need to maybe create a new routine, to break the cycle of our usual lives and do something altogether different.

In wartime everybody was still able to socialise freely. They could all enjoy an evening out at the cinema. Apparently up to 30 million cinema tickets were sold every week in the 1940s! Another popular pastime was going to concerts, many of which were held in London’s National Gallery. Dancing was the most popular hobby and ballrooms and church halls were packed. Big bands, Swing music and variety shows provided lively entertainment. Children, despite being evacuated out of big cities, still went to school, made new friends and played plenty of group games.

And back in the 1940s, they all had each other. They could hug, huddle up and hang out in groups! We simply can’t do any of that. If we all piled into a local nightclub at the weekend and danced the night away to the tunes of to Fatboy Slim or David Guetta things might not be so bad. We could all forget about the fact that we have a pandemic spreading across all nations for which we have no vaccine!

I read an article caption in an old Sunday paper. It read: “My grandparents turned to books to sustain them through the horrors of war.” The article was about ‘creative bibliotherapy’ as a source of solace, assuring us that the therapeutic effects of self-help books and imaginative literature should not be underestimated. Apparently, during both world wars, bibliotherapy, and in particular reading and connecting with good poetry, was used to help returning soldiers deal with post-traumatic stress disorder.

Maybe many of us are not suffering to that extent, but I think, we could all do with a personalised book prescription, a carefully selected list of literary works to improve our psychological well-being during lockdown and take us on an inspiring voyage of self-discovery. I am currently re-reading Dahl’s Matilda and Waugh’s Brideshead Revisited. I also like to re-read my old New Age books every now and then and am enjoying Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now published back in the 1990s.

When we wake up every morning and make ourselves a strong coffee, we should not forget that we’re all trying our best during these unprecedented times; our adaptation and endurance levels are sky high and the important thing is to remind ourselves that, not only are we still standing, but that we have the resilience we need to face this new reality, even if we do all need a new haircut.

  • Marisa Laycock moved to St Albans in 2000. She enjoys sharing her experiences of living in the city. These columns are also available as podcasts from 92.6FM Radio Verulam at www.radioverulam.com/smallcitylife .