Diary of a Shopkeeper, 9th October

The seriousness and likely local impact of Covid-19 hit me at 4.30am on Thursday 5th March 2020. In Germany on a wine-buying trip, I was woken by a phone call telling me that Flybe had gone bust and my flight back to the UK no longer existed. It wasn’t only the pandemic that killed Flybe, but it was the last straw. And if a big, well-established company like that could be tipped over the edge, surely many other businesses were vulnerable too. Something had to be done. But what?

At this point Boris Johnson was encouraging the continuation of mass sporting events, and boasting of shaking hands all round when visiting a hospital. Despite that misguided bluster, most of us were increasingly terrified of the virus’s threat – especially as our screens filled with horrific scenes from Italy of people dying by the score in hospital corridors. Almost as scary was the action taken there to try and control the spread of the virus. On 9th March the Italian government announced something called a “lockdown.” A what? A complete halt to travel, socialising, and all but the most essential work.

If something like that were to happen here, Orkney’s economy and community could be devastated.

Within days of finally getting home, and with my Kirkwall BID hat back on, I started having phone conversations and then - something new - Zoom meetings with other businesses, sectoral organisations, and public bodies and politicians. BID carried out a survey of its members which came back suggesting hundreds of jobs could be lost and £100 million evaporate from the town’s economy within a year.

Aye, something had to be done!

At last, the government moved: in late March, they initiated the UK’s own lockdown, and started to release details of support measures, most importantly the furlough scheme. By that time, the informal local conversations had become more frequent, and were starting to acquire a structure. No one in that group was convinced that national politicians knew or cared enough about Orkney to pay attention to our special circumstances. It was essential that we spoke up clearly about our own community’s economic needs, and influenced as far as we could the support we might get, and the ways in which we could survive and emerge stronger from the crisis.

Names for the group came and went, personnel fluctuated depending on volunteer energy and availability. (Businesses had their own survival to think about, and individuals had their own families to look after.) But by mid-August 2020, the unwieldy but accurate name Economic Recovery Steering Group (ERSG) had been settled on.

ERSG was a talking shop, and was meant to be. Ideas were picked up and developed, or abandoned if they were going nowhere. Priorities were discussed, debated and more or less agreed. Senior figures from the council urged us to be more radical. We took that to heart and some bold and imaginative thinking resulted. But talking wasn’t enough. There had to be action. A new body was needed to actually put into action some of the ideas the ERSG was coming up with. And so it was that exactly two years ago, on October 12th, ASPIRE was first mooted.

ASPIRE has been much debated in the council chamber and in The Orcadian in recent weeks, and has come in for criticism as well as praise. I’m a believer in its potential and would like to explain why. But before turning to the present and future of ASPIRE, I wanted to give some historical background. It’s strange looking back on the events outlined above: it makes me realise that, although I love learning about history, I don’t much enjoy living it.

ASPIRE Orkney’s website can be found here.

This diary appeared in The Orcadian on 12th October 2022. A new one appears weekly. I post them in this blog a few days after each newspaper appearance, with added illustrations., and occasional small corrections or additions.