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Annie Macmanus on the legacy of lockdown: I was forced to stand still – and realised what I wanted
The Radio 1 DJ left her family to work each weekday evening and spent years trying to squeeze things in. Lockdown made her realise what she was missing out on
At the start of 2020, my eldest son was seven and my youngest was three. For as long as they could remember, I had left the house at about 5pm every weekday evening to go to my radio show, and I had worked late DJing on the weekends. “When are you coming home?” was my eldest son’s most asked question to me.
Lockdown meant that, one by one, all the plates I was spinning smashed to the floor. Suddenly we were in one another’s hair all day long. The tight home-schooling schedule unravelled quickly, but my youngest’s speech came on in leaps and bounds. My eldest created elaborate dens in the garden and bonded with our nextdoor neighbour. We explored every park within a three-mile radius. Sometimes, we drove around a post-apocalyptic London to see the sights minus the tourists: Buckingham Palace, the Thames, Hyde Park. It was a strange type of fun, until my youngest would start crying: “I don’t want to go home.”
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