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Annabel Webb, exercise coach
Annabel Webb, who is moving her kettlebell exercise classes online for Chilmark residents. Photograph: Millie Pilkington/The Guardian
Annabel Webb, who is moving her kettlebell exercise classes online for Chilmark residents. Photograph: Millie Pilkington/The Guardian

'It's a community effort': Wiltshire villagers unite against coronavirus isolation

This article is more than 4 years old

In Chilmark, lawyers, teachers and bankers are volunteering their skills to offer lockdown support

The operation to support residents in the Wiltshire village of Chilmark (population 450) is being rolled out with military precision.

Coordinator Morag Philpott, a parish councillor, has divided the village into 18 sectors and allocated at least one of her 33 volunteers to each one.

The volunteers are staying in close touch with the people who are isolating within their sector – which might be part of a longer street or the whole of a smaller one – to make sure they have the supplies they need and to top them up when required.

“It’s working well,” said Philpott, who is using the skills she picked up while serving in the Women’s Royal Army Corps to keep the show on the road. “It’s heartening how many people are prepared to help, and the skills they bring.”

There is no village shop, so food and drink is being brought in by the volunteers and distributed to those who have ordered it. Farm shops are putting together veg boxes and the village is hoping a bakery chain might deliver bread, rolls and hot cross buns. The doctors’ surgery at Hindon, four miles away, is packaging up medicine that Chilmark volunteers can deliver.

Parish councillor Morag Philpott delivers a coronavirus community advice pack. Photograph: Millie Pilkington/The Guardian

The effort began after Wiltshire council sent a community pack to parish councils asking them to help coordinate the coronavirus response locally.

“All sorts of people have come forward,” said Philpott. “We have elderly people helping, but also younger couples with children. There’s a gardener, retired nurse, admin workers, a school secretary, farmers, a bus driver, a handyman – a real cross-section of people. It’s a community effort.”

Experts in the village, including lawyers, teachers and financiers, are also lending their skills to help people who may find themselves in difficulties. “For example, a banker may be able to help someone struggling to fill in forms to do with rent,” said Philpott.

Ways of combating social isolation have also been launched. Annabel Webb, a fitness instructor who leads classes in Chilmark and surrounding villages, is continuing her popular kettlebell sessions via a video conferencing site.

“We usually do classes in the open air or in the village reading room,” she said. “That isn’t possible now, but at least people can carry on exercising, keep on moving. I think it’s important to give people a bit of normality in these times.”.

Sally Butcher, who has taken part in the classes for two years since her retirement, said she was delighted they were continuing. “It’s fantastic. It certainly helps to have a routine.”

Butcher and her family are self-isolating, and the volunteers were able to get baby supplies to her household when they needed them. When she comes out of isolation, she said, she will try to do her bit to help.

Efforts are being made to keep people entertained, including the introduction of a book exchange. The idea is that people leave bags of books on the steps of the reading room for others to enjoy. An online village quiz will take place on Thursday.

Another crucial figure in the operation is Sarah Miller, editor of the monthly newsletter The Village Voice. Miller is using her skills to make sure everyone knows what is on offer and to spot possible gaps.

Sarah Miller, editor of Chilmark’s Village Voice newspaper. Photograph: Millie Pilkington/The Guardian

“I’m getting calls and emails nonstop from people I’d not previously met,” she said. “It’s an amazing response. We’re aiming to send out a daily email with an update of what’s happening, where one can get food, pubs doing takeaways and deliveries for those unable to leave home, group prescription collections, that sort of thing.

“Now we’re moving on to the stage of providing lists of ideas and weblinks for cultural activities, be it book and DVD swaps, or links to virtual museum tours.

“I would love people to come up with some novel ideas for entertaining households of kids and teenagers who are not used to this sort of shutdown in their lives. It’s easy to be relatively upbeat at this stage, but three months down the line, a lot of people will be climbing the walls.”

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