56. Shakespeare and The Scrubbers

In Spring, 2020, Covid-19 suddenly leaps onto the world’s stage and everyone’s life just…changes. Whilst still adjusting to the shock, fear and horror of it all, the UK goes into lockdown. None of us knows quite what to do or how long it will last, and I laugh now, remembering how appalled I was when the figure ’12 weeks’ was first mooted (oh, those innocent days). But when my grandkids ask me, ‘what did you do during lockdown, Granny?’ I’ll be able to tell them this: I got involved with Shakespeare, and The Scrubbers.

At the start, most of us are experiencing a sense of the normal rules being suspended, which gives rise to a certain playful, public-spiritedness, and a real creativity. The Italians take to serenading people from their balconies, post-people start dressing in outrageous costumes to deliver the mail, and the amount of ‘day six of lockdown’ memes doing the rounds almost breaks the internet. We all learn a new word – Zoom – and start screaming, ‘you’re on mute’ at our screens.

Many people, often youngsters, start shopping for the elderly or vulnerable, and deliver home-cooked meals to their communities. There’s fabulous old Captain Tom, walking a trough into his driveway to raise money for the NHS. And, on a personal note, my neighbours do some serious redesigning of their garden, and my view gets better with each passing week. It is all very inspiring.

Then there’s me, stuck in my flat, twiddling my thumbs. I want to use the time…constructively, but how? Sod getting my body in shape with intensive workouts with wire-haired Joe, or learning a whole new language. I don’t want to break sweat here, I just want to say I’ve done something. Only not too hard or stressful, obviously, but still with bragging rights, otherwise what’s the point?

I remember an interview I once heard on the radio. I’m rubbish at recalling names and dates, but the gist of it is this: a lady in late middle-age gets stuck in hospital after an op, so her daughter gives her War and Peace to read on the basis that it’s a very long book. She devours it and loves it, and then realises she hasn’t actually read War and Peace, she’s only read a translation of it. So she decides to learn Russian in order to be able to read the original. I mean, I bloody love her already, but it gets better. Fast forward several years, and she’s lived in Moscow (where she does her Masters or possibly PHD in Russian), and is now the foremost translator of Pushkin into English. How epic is this lady?

Well, I’m far too lazy for that, but I do have a massive book that’s sat on a shelf for the best part of fifteen years. Okay, this book weighs in at 1,250 kg, has very, very tiny writing and is The Complete Works of Shakespeare – but these are mere niggles. I grab my Captain Kirk bookmark, and determine to give it a go.

First come several of the ‘histories’, which are not necessarily my thing. But I’m full of enthusiasm at the start, so I crack on, writing reviews as I complete each play

Henry VI part 1

Right. This is mostly stupid men arguing. Sometimes with weapons, sometimes not. But, either way, just lots of male posturing. Joan of Arc only one with any balls (no surprise there). And Henry kinda nails it when he says, ‘Good Lord, what madness rules in brain-sick men.’ I’m with you there, Hal. 

Overall, 3/10.

Then there’s more of the same. For quite a few plays. I realise that although I’m determined, this was a stupid idea. But now everyone knows I’m doing this and I’m too chicken to quit. I plough through the ‘Henrys’ and bumble along into the tale of the old hunchback, Dicky, himself.

Richard III. Oh yes.

For starters, this man isn’t just having a winter of discontent: he’s clearly had a miserable spring, an infuriating summer, and an incandescent, rage-inducing autumn. 

And this dude has issues. From the moment he slithers onto the stage, like the child-catcher in Chitty, Chitty, Bang, Bang, he announces his evil intentions. His rationale goes something like this: – Mother Nature made me plug ugly, ergo what I really need to do is kill all my living relatives. Sorry, what?

I think this may actually be Shakespeare’s first pantomime, because there are plenty of ‘Boo, Hiss’ moments as he tells the audience what dastardly deed he’s gonna do next. There are untold cries of, ‘off with his head,’ and even one, ‘he’s behind you!’ Plus, two characters simply called First Murderer and Second Murderer. I rest my case.

In other news, James Blunt makes an appearance, which is a bit random. And there is actually a time in the evening called cock-shut time. I know many of you will want to remember that.

Overall, 5/10, mainly for Queen Margaret’s cursing.

I’m wondering how much alcohol it’ll take to survive the rest of the Henrys, when a friend of mine points me towards a group of sewing people called For The Love Of Scrubs. By this stage of the pandemic the NHS has become swamped, and doesn’t have anywhere near enough scrubs or PPE. This group, formed by a nurse, Ashleigh Linsdell, is spreading across the whole country and consists entirely of volunteers, who call themselves Scrubbers. I can sew (I really can), so I join immediately, happy for an excuse to park the Shakespeare for a while.

The local group is just being set up by the lovely ladies, Vicki, Wendy and Sue, and aims to cover the whole of Berkshire. As I’ve already made contact with the nearest hospital and got their specific requirements, they ask me to be part of the admin team. I’m flattered and say yes, having temporarily forgotten how stupid I am. It is all very exciting and worthy, which ticks all my boxes. The bragging starts immediately.

I find masses of info on Ashleigh’s main group site about sourcing material and which patterns to use. At this juncture the fabric has to be a particular weight of polycotton, and in certain colours only. I order a big roll, and the charity that runs the flats I live in stumps up for another six rolls to help the cause. Banging. Then I try sewing the damn things and – although they look like big, baggy, blue pyjamas – they’re not as easy as I thought. The test set I make out of an old duvet is shameful. But that’s okay because I am a quick learner, and I get the hang of it.

Then the ‘being part of the admin team’ bit kicks in. I am now getting hundreds of queries per day from ladies wanting to join the group, needing the right pattern, having a million questions about what type of fabric and where to source it, asking how many pockets and what type of neckline, wanting fabric delivered to them, or requesting pick-ups of completed scrubs. My phone starts pinging at 7.30 am, and I’m still sewing at 2 in the morning. I have never worked so hard in my frigging life. Shakespeare is starting to look like a holiday.

Also, there are now so many balls being juggled by the admin team that I’m charged with looking after the special orders (which is cool, right?). There are for people who are outside of the normal size range, or need them ultra-fast. I put posts on our Facebook page asking for volunteers, and I quickly discover that using photographs of hunky men in scrubs gets me a way better response.

Waitrose gets in on the act, and gives permission for our Scrubbers to leave completed items at the customer service points: we have a guy whose sole job is doing the rounds and picking them all up. A lovely couple, Grant and Marion, own a local business, making big tented things for exhibitions. They can’t operate during lockdown, so they donate both their time and energy to the team, and also the use of their massive warehouse and fabric-cutting table. This proves to be beyond excellent, as the admin team can all meet and work there whilst still being socially distanced. As a bonus, they have proper industrial sewing machines and overlockers. And, even more importantly, tea, cake and biscuits.

Most of you won’t know what an overlocker is, but bear with, cos it’s important. Look inside whatever you’re wearing at the moment and see that big, zig-zaggy seam down the side there? Well that’s done by an overlocker, using four needles and as many reels of thread. It cuts the fabric at the same time, leaving the seams nice and neat, and, most of all, strong. It is also a piece of demon-spawn equipment that is impossible to thread without a PHD in engineering, frequently snags and snarls your precious fabric, and just begs to be hurled out of your window as you sob, snot running, into your ruined garment.

Normal sewing machine on the left, spawn of Satan on the right.

And it is with the theme of overlockers that my problems start.

We’ve been told that if the scrubs have lots of loose threads inside it constitutes a hygiene risk, so the hospital staff will automatically chuck them in the incinerator. They also have to survive Olympic levels of washing. Most of the wonderful volunteers (of which we have over 1,000 in our group alone) are not professional sewing people, just folks who sincerely want to help. They generally don’t have an overlocker and, frankly, their life is all the better for it. So they do their best … but the results are varied. Most are beautifully made, and feature fabulous embroidery on the pockets, clever contrast stitching, have matching wash bags, or are just plain gorgeous. And some are held together more by love and goodwill than actual thread.

We don’t want any of our precious fabric to be incinerated, nor do we want our sewing angels’ time to have been wasted. When the NHS (responding to the global shortage of polycotton) relaxes it’s rules, and allows scrubs to be made from old sheets and duvets, it just increases the amount of not-quite-up-to-snuff scrubs we receive. Vicky and I spend days, literally, unpicking some of the seams and re-making them from scratch to save fabric. It is far slower than making them fresh, and is a terrible use of Vicki’s time as she’s even busier than I am and has three kids at home.

So, to alert the group to the issue, I put a post on our group’s Facebook page. I show detailed pics of the seam finishings that won’t cut the mustard, and those that will. I show different ways to finish the seams including, but not restricted to, using an overlocker. I am as tactful and encouraging as I know how to be. Which is when I discover that, apparently, I am neither of those things: I am merely self-deluded.

Everyone goes MENTAL. There is uproar. The nice people fall into a complete crisis of confidence about their work, and say perhaps they’d just better not even try? I become deluged with pics from people, showing me their seam finishes and asking for advice. The not so nice people really rant at me for daring to suggest their VOLUNTEER work isn’t good enough, who do I think I am, blah,blah, blah. This is not helped by one of our group, who for some reason is giving the already-annoyed people extra grief, and claiming to be part of the admin crew. After lots of gentle ‘talks’ from Vicki (that she takes no notice of), she is quietly asked to leave the group. Then we discover that she has joined several times, using at least another five different aliases, which is just bizarre. Eventually, the storm quietens down, although the ‘do I have to buy an overlocker? No, you don’t: nice, cheap, pinking shears are fine,’ debate rumbles on for weeks.

In the midst of this I read my next Shakespeare.

Titus Andronicus

Oh, that is just disgusting!

0/10. Or less.

On the up-side, the NHS staff are fabulous – not just in their extraordinary dedication and commitment, but also in their generosity of spirit. One lovely lady sends me an M&S gift box (containing Percy Pigs!) after I make a load of sets for her husband, who is stuck in a Portacabin for weeks at a time. Another has a Thornton’s Easter Egg waiting for me on the doorstep as I drop off her special order scrubs. They are utterly grateful for anything we can do, and completely made up when we say, yes, we can do them in bright pink, if you like. We are now also making ear-saver hairbands, and every single spare pillowcase in the UK has been turned into a scrubs wash bag. Those that work in children’s wards get our special attention, and once the duvet-scrubs start coming in, we hastily allocate anything remotely cartoonish just for them.

I think it’s going well. We are slowly meeting all our orders, and starting to be able to cross hospitals, doctors’ surgeries, and hospices off our to-do-list. Fabric is now available again, and we’ve got a great production line going in the warehouse where we cut out, package up and send out ‘scrubs-making kits’ to our members. My little core team of special-order scrubbers are amazing, and we’re getting lots of nice feedback from the NHS. On the 11th of May we all stop work for a few seconds and yell ‘Yay’ as we send out our 1,000th set of scrubs.

Then I get a text. It’s from a lady asking if her standard of sewing is good enough. She tells me she made some scrubs for us at the beginning of the pandemic, and just wants to check if they were fine before going on to make more. Then she describes them, and the very particular embroidery her friend did on the pockets for her – and my heart sinks. We’ve processed 1,000 scrubs and I still remember those – because they are still here. They were the ones with the terrible seams that sparked the whole Facebook post thing, and required Vicki and I spending days (and half the figging night) trying to make them useable. We ran out of time to do them all, so we still have some left. To make sure I’m not mistaken, I take a snap of the ones we have and send it to her to double check, and yes, those are the ones she made.

Now, I’m assuming she’s seen the whole Facebook thing, and that’s why she’s getting a second opinion on her work. I’m assuming that, like ALL the others, she’s bothered about the lack of overlocker, and thinks she can’t do a good job without it. So I tell her, as gently as I can, that I’m really sorry but her work could use a little improvement. I tell her the seams need to be tidier or the NHS can’t use them. I remind her of the other seam-neatening things that were on the post, and suggest she give those a practice run to see what works best for her. And then (what the fuck was I thinking!) to reassure her, I tell her that Paris fashion houses never use an overlocker anyway – it is not essential and seen as inferior to a hand-finished seam. I thank her for her time and energy and say I hope I haven’t offended her. She texts back to say she’s not offended (lying cow).

That evening, while I’m slogging my way through King John, it all kicks off.

She’s posted an aggrieved rant on Ashleigh’s main For The Love Of Scrubs site (readership – thousands and thousands), the opening line of which reads, ‘I am deeply offended…’ WTF lady! She goes on to say that she’s been told her work isn’t good enough because it has to be Paris fashion house standards! And, naturally, she’s feeling very upset about doing more work for people who are so rude and condescending.

Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit, oh shit.

I phone Vicki and fill her in. She looks at what I wrote to the lady and says there’s nothing wrong with it. She’ll phone the woman, apologise to her on my behalf, make sure she realises she’s got the wrong end of the stick, and help her calm down. Meanwhile, over 400 people have replied to her post with absolute outrage, demanding she tell them the name of the group leader so she can be fired immediately. It’s been a long old pandemic, and people are tired and stretched and they think they are defending a sweet old lady who has been much maligned. They don’t exactly say, ‘Die, bitch, and rot in hell,’ but it feels like they do.

Oh my God, I’m getting trolled!

Vicki phones back. She’s finally got hold of the lady and explained the mix-up. Turns out she didn’t even know we had our own Facebook page, so she never saw all the helpful info we put up there. She’s playing the little-old-lady-who’s-not-very-tech-savvy card, and playing it well. Vicki has reassured her, and arranged to send her some ready-to-sew kits in the morning, and she, Vicki, will personally overlock the edges of ALL the pieces before she packages them up. I think it is sorted. Vicki thinks it is sorted. We are both wrong.

The next morning the old biddy posts again, still on the gets-more-coverage-and-sympathy main Facebook page. She says I apologised to her personally (I didn’t), but she still isn’t happy, and she can’t bear to do any more work for this particular group as we’re so ungrateful and up ourselves. Cue many, many more comments before Vicki finally gets hold of Ashleigh (who, at this point, is getting over 1,000 emails a day), and she shuts it down with a strongly worded post about how she won’t have this kind of behaviour on her site. (When, a few months later, Ashleigh gets an OBE for her work creating and organising this whole business, I cheer like crazy.)

Ashleigh

But right now I have been trolled 637 times and I’m feeling a bit wobbly. I phone my son, Sam, for sympathy: a pointless endeavour, as it turns out. I tell him what happened and he says two things: –

‘Was this on Facebook?’

Er, yes.

‘Then what do you expect? It’s not nice, but it happens to everyone. Just deal with it.’

Oh. Okay. That’s me told. Honestly, who’d be young if this is what they have to handle all the time, and they don’t even get to feel shitty about it? That sucks.

Time moves on, and by the end of summer all our orders are getting completed and the group is winding down. Our final tally shows our amazing scrubbers have supplied 10,172 items, including 2,404 scrub sets, 4,519 bags, and nearly 3,500 scrub hats and headbands. I am beyond proud of all of them, but also exhausted.

And I still have a sizeable wodge of The Bard to complete. Luckily, I discover a real treat in number 34.

Cymbeline

This play is completely, utterly and totally bonkers. 

First off, we have a proper wicked stepmother/evil queen and her slithery, thick as a plank son. 

We have a King who’s under the thumb of the aforementioned queen, and his daughter, a Disney-style princess of unparalleled beauty and goodness. 

Chuck in an honest, brave and handsome hero, and you’ve got a complete set.

Then add in some potions that are supposed to be lethal, plenty of banishments, a war that needs starting with Caesar, plus a sleazy Italian who’ll do anything to win a bet, and you’re just starting to get the idea.

That should be enough for anybody, but wait – there’s more! 

We also have a couple of princes stolen at birth, and raised in my favourite stage direction so far: ‘Wales: a mountainous country with a cave.’ Just the one cave then?

But Wales, you say? In the plays so far we’ve been as far afield as the Greek Islands, Turkey, Venice, Rome, Milan, Verona and Paris. We’ve spent time in the fantasy forest of Arden and the land of Illyria.

And now, suddenly ……… Milford Haven. I’m not even joking. 

Here’s the text that proves it: ‘how far it is to this same blessed Milford: and, by the way, tell me how Wales was made so happy as t’inherit such a haven’. To which there is really no answer.

And then the weird gets ramped up further by the appearance of a whole family of ghosts, and a quick visit from the God, Jupiter.

I don’t know if Billy Boy was stoned when he wrote this, and I don’t care: I’m just glad that he did.

A strong 7/10

Finally, on the 10th October, twenty-eight weeks after I started, with my Captain Kirk bookmark now needing back-up from Spock and a sellotape neck brace, I finish the sodding book. I make a BIG point of letting everyone know.

In the second lockdown I write a whole book of my own. I actually do. And I have to say, doing it is nowhere near as interesting, satisfying, or stressful (lol) as Shakespeare and The Scrubbers.


In case you’re interested, my top five are Othello, Hamlet, The Sonnets, Much Ado About Nothing, and Anthony and Cleopatra – all scoring 8/10 or above.

Well worth a read are Cymbeline, Twelfth Night, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Romeo and Juliet, The Comedy of Errors, The Tempest, Coriolanus, All’s Well That Ends Well, Henry V, and The Taming of the Shrew – 6 or 7/10

Less consistent, but still with some great bits are Macbeth, Measure for Measure, As You Like It, Julius Caesar, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Richard III, Timon of Athens, King Lear, Venus and Adonis, and The Merry Wives of Windsor – 4 to 5/10

If you have to there’s The Merchant of Venice, Henry VI parts 1, 2 and 3, Henry IV part 1, A Winter’s Tale, Pericles, Troilus and Cressida, and A Lover’s Complaint – a measly 2 to 3/10

But I really wouldn’t bother with Henry IV part 2, Richard II, Love’s Labour’s Lost, Henry VIII, Lucrece, The Passionate Pilgrim, The Phoenix and Turtle, King John, and Titus Andronicus – all scoring 1 or less.

Of course, my opinion is merely that – my opinion – and what appeals to you may be entirely different. But trust me on Titus and Lucrece, okay, because they are just nasty.

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5 Comments

  1. diana May 24, 2021 at 6:23 pm

    Love love love this….feel as if I’was there with you (except you know, my sewing is beyond crap)……thank you for cheering up my day Bev

    1. Bev May 25, 2021 at 9:22 am

      You’re welcome babe xxx

  2. Alison May 25, 2021 at 8:18 pm

    Well this was a fabulous read to go with my lunch. Laughed out loud several times over your Shakespeare comments, and I’m seriously impressed that you’ve read it all. I hope we meet in person one day, but now I’m intimidated as heck. I’ll *never* read all of Shakespeare. You definitely have huge bragging rights. Same for your work as a Scrubber – what a hero you are. I’m not surprised you were exhausted by the end, and no one should have to deal with that FB shit.
    It’s kind of getting to be over. At least in some parts of the world. Most people in Canada have had one shot now and will get a second by autumn. I was astonished to discover only 1% of Japan has been vaccinated!

    1. Bev May 25, 2021 at 10:55 pm

      Hello sweetheart, glad I made you laugh.
      And don’t be intimidated – I’ve forgotten at least 90% of what I read, and there was at least one play I didn’t understand a single word of anyway.
      Henry VI part I did produce an epic number of curses – one of my favourites being ‘a gray iniquity’, also the weirdly specific ‘Roasted Mannigtree Ox with the pudding in his belly’, and the brilliant ‘mad mustachio purple-headed malt-worm’.
      Sadly I’ve no call to weave any of these into conversation, which seems like a missed opportunity, don’t you think?

      1. Alison May 26, 2021 at 4:30 am

        Oh definitely. I’d love the opportunity to call someone a mad mustachio purple-headed malt-worm! If I could do it with a straight face.