The Week That Aliens Entered Our School and An Airline Stranded Me in Paris

3 weeks before the first UK lockdown, pandemonium struck

In January and February 2020, the UK stared out at the rest of the world in fearful anticipation.

As of 1st March 2020, we had no more than 34 confirmed CoViD-19 cases, but we could see what was happening in Italy and knew that we had no chance of not having a significant spread. Still, any new announcements of cases seemed few in a population of 60 million, and knowing anyone who had it was vastly rarer than knowing someone famous.

The only question was when it would take our country by storm?

The first school closure in the UK

On the morning of Monday, March 2nd, 3 weeks before any lockdowns or formal school closures, an email arrived at 6.27 am from my daughter’s school, a Grammar School in Torbay, Devon.

It was announcing a suspected CoViD-19 case in the school and closure for the day.

It was the first school in the country to shut due to the pandemic. The pupil in question and her mother were, later that day confirmed to be the first cases in Devon. The infected pupil’s younger sister was in my daughter’s class but hadn’t tested positive and so no one other than those in the older sister’s classes were asked to self-isolate.

However, the school remained closed all week. The school kept us updated with regular emails, and sent photos of the group of alien-like beings who came in to give the school a deep clean. The pupils, meanwhile, were given work to do on Google Classroom.

Of course, the UK was still operating normally, and so meeting their friends to go shopping and have a Starbucks was a popular choice while they were banished from attending school.

This news caused a panic within the immediate area and panic-buying hit the supermarkets of Torbay while the rest of Devon remained pretty untouched.

A quick trip to the continent was met with mayhem

That same week I was due to take a business-related trip to Northern Germany. I was already feeling uncomfortable about the trip and this incident added another level of discomfort.

However, giving up the trip would mean giving up a large sum of money that I was due to receive. With everything we were seeing starting to crumble around us, I didn’t feel I could afford to turn it down, so I decided to go.

The easiest route from Devon to Northern Germany was to take a flight from my local airport, Exeter, to Paris, and then take the train onward from there. The flight operator was a small firm, Flybe, based in Exeter, that operated flights within the UK and to a number of destinations in Europe.

I would be flying out early on March 4th and returning on the morning of March 5th, with a night in a hotel in Paris. It was all set to be smooth and I simply resolved to be as careful as I could, packing plenty of wipes and hand sanitiser for the trip.

On the morning of March 4th, all went as expected and I made it back from Germany to Paris that evening and checked into my hotel. I was just settling down for the night and decided to log onto Facebook. The first post I saw was a friend’s post saying:

“I hope no one has Flybe flights booked because they have just announced that they have gone into administration.”

My heart stopped.

Wtf?

No. This couldn’t be happening. Surely they would honour the flights due to leave the continent the following day?

While I was madly searching for news online and struggling to find anything that told me what I wanted to hear, a text message arrived on my phone.

“Flybe has entered administration.

All Flybe flights are cancelled.

Please do not go to the airport as your Flybe flight will not be operating.

For flights operated by franchise partners, passengers should make contact with their airline.”

Oh shit! This thing was real.

The fear that had been building around the pandemic had meant that barely anyone was booking any flights, and an already struggling Flybe had gone into administration that very evening.

And I was f***ing stuck in Paris.

An adventure getting home

The following morning, after a short and anxious sleep, I took an early bus from the centre of Paris to Charles de Gaulle airport. My intention was to go to the help desk to see what options there were for me.

However, while on the bus, I searched out alternative routes and flights, and found that there was a flight to Bristol with another operator that morning. I decided that resolving my anxiety was more important than running around the airport trying to find someone else to do it for me, and so I booked the flight then and there. Peace of mind was worth an extra £100.

The airport departure lounge was packed and getting through security was, due to some technical fail, taking hours. It seemed that many were on the verge of missing flights as a result, including myself.

People were panicking, undoing barriers and pushing their way through, and members of the airport staff were wringing their hands. This went on for a good hour or more while I waited in line, my legs starting to feel like they were going to give way under me.

And then, as if by magic, it all worked and we went through at speed and were rushed onto our flights.

On the plane I was seated near a bearded man with a friendly aura about him. We got chatting and I picked up on a persona similar to what I imagine Steve Jobs would have been like. His name was Stuart and he was confident; a successful entrepreneur, with a relaxed sense of “hippy” about him.

It turned out he had also been heading back to Exeter on the Flybe flight, after a business trip to Paris. He owned a number of businesses and had a hunger for adventure. There was an air of earthiness about him that made me feel comfortable, and conversation flowed.

I still was unsure of how I was going to get from Bristol to Exeter, but I had found a bus that seemed to be able to get me there. However, Stuart offered me a lift in the hire car that he had booked, and, although I wouldn’t normally accept a lift from a strange man, these weren’t normal circumstances, and he seemed very decent. So I gladly accepted.

We chatted non-stop on the route down from Bristol Airport to Exeter Airport and found that we had fairly similar backgrounds, having parents who had lived the ex-pat life in Africa and the Far East when we were children, and we both now had similar aged children. I told him about the closure of my daughter’s school and he was intrigued since, at that time, it was extremely rare to know anyone who had been diagnosed with CoViD.

When we arrived at Exeter Airport, I knew he wouldn’t accept any money towards the hire car, and so I gave him a small token of thanks — a 0.1g piece of 24-carat money-grade physical gold, embedded in a card. It was one of a number I had picked up while in Germany, and it seemed like the best kind of thank you. At times like this, when we knew that life was about to go tits-up (as we like to say in Devon) and the economy was bound to suffer, a piece of gold felt like a good omen and something to treasure.

It was a lovely connection and we swapped numbers before heading in our different directions. We have checked in with one another at times through the pandemic to compare notes.

That week was just a taste of things to come.

My daughter’s school re-opened the following Monday, 9th March, only to be closed again, along with the entire country, 2 weeks later.

During those weeks, life changed completely. We are now nearing 2 years since that time, my daughter is taking her GCSEs (General Certificate of Secondary Education) this year, and it is still unknown how many of the exams will be held. The last two year groups to do their GCSEs never took any exams in the end, due to the circumstances.

The main headlines are still plastered with conflicting information and we have no idea what 2022 will bring us in terms of travel, education, the economy, or health.

If nothing else, these times have taught us the importance of our inner stability and family ties. Our ability to adapt and deal with crises has evolved and we are learning to find our own sense of peace amid difficult times.

Aliens and all!

Today’s shout-out, because it’s hilarious, goofy, and just what we all need a little bit more than now and then, is for Edward John and his (you never know how likely) predictions for 2022:

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