The Sign - Katherine Roberts

There's a digital sign on the dual carriageway near me with large, unmissable yellow letters that used to display safety messages such as "Is there a motorbike in your blind spot?" or  "Don't drink and drive!" Over the past two years, nearly every time I've driven past it, this Sign says "Thank you to all key workers."

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm as thankful for our key workers as the next person. I know they are probably working twice as hard as before, while having to deal with the emergency-rule stuff as well, in order to care for the sick, put food on supermarket shelves, fix boilers, empty the bins (provided the entire crew is not isolating), as well as many other things we normally don't even think about but without which society would crumble overnight. The first few times I saw The Sign, I thought "that's lovely for key workers to get some thanks". The next time, I thought "yes, but at least they still have jobs to go to and are getting paid." On bad days, my thoughts strayed more towards "What about the rest of us, who are not officially key workers and have lost our day jobs, human contact, routine, friends, relatives, etc, but are still trying to hold things together?" After a few more times, I started to think: "I'm obviously a useless layabout who probably ought to retrain for a key worker job when all this is over!" Now we are emerging from the other side, this has faded to: "I must be a totally useless person" and I drive past in a disgruntled mood for the rest of the day. Well done, Sign. You have just destroyed my mental health with one simple message.

Joking aside, I haven't had any human company during lockdowns, so this is no doubt an extreme reaction to a perfectly innocent sign that might have brightened up other people's days. Maybe it was just bad luck it always gave me that particular message as I drove past. I don't even know who decides what it should say, or who is responsible for programming the thing, and I'm fairly (though not quite 100%) certain that it doesn't have number plate recognition and change its message for every car. Clearly, however, programming the Sign is a key worker position, so maybe I could apply for that? Have some fun, put up a few mindfulness quotes:

"Do not dwell in the past, do not dream of the future; concentrate the mind on the present moment." (Buddha)

"It is better to hug a tree than bang your head against a wall." (Rasheed Ogunlaru)... though not while driving, obviously.

"Just when the caterpillar thought the world was ending, she became a butterfly."

I could maybe sneak in the odd promotion for one of my books, while I'm at it... (see below).

The truth is, authors - especially of the fictional kind - were hardly considered essential workers before the pandemic. That's something that only begins to dawn on the eager young debut novelist when she first hears the words "not for us, I'm afraid". It grows over time, once you've published several volumes, and maybe even picked up an award or two along the way, but then your publisher turns around and says in the sweetest possible tone: "as you know, we absolutely love your work BUT...  (add your favourite excuse for not publishing the next one)". But never has it been rubbed into our faces quite so forcibly as during the past year and a half, locked up in our garrets, unable to meet up with our fellow authors for some essential human contact while putting the publishing industry, if not the entire world, to rights over a cup of coffee. Frankly, it's a miracle I was still finding some purpose in writing before The Sign, so perhaps it's no real surprise I stopped writing fiction during the pandemic.

The creative well needs a lot of filling. You simply cannot continue churning out books one after the other without pausing to refill the well. During the pandemic, opportunities for filling it were seriously restricted. A drip here (sight of a rare wild plant allowed to grow in the local park when the usual mowing schedule went belly-up), a drop there (a cycle ride for permitted exercise exploring a new route on a sunny day), but not enough, not nearly enough for my parched well. Besides that, The Sign - together with social media, news reports, etc - created a leak, so whatever I managed to put in there simply drained straight out again. My well doesn't have an obvious hole in the bottom, more of a hairline crack in the ferny glade where my muse lives, or secret siphoning by demons when I am asleep? However you like to think of your creativity, mine has suffered in unmeasurable ways. I'm not sure if hairline cracks in my fairytale well will count as evidence when the government inspector comes knocking to demand proof of loss of income for my latest SEISS grant, but I suspect not. Perhaps if The Sign had said, when it saw my car coming, "Hey Katherine! We all absolutely LOVED Song Quest!" I'd have had a much better day and rushed straight home to write my next bestseller? Who knows? It has not yet done so.

Right now, I am still protecting myself from The Sign et al, although this is hard. It also helps to remind myself that, once upon a time, I would have counted as a key worker... when I worked with racehorses, for example, looking after five valuable equines every day in a large training yard. This, ironically, was the reason I was driving past The Sign during lockdown in the first place, to feed and care for a horse I loan, although these days I do not get paid for doing so! 

Were you a key worker during lockdown, and what did you do (paid or unpaid) to make yourself feel better if you weren't?

Answers on a postcard, please... or comment below, if you are too young to remember postcards...

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Katherine Roberts writes fantasy and historical fiction for young readers.

Her latest book The Horse Who Would be Emperor is on promotion for only 99p/99c/0.99euro from the digital store of your choice until September.

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Find out more at www.katherineroberts.co.uk