Author is British, moved from London to Ylöjärvi 2012.
The Corona Year has passed its first Finnish anniversary and increasingly the thoughts and comments are turning to considering how and when we can finally write “The End” to this story.
Now that the vaccinations have started, there seems to be a small speck of light forming and when, eventually, the main population gets to the top of the queue, we can look forward to something called “the future”. We are nowhere near out of the woods yet and will have to carry on with the careful hygiene measures for a while, otherwise the planned programme of repealing of the regulations cannot be put into effect.
Plans have to be made and the Government has outlined how they will see the gradual progress towards more freedom for the summer months. This is tightrope walking because the situation now is not identical with the last year. The virus variants can create a new emergency if we get careless and let our hair down too early.
I understand that the Government’s programme has been criticised for a lack of ambition and detail. I don’t see how the plan could be much more of either because nobody can precisely forecast the progress of the pandemic here or anywhere else. Some kind of a timetable has to be created but only the time and vigilance will show if it can be put into effect and in what order.
We’ve had long practice with these masks and disinfectants; surely we can manage a few more months. The health care staff, teachers, police, the shop assistants etc. have had a much harder time at their jobs day after day, not to forget the government, the Diet and the staff at various ministries and local governments. The days are longer, the high banks of snow we thought would be with us until mid-May are vanishing fast and the first spring flowers are putting up a brave show once again – let’s take heart and follow their example!
A sad message from the Buckingham Palace informed the world that Prince Philip, the Queen’s consort for over 70 years, had passed away only a few months before his 100th birthday. He was born as a Prince of Greece and Denmark but his life got into a shaky start as a member of the newly deposed Greek royal family. He grew up in a world in turmoil and within a fractious family trying to find security in Europe recovering from the First World War.
In a scattered family with few prospects, he had to find self-confidence and stability in himself. He was closest to his uncle, Lord Louis Mountbatten, and that link probably guided him to a military career in the Royal Navy. The love story with Princess Elizabeth is well known and often repeated. The Queen has frequently described her husband as her “strength and stay”, and there is no doubt that she has needed that kind of steadfast support many times during her long reign. She herself is an example of an unchanging devotion to the duty she accepted at an early age as her destiny.
RIP, Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh, Prince of Greece and Denmark. I think I can safely say that we shan’t see his like again.
PAUL DOCKREE
