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Salisbury's experiences give us hope - a city in lockdown can bounce back

'Although the city wasn’t in lockdown, it certainly felt like it', writes Guy Walters
'Although the city wasn’t in lockdown, it certainly felt like it', writes Guy Walters

Imagine a town where people are too afraid to leave their homes in case they fall gravely ill. A place where shops, restaurants and bars are suffering through a lack of trade and the population is wary of using public transport.

Even if people are brave enough to venture out, there is a permanent niggle at the backs of their minds that wonders if they are going to be attacked by an invisible assailant that comes from thousands of miles away, many times smaller than a pinhead, yet quite capable of killing them.

Of course, because of the coronavirus, this scenario seems familiar to us all, but it was the situation faced by my adopted home town of Salisbury two years ago, in the wake of the Skripal poisonings. While the rest of the world went on with its business, what the cathedral city went through in 2018 can now be seen as nothing less than a dreadful dress rehearsal for what is taking place globally today.

Members of the emergency services in green biohazard encapsulated suits work to afix the tent over the bench where a man and women were found in critical condition 
Members of the emergency services in green biohazard encapsulated suits work to afix the tent over the bench where a man and women were found in critical condition

Those events have now been dramatised by the BBC, which is showing a three-part series called The Salisbury Poisonings from Sunday evening, starring Anne-Marie Duff and Rafe Spall. It is fair to say that the city is split over the drama, with some seeing it as coming too soon, while others are actually disappointed that it was filmed in Bristol, thereby depriving Salisbury of some much-needed revenue and exposure.

What the series will do is to remind all of us here what a strange time it was, as well as highlighting the startling parallels between a city in fear of a nerve agent and a world in fear of a virus. Just as with the coronavirus, there were plenty of rumours in the wake of the poisonings. Why had the local swans disappeared? Had they been accidentally poisoned by the police hosing the pavement into the river? (No, the birds had simply pootled upstream.)

A soldier gives instructions to people in a vehicle at the mobile COVID-19 testing unit in Salisbury
A soldier gives instructions to people in a vehicle at the mobile COVID-19 testing unit in Salisbury

Someone told me – with great authority – that some Russians had recently checked out of a rental cottage in a nearby village, so it must have been them. (Not true, but not too outlandish as it would emerge.) Then there was the Russian chef at Zizzi – the restaurant where Sergei Skripal and his daughter Yulia had eaten – who had mysteriously disappeared (it turns out he had never existed.)

Then there was the conflicting and ever-shifting health advice, which of course sounds familiar to all. If you had been near Zizzi and the bench where the Skripals had been found, then you were meant to clean your clothes. Or maybe you should destroy them. You should certainly wash your hands, but back then, there was nothing about singing ‘Happy Birthday’, let alone singing it twice.

Although the city wasn’t in lockdown, it certainly felt like it. Many were extremely nervous about going to restaurants and pubs, and even if the police had not closed off Queen Elizabeth Gardens – where it was then thought that locals Charlie Rowley and Dawn Sturgess may have been exposed to the same strain of Novichok nerve agent that had so nearly killed the Skripals and DS Nick Bailey – my wife and I would certainly not allow our then 13-year-old daughter to go there with friends.

A police officer stands at a cordon outside Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury
A police officer stands at a cordon outside Queen Elizabeth Gardens in Salisbury

We were not alone in not allowing our children free rein. One friend, a teacher called Katherine, remembers how her husband firmly told their three sons not to go anywhere near the Maltings, where the Skripals had been discovered.

“I thought he was totally over the top,” she remembers. “It turns out he was totally right!”

That fear of contamination was, if anything, felt in greater measure by outsiders. People simply stopped coming to Salisbury.

“We were seen as a toxic place,” remembers my artist friend Johnny, who has lived in Salisbury for nearly two decades.

“Nobody came to visit. Friends stayed away, and even a player for Salisbury FC admitted that he would no longer bring his family into town. A lot of locals blamed the media, feeling that the coverage had been extremely negative about how the city was coping. In fact, those who live here are very robust and stoical.”

Personnel in protective coveralls and breathing equipment work at the Salisbury District Hospital after the nerve agent attack
Personnel in protective coveralls and breathing equipment work at the Salisbury District Hospital after the nerve agent attack

Admirable though those qualities are, they were not enough to convince tourists that all was well. Hotels and B&Bs suffered enormously, as did pubs, restaurants, and plenty of other retailers. Back then, I remember talking to my friend Jason, who runs the excellent Regent Tailoring in the centre of the city, and he told me that he was thinking positively and urging Salisbury ‘to pull together’.

Today, he looks back at the poisonings and sees that some of that unity did come to pass.

“Disaster does bring people together,” he says.

“It was good to see, for example, the various tourist groups all coming together, and Wiltshire Council really working with the tourist board.”

But of course, there was little positive about the poisonings, which were bad for trade, especially on top of a lack of consumer and investor confidence caused by Brexit uncertainty. In fact, Jason feels that Salisbury, uniquely, has suffered what might be called a triple whammy.

“They’ve all mingled into one,” he says. “Skripal, Brexit, Covid. But we’re still keeping our heads above water.”

Jason says that the poisonings also had a negative impact on his family.

“It definitely put my son, who was then nine, on a path of worry,” he tells me, “because of the way it was handled and what children like him could see. It was upsetting for them. He had to grow up quickly.”

Dawn Sturgess, who lost her life following exposure to the nerve agent Novichok in 2018
Dawn Sturgess, who lost her life following exposure to the nerve agent Novichok in 2018

Of course, compared to the coronavirus, the poisonings may seem like small beer, but it is important to remember that Dawn Sturgess did lose her life because of the murderous disregard shown by Putin’s thugs.

But Salisbury’s experiences should also bring us hope. Before Covid-19, there was no doubt that the city was bouncing back. The magnificent cathedral of course still attracts many, and even Zizzi had reopened, dreadful though the food is.

With the tourists returning, it was often joked that someone should start up a ‘poisoning tour’, but the time is surely too soon for such ghoulishness. I am therefore sure that just as Salisbury overcame Novichok and its legacy, the world will come back from the coronavirus just as strongly. We may not be a big city, but we have shown the way.