Making COVID-19 History

The Higgins Bedford would like for you to share your experiences of life during the outbreak.

Are you keeping a journal, taking photographs of your daily exercise, posting to social media? Are you running a local business to support local people day to day, or creating a rainbow artwork for your front windows?  Have you volunteered to be part of a community initiative to support those self-isolating or our key workers? Are you a key worker facing the busiest time of your working life?

We are all in the midst of it now, but one day this pandemic will be history. The full impact of the COVID-19 crisis will be important to document and evaluate for future generations looking back at this historic event.

The Higgins Bedford and Bedfordshire Archives would like to recognise all the varied and different contributions that are specific to our local area during this crisis, to be a repository for those stories and items for future generations as a tribute and record of life during the crisis.

Courtesy of Chiara MacCall @CallChiara

Each day of lockdown Chiara is using her daily exercise walk to reach out to someone in Bedford. By arrangement she walks past their house, waves from a distance and takes a photo. It’s not a hug or a handshake, but it’s a safe way of staying connected with people and reminding each other we are not alone.

If you have a story, photographs, video, poetry, letters, journals, artworks, objects or other contributions related to your own response to the COVID-19 crisis you would like to tell us about and potentially offer as a donation following the end of the crisis, please email Lydia Saul, Keeper of Social History at The Higgins Bedford at Lydia.Saul@bedford.gov.uk for further information.

Your suggestions and offers will be placed onto our potential list of COVID-19 collection items. The Higgins Bedford and Bedfordshire Archives will consider them for acquisition into the collections following the end of the COVID-19 crisis and they will get in touch with you for further information.