SMOKERS ARE GOING TO LOVE THIS BLOG. NON SMOKERS? YEAH. MAYBE NOT SO MUCH!

I'm going to wind the clock back twenty five years. A much younger me was heading south down the M6 when things started to unravel. It is fair to say I wasn't exactly in tip top shape back then. I was a heart attack waiting to happen and the odds on me making my fortieth birth day were pretty much slim to none. My life was a caricature. Forty cigarettes and two packs of Rennies a day and every night when I made it back home I would have two treble gins down my neck before I got my coat off. We had a family business back then and my fourteen hours a day were all about ducking and diving my around two million quid's worth of debt. Not a bunch of laughs I can assure you.

All of which made the sudden lancing pain in my chest pretty ominous, though not entirely unexpected. Decision time. I could pull up on the hard shoulder and dail 999. Or I could throw the dice and try to make it home.

I threw the dice and made it home.

An hour or so later I was wired up like Frankenstein's monster in the ICU unit of Blackburn infirmary.

Eventually a laconic consultant pitched up at my bedside and started hitting me with a series of lifestyle questions.

"Do you smoke?"

"Well. Yes and no."

"That's an odd answer."

"I know. Yes, as in I have smoked 40 a day for years. No, as in I gave up three days ago."

This induced a wry smile. "Ahh. I dare say you will have been coughing up all kinds of stuff, right?"

"Totally. I always do when I give up."

"Well. That's the problem."

He then went on to explain the precise nature of my problem. All the gunk I had been coughing up for three days had hitherto provided the walls of my lungs with a protective lining. The sudden lack of gunk had left my lungs exposed and had therefore given a few billion pesky pneumonia virus cells the chance to burrow themselves in.

"So I've got pneumonia?"

"You have."

"And if I hadn't given up smoking I wouldn't have pneumonia?"

This tickled him pink. "Nope. So what are you going to do? You know. With the smoking?"

A no brainer. "Start again of course."

"Thought so. Just have a word with the nurses. They all smoke. They'll show you where to go."

Things were different in NHS back then!

And they did indeed show me where to go and it turned out the ICU unit of Blackburn infirmary was home to several handy nooks and crannies where a patient could sneak a crafty fag.

When the Covid 19 crisis started to escalate a few weeks ago, someone asked me if I was going to have a go at giving up smoking. As a precation. As a sensible thing to do. The idea made me chuckle in much the same way my consultant had chuckled all those years ago.

No thank you. I am more than happy to keep my lungs well and truly coated in protective gunk. And I recounted my very formative experience from way back when.

All of which brings me to a Guardian article I read the other day which put a smile on my face which has barely moved since.

Here are the bones of it. A French doctor took a look at the statistics pertaining to 380 guys who had been admitted to his Paris hospital for treatment for Covid 19.

They had an average age of 65.

4.4% were regular smokers.

Hang on a sec here. 4.4%? That seems kind of low. What is the percentage of French guys of 65 who regularly smoke?

In a nutshell, way way more. 40% of guys in their 40's and 50's. 12% for the over 65's.

But surely this couldn't be right? Smoking damages the lungs, right? We see gruesome pictures of mashed up lungs on our cigarette packets. So surely smokers should be more likely to be admitted to ICU for emergency Covid 19 treatment, not less likely. Surely?

So my man got on the phone to China and asked doctors out there to check their stats.

Bloody hell.

Same story.

12.8% of Chinese Covid patients were smokers. 28% of the Chinese population smoke.

Next up the Doc took a look at the whole of Paris. Ooops.

11,000 patients admitted into the capital's hospitals for Covid 19. 8.5% were smokers.

25.4% of the French population smoke.

Which brings us to the why. They reckon there might well be a couple of reasons. It seems there is something in cigarettes which makes it harder for the Covid to break its way into our cells. It also seems there is something which calms the huge overreaction of our immune systems to the presence of Covid 19 which as often or not is the thing which kills us.

So where next? Well the French are gearing up to issue doctors, nurses and patients with nicotine patches and no doubt they must be praying it is indeed nicotine which is offering such protection. Because if it isn't nicotine, then it is something which requires actual smoking.

What a nightmare for the health gurus who have spent so many years lecturing the likes of me for our craven wickedness.

The last couple of paragraphs of th article really whacked me across the head.

“Our cross-sectional study strongly suggests that those who smoke every day are much less likely to develop a symptomatic or severe infection with Sars-CoV-2 compared with the general population,” the Pitié-Salpêtrière report authors wrote.

“The effect is significant. It divides the risk by five for ambulatory patients and by four for those admitted to hospital. We rarely see this in medicine,” it added.

We very rarely se this in medicine. Bloody hell!

Wow. Basically smoking every day makes you between 4 and 5 times less likely to become a Covid 19 victim.

All of which brings me to some pretty interesting thoughts.

It looks pretty much nailed on that smoking greatly increases our chances of avoiding death by Covid 19. Amazing but almost certainly true.

When all is said and done, it is entirely legal for anyone who is over 18 to go into a shop and buy themselves a packet of fags.

And it is entirely legal for the shop to sell them.

Which means a life saving product is readily available in the required numbers for each and every one of us. If the French studies stand up what seems pretty much nailed on, then right know we can probably reduce the number of Covid 19 deaths dramatically.

So what will our leaders do about it?

There's the question. Picture Nicola Sturgeon doing her daily Covid 19 thing. I guess it would have to go something like this.

"I am going have to make an announcement today which I really, really don't want to make. But I am the First Minister of Scotland and it my job to save Scottish lives, even though doing so can feel uncomfortable. I won't beat about the bush. Research from China and France shows that people who smoke every day are between four and five times less likely to succumb to Covid 19 than those who don't smoke. Astonishing, but true. Well desperate times require desperate measure and these are indeed truly desperate times. So as your First Minister, I must recommend all of you to smoke at least five cigarettes every day. This of course is harmful in the long term and we all must give up as soon once the current crisis passes. But in the short term, those five cigarettes might very well save your life. I am sure you will understand these are words I never thought I would say. But I promised to treat the people of Scotland as grown ups and as grown ups we all have the legal right to go to a shop and buy cigarettes or tobacco. It is time for each and every one of us to make a grown up decision."

Can you imagine it? I certainly can't. It would be just too much. Something tells me our leaders would rather see hundreds of us die every day rather than admit to the fact that fags are the unexpected magic bullet which can help to save us. If it was milk or sun dried tomatoes or kale which provided the surprise armour they would be queueing up to shout the news from the rooftops. But not fags. Not a chance. 

What an utterly, utterly weird world we live in.

By the way, here is the link to the story of you suspect this blog to be tad far fetched. Have a read and make your own mind up.

THE GUARDIAN STORY

A few hours later

I emailed the link to this blog to Ewen, the surgeon who fixed up my ear a few years ago and who is now my proof reader. This is his reply. I think it is fair to say he isn't as enthusiastic about the French research as I am!

Hi Mark

As the saying goes, numbers don't lie, but they don't always tell the whole story. Perhaps the smokers are so short of breath that they don't go out much - self isolation.

Perhaps smoking has already killed off those with a "weaker constitution" so that the remaining 65+ smokers are better able to fight off infections - survival of the fittest. Consider sickle-cell disease; it confers a certain amount of resistance to malaria, which would seem to be a good thing. But then consider the bouts of agonising pains that sicklers get; it turns out that the red blood cells are so damaged that the malaria parasites don't want to infect them. Malaria can be cured, sickle cell disease can't.

So could your Covid/smoking stats be telling a similar story? That smoking is a condition that gives resistance to one single problem (Covid) at the risk of many others,  e.g. COAD, lung (and other) cancers, arterial disease causing loss of limbs, strokes, heart attacks, dementia and all the rest? I think I'll take my chances with CoVid.

Feel free to copy this on your blog if you want to.

IN A SILENT APRIL

IN A SILENT APRIL

Empty towns and empty skies.

Fields suddenly all cracked and dry

After the Winter's endless deluge.

There is even dust now.

Vague restless clouds ushered along by an east wind.

But no tumbleweed.

Not yet.

The quiet can feel brutal

In a silent April.

Ten minute journeys take five.

No queues at the lights.

Always a parking place.

Shuttered windows hide a broken future.

Six feet apart people wait in line with eyes glued to phone screens.

Unpayable bills land on over vaccuumed mats.

A reckoning is coming

But not yet.

The waiting can be brutal

In a silent April.

Herons show off their stillness

Buzzards look down on mankind with contempt.

Mother Nature cares not a jot

If men and women want to lock it all down

Well. That is up to them.

Mother Nature is indifferent

Mother Nature works to a different set of rules.

Because Mother Nature is forever.

Not here today and gone tomorrow.

Like we'll be gone.

Just not yet.

Our smallness can be brutal

In a silent April

MY OPEN LETTER TO NICOLA STURGEON. MAYBE THE TIME HAS ONCE AGAIN COME FOR SCOTLAND TO SHOW THE REST OF THE WORLD A WAY OUT OF THE DARKNESS. A SECOND SCOTTISH ENLIGHTENMENT.......?

Hi Nicola.

We haven't met. In fact, we live in very different universes. I am a foodbank manager in Dumfries who writes novels and blogs. And you? Well, you're the First Minister of Scotland.

Since we are united by a shared dream of an Independent Scotland, I hope you won't mind me writing to you. And yeah, I know you're kind of busy right now so I will break the habit of a lifetime and do my level best to be brief.

Right now, we are both in the middle of the Covid nightmare. My part is trying to keep up with a demand for emergency food parcels which has gone from 120 a week to 500 a week in the blink of an eye. And you have your hands full trying to keep us alive.

Right now, everyone's attention is superglued onto a wearyingly familiar list of questions. Why isn't there enough PPE? Why can't we test like the Germans? When will the lockdown end? How many people died today? How many people are going to die?

Slowly but surely, one more question is going to be asked, and it will be asked a little louder with every passing day.

What next? What on earth will the world look like once this is all over?

What indeed? The only thing we can say with any certainty is that things are about to change. Change utterly, as the man said. Things might change for the better. Or things might change for the worse.

Our track record of coming up with a decent world to live in in the wake of catastrophe isn't exactly great. After the First World War, we prepared the well fertilised soil which produced Musollini, Stalin and Hitler. After the Great Crash of 2008, we climbed into a decade of austerity which eventually pushed us over the cliff and into Brexit.

The aftermath of World War Two offers us all rather more hope. The NHS and Welfare State. 

We are now just a few months away from some pretty stark choices. No doubt Governments all around the world will put their corporate donors first and attempt to drive us all back into business as usual. More cuts, more taxes. Let the poor pick up the tab. All over the world, governments have turned spending money like it's going out of fashion into an artform. And the bill which is about to land on the mat will be eye watering. Terrifying.

Unless another way is found, we all face endless years of desperate, grinding misery. Worse health. Spiralling crime. Stripped down public sevices. A mental health catastrophe. Addictions and riots and over flowing bins. Rats picking their way through potholes.

And all the while, our leaders will tell us the belt tightening is the only show in town. The bills must be paid. The credit rating must be maintained. The show must be kept on the road.

Agghh. Enough already. 

We know the story in advance because we have heard the story a thousand times before.

And when all is said and done, what on earth can Scotland do about any of this? We're just a small country of less than five million souls, miserably locked into a loveless marriage with our abusive partner of three hundred years. Surely we can't ever aspire to be anything more than a bit part player in the vast drama to come?

Well maybe not. Maybe we might take this chance to walk right out to the centre of the world stage to help steer the world towards a better future.

By this point you are no doubt starting to wonder what I've been smoking. 

Fair enough.

Well, here's the thing. Scotland has some previous with this kind of thing. You know. The whole setting the world onto a path to a better place thing. Two hundred and something years ago saw the world locked into a more of less permanant state of darkness. War, famine and plague were the norm. Life was barely worth living.

Then a few smart guys in and around Edinburgh started to see a better way forward. Why not focus on logic and facts and science rather than blind dogma and superstition? Why not indeed? So they turned their minds to a new way of doing politics and science and medicine and the world became a better place. The Scottish Enlightenment, right? Back then we were a small country hitched to the same abusive partner as today. And yet we found a way to change the course of history. 

For the better.

Well maybe we can do the same again.

Or more to the point, maybe you can.

Oh yes, Nicola. 

You.

Here's how. Every day you get to stand in front of the cameras to bring us up to speed on how the Covid-19 nightmare is hitting Scotland. You tend to do your thing a few hours before Downing St, so for a brief moment the airwaves of the rolling news cycle are all yours.

A whole bunch of journalists tune in, hoping there will be something new to talk about. Anything to escape from the constant issues which go around and around in a never ending loop. Where is all the PPE? Where are all the ventilators? How long with the lockdown last? Why can't we test like the Germans?...…….

These exploding levels of journalistic frustration offer you the opportunity to take that decisive step to the very centre of the world stage.

An opportunity to take the future by the throat and to shake it.

It goes something like this and it is kind of like pointing a military grade high wattage torch at the elephant in the room.

"I know all of you are worrying about the future. Will I keep my job? Will I keep my house? Will my business ever recover? Will there be any shops left on the High Street? Will anyone of us ever get the chance to go abroad again? So many questions. So many impossible to answer questions. But one question is bigger than all of the other questions. Much, much bigger.

'Who is going to pay for all of this? Are we all about to be plunged into an age of austerity which makes the last ten years look like a picnic in the park on a sunny day in May?

'Well I would like to suggest an alternative. Not just for Scotland. For everyone. For all eight billion of my fellow citizens of planet earth. Right now, $30 trillion dollars of wealth is parked up in off shore treasure troves. Let me say that number again. 

'$30 trillion. 

'It is a sum too huge for any of us to get our heads around. If this stash of wealth was shared equally among every man, woman and child on the planet, then we would all receive a cheque for $3750 each. The new born baby in South Sudan. The rickshaw driver in Delhi. The baker in Melbourne. The postman in Inverness. Me. You. Everyone. Those who horde the treasure are no more than a few thousand. I think the time has finally come for them to pay their way.

'I believe there must now be historic windfall tax. A 90% windfall tax on all offshore wealth. A windfall tax to bring in $27 trillion dollars: more than enough to cover all the bills of the nightmare we are living through. And before we shed tears for those who will be picking up the Covid tab, then we should remember they will still have $3 trillion dollars to keep them in the style they have become so very accustomed to. And believe me, no matter how many super yachts and Gulfstreams they buy, it will still be utterly impossible for them to spend $3 trillion even if they all live to 500 years old.

'Can we do this? Of course we can. Not Scotland of course. This is a task for the whole world. The UN maybe. Or the G8. Or the G20. If enough us demand it, then governments all over the world will be forced to sign on the dotted line. And then there will be more than enough money for us to build a better future: a brighter future: a pathway out of the darkness and into the light.

'This isn't the first time the people of Scotland have shown the rest of the world a way forward. The last time was two hundred years ago. The Scottish Enlightenment.

Well, maybe this can be the start of a second Scottish Enlightenment."

Just imagine saying these words. Just imagine how the news wires would explode. It's what happens when a politician says the unsayable. But this wouldn't be a Trumpian saying the unsayable. And then? Who knows. Maybe nothing. Or maybe a seed might just be sewn. Talked about. Discussed. Debated. Why shouldn't they pay the bills? Well? Why not...………..?

Politicians all over the world would be asked the same question. "The First Minister of Scotland has called for a 90% Windfall Tax on all offshore wealth. What are your views...."

What will they say? What can they say? The cat will be well and truly out of the bag. 

Out of the bag care of the people of Scotland. A pretty good look if you ask me.

The world finds itself in a dire moment. It is a time when the unthinkable is suddenly desperately needed.

Maybe it is once again time for Scotland to step up to the plate and show the rest of the world a new way forward.

So Nicola, it's over to you. Because there is absolutely no point in someone like me saying any of this. Nobody will notice. It has to be someone like you.

Lights .... Camera .... Action......

EGGS, TATTIES AND TEARS: POSTCARDS FROM THE FOODBANK FRONT LINE.

Postcards. Images on cardboard. Costing how much? It's ages since I bought a postcard. 40P maybe? I guess the shops who sell postcards are all closed amyway. Which makes how much they cost rather academic.

A postcard sends a clear message. This is where I am. This is what it looks like. Not bad, eh?

The views out of my van window over the last couple of weeks have been absolutley postcard ready. The sun has shone and the land has finally dried out. Spring is round the corner and the vast emptiness of South West Scotland is quietly exploding into its springtime beauty.

Just like it has for Christ alone knows how many millions of years.

Except this year the beauty is a different beauty. A strange beauty. A kind of post nuclear beauty of empty streets. Ghost villages. Wrap around silence. Nature everywhere and barely a person to be seen.

As someone who is spending his days out on the road in my shiny hired Ford tranny van from Arnold Clark, I can certainly report the lockdown is being observed by the good folk of Dumfries and Galloway. The world is emptied out. The world is like I have never seen it before.

The world is strange.

And these are the pictures which will stay with me in the years to come. Assuming there are years to come! As a sixty year old guy with forty years worth of chain smoking under my belt, assuming years to come might just be a tad over confident.

As WB Yeats once upon a time said, everything has changed: changed utterly.

A mere three weeks ago I could log onto the Tesco page and order up £500 worth of food which would duly be delivered the next day. A mere three weeks ago a convoy of cars from local churches would land up at our back door on a Monday morning bearing carrier bags of food donations.

Those were the days, right? The days when buying a pack of toilet rolls wasn't a thing to be celebrated on Facebook.

Last week I got hold of a local egg producer on the phone. Could First Base buy 100 dozen eggs a week? I nearly fell off my chair when he said yes, nae bother pal. If I was a punching the air kind of guy, I would have punched the air. A sign of the times. Downright giddy to have secured a weekly supply of eggs.

A day later I got a call from a local business man. A family business with a showroom. He has been supporting us with a monthly standing order for years. Now the business is on lockdown and he is climbing the walls with boredom. Come on Mark, there must be something I can do. I'm a man with a van and an itch to get pitched in.

I gave him an unexpected project to crack on with. Hit the phonelines and find a local potato wholesaler and buy a tonne of spuds on out behalf. Have you got any storage at your place? Yeah, we have storage. Could you pick up the tatties, store them and wheel them into us as and when we need them? Nae bother.

Sixteen hours later he was back. Mission accomplished. Once tonne of Scottish spuds for £280. Collected, bagged and stored. Mission accomplished by a man in search of a mission. And yet again I was assailed by the unfamiliar urge to punch the air.

Things don't tend to get emotional at First Base. Iain and Kevin fill the hours with blacker than black humour learnt from long years in the British Army. Jason looks on with his trademark wry grin. They are guys who are well used to getting things done with minimum fuss. Kevin has morphed into Mr Deliveroo as he dodges around town dropping off parcels.

And let's face it, I'm not exactly a touchy feely guy myself. But sometimes the lump hits the throat no matter how I try to be hard bitten. Like when I picked up a call from Manchester with a frantic voice on the other end. A daughter with elderly parents living in isolation amidst the emptiness of Galloway. No supermarket deliveries available and cupboards starting to empty out. They were frightened at the idea of being forced to venture out, but it looked more and more like they would have to. I told her not to worry. I told her we would deliver later in the day. I told her there was no need to worry any more. I promised her First Base had their backs. We would make sure they were alright. This news propmted an explosion of tears. Tears of relief. Tears of drained out tension. Tears of spring 2020.

I took the food in the midst of a late afternoon of watery sunshine and light breeze. Once upon a time it would have been a perfect day for a nest scratching lapwing. But we don't seem to do lapwings any more. Maybe they sensed the strange world which was coming and exited stage left.

The house took a bit of finding and view was jaw dropping. A figure at the door. How much do we owe? Unwilling to accept nothing was owed. Bewildered by the new empty world. Off the scales grateful. And just a little bit tearful. She promised to call if more food was needed. And I am fairly confident she will.

I drove away down the hill and into the late afternoon emptiness. Empty road. Empty hills. Empty sky.

Covid19 Scotland, where people are as hard to spot as lapwings.

Postcards to be filed away. Postcards of a time of strangeness. Postcards of a time when a puchase of a hundred dozen eggs a week left me feeling like punching the air.

Not that I actually DID punch the air. 

Obviously.

If this rambling jumble of ungrammatical words by any chance leaves you in the mood to support what First Base are trying to do, you can find our online fundraising page via the link below.

THE FIRST BASE ONLINE FUNDRAISING PAGE

Stay safe.

THE FIRST BASE FOODBANK HAS BEEN ABLE TO MAKE HUGE PROGRESS OVER THE LAST WEEK THANKS TO UNBELIEVABLE COMMUNITY SUPPORT.

A week ago I posted a blog to lay out the tentative plans First Base was putting together to meet the challenges of the time we all now live in. Once the words were all down and ready to be thrown out into the ether, it was hard not to wonder whether or not we were being a bit over optimistic.

Well, things have moved a long way and thankfully it seems our optimism wasn't misplaced.

I guess some straight forward clarity is a good idea, especially for local readers.

Here is where we will be at by lunchtime on Friday.

We will have food in place and ready to be delivered from six locations across Dumfries and Galloway. Here they are

THE FIRST BASE AGENCY on Buccleuch St in Dumfries – from here we can help people out in and around the town.

THE VISITOR CENTRE in Castle Douglas – Frome here we can help people out in Castle Douglas, Dalbeattie and Kirkdudbright and surrounding villages.

KELLOHOLM LIBRARY – From here we can help people out in Kelloholm, Kirkconnel and the villages of Upper Nithsdale.

THE ABERLOUR PREMISES in Annan – From here we we can help people out in Annan, Eastriggs, Gretna and the surrounding villages.

A VOLUNTEER'S GARAGE in Lockerbie – From here we can help people out in Lockerbie, Lochmaban and the surrounding villages.

MOFFAT TOWN HALL – From here we can help people out in Moffat, Langholm and the surrounding villages.

Each of these locations is already linked up with groups of volunteers who have come together over the last few days.

We have been able to stock each of these sites with food thanks to lots of brilliant people stepping up to the plate and helping us out.

The volunteers at the Summerhill Community Centre have produced almost a thousand portions of Scotch Broth.

The Little Bakery in Dumfries has provided eight hundred pies and a similar number of bread rolls.

Irvings Bakery in Castle Douglas are selling us hundreds of packets of biscuits at cost price and the tab is being picked up by the Castle Douglas Development Forum.

We have had some frought moments getting all this together. Our system obviously relies heavily on freezers and they have very much become a part of the panic buying madness which has swept through the country over the last couple of weeks. Our first two big freezers were easily enough bought and delivered. The next two were rather more touch and go. By the time I called Kevin Farish to ask for two more, everything had changed – he had sold 70 freezers over the weekend. Luckily two new big freezers had just arrived in the yard and I gleefully put our name on them and arranged delivery. So. All in place. Well, actually, no. The Prime Minister pitched up on the TV to close the country down and things were back up in the air.

Yesterday morning turned into a race against the clock. I just managed to pick up a hired van from Arnold clark as they were in the process of shutting down. We then were able to grab our two freezers and hour or so before Farish's did the same.

So what next?

We have been in constant discussion with the Council. There is no way we will be able to get anything in place to field phone calls. Our systems wouldn't stand a chance. So they have promised to run with this particular ball. With luck, by the end of this week they will have a hotline in place for anyone to call up if their cupboards are starting to look uncomfortably bare. This line will be available to both members of the public and a wide variety of support workers – social work, homeless, health visitors, home carers, cops... anyone really. At 4pm each day, all the names and addresses will be broken down into the six areas described above and e mailed to us. We will then send the lists out to each area and the food will be delivered the next day.

We have also been nagging the council to death to do what we can't do and let people know how and where help is available. I guess I might as well repeat this nag once again here! Sorry guys, but being a pain in the neck is a tough habit to break.

Please use your Council Tax mailing list to send every household in the region a simple sheet of A4 which basically says 'Need help? Call this number'. Then spend a few hundred quid to buy adverts on Border News and West Sound to fire out the same message.

So how has demand been over the last week? Spookily quiet. Weirdly quiet. Weird is very much the word. Driving around yeaterday was off the scales weird. The sun was out and the countryside was ready to be turned into a range of postcards. High Streets were film sets waiting for tumbleweed. Would the police stop us? I had a copy of the Dumfries Standard ready to show them – a picture of yours truly with a bunch of food. Honestly lads, we're the foodbank guys. Essential, right?

As it turned out, the makeshift ID wasn't required.

Everything about yesterday reminded me of stuff I have read about 1938 – the months before Neveille Chaimberlain's doomed visit to Munich. Every man and his dog was convinced war was a mere matter of days away. All over Britain frantic preparations were being made at break neck speed. Every child was issued with a gas mask. Trenches were dug. Sandbags filled the city centres. People were constantly looking nervously up into the skies expecting at any moment to see a vast armada of German bombers to appear.

But nothing happened. For months. For two years. And then five years worth of hell was let loose.

Is this week our very own 'Phony War'? Only time will tell. Our plan in this regard is crystal clear. Maybe in six months people might say to me 'bloody hell Mark, First Base went a bit over the top. You acted like the end of the world was on it's way....'

If I ever have this conversation, then halle-bloody- lujah! If we are left with hundreds or portions of frozen Broth on our hands, then that will do us just fine. It is far better to over prepare. Playing catch up when people have nothing to eat is the worst of nightmares.

Maybe our new system will be quite incapable of dealing with the coming demand. I hope not. As the weeks go by, I am confident we will get better and better at meeting whatever is headed our way.

I have been hugely impressed by the attitude of both the Scottish Government and our local council. They are not trying to take control of everything and get involved in things they are not used to doing. Instead they have accepted from the get go that the voluntary sector has more expertise and experience in doing this stuff. They are working with us and offering help as and when we need it.

Our next task is to add to the basic food parcel we currantly have on offer. Right now, we are able to provide two portions of Broth, two pies, three rolls and a pack of biscuits. Basic, sure, but pretty damned tasty. Not enough though.

Government is piling pressure onto the supermarkets to ring fence supplies for food banks. This is going to take a while, but hopefully in a week or two we will be able to buy in extra items – tinned stuff, cereal, milk. With a following wind, the parcels we hand out in three weeks time will be much more like our normal parcels.

When the time comes when we can once again buy in food, we are obviously going need to have the cash to buy it so if you can help us out a bit it we will be massively grateful. You find our online fundraising page via the link below.

THE FIRST BASE ONLINE FUNDRAISING PAGE

Before I wind this up, I really need to take a moment to give a few examples of how individuals and communities are stepping up to the plate to help out. There have been loads and loads of examples and I feel a little bad having to boil these down to just a few, but to go on and on isn't really an option. So here are a few. A few out of many.

The two ladies in the village of Sanquhar who put togther a list of fifty volunteers over the course of a weekend who are willing to deliver food or prescriptions or to call up those who are isolated and quarantined for a chat. In two days flat they managed to put a letter through every letter box in the village with phone numbers and offers of help. Two days. Impressive.

Neil at the Mad Hatter Cafe in Castle Douglas. Like millions of cafes across the world, Neil had no choice but to close his doors. Soul destroying. Frightening. He could have gone home to sulk at the unfairness of life. But he didn't. Instead he called us up. Hey guys. Once upon a time I was an army chef. If you want someone to knock out Broth porions by the 500, then I've been there and done that. Just let me know and it will be done. How sound is that?

I will finish up with Sharon. This is the message she sent to me via Facebook

'Hey Mark. I'm a fitness instructor or should I say I was a fitness instructor till all this shit hit the fan. I will be doing online classes and folk have been wanting to pay me for these classes. I would like to donate any money taken to yourself at 1st Base. What is the best way to do this...many thanks Sharon x'

Over the last couple of days lots of donations have appeared on our JustGiving page from Sharon's clients. Once again, Covid 19 must have been an absolute body blow for Sharon. She could have thrown in the towel and howled at the moon. But she didn't.

Thankfully it is clear there are a whole bunch of great people like Sharon who are ready and willing to do what it takes to get us all through this bloody nightmare.

Proud to be Scottish? Or New Scottish in my case? You bet I am.

FOODBANKS ALL OVER THE UK ARE CLOSING THEIR DOORS. NOT FIRST BASE. WE ARE GEARING FOR A 500% INCREASE. YOU CAN HELP OUT IN SEVERAL AREAS. PLEASE READ AND PLEASE SHARE.

So First Base faced some pretty daunting challenges on Monday morning. The wall to wall rolling news was as grim as the weather. Here is how things looked in a nutshell.

Food donations were falling off a cliff – we rely on receiving £45,000 a year's of packets and tins.

Buying food in was not a viable option. At 11 a.m. The Tesco van pulled up at the back door. £500 worth of stuff ordered. £18 worth of stuff delivered.

And demand? Well, we didn't need a crystal ball to see demand was about to take off.

Money? Yeah. Right. We are not one of those animal charities with ten years of reseves in the bank.

So. Decision time. We could follow the majority of the country's foodbanks and close our doors. Pen a note for the door. "Due to the Coronavirus......"

No way. To close the doors would have been against everything The First Base Agency has tried to stand for. Since 2003. 

OK then. Decision made. We weren't going to close. Time for the big question. How on earth could we go from 120 emergency food parcels a week to at least 600 emergency food parcels a week with no virtually no food donations? And no ability to buy food in? And not enough money to buy the food in even if we were able to buy it?

Well it is Wednesday morning now and I am pleased to be able to tell you we are pretty confident we have found a way.

Here is what we have been able to put in place.

Getting hold of enough of the packets and tins we usually rely on is clearly impossible. They won't be donated. They can't be bought. And even if they could be bought, we couldn't afford to buy enough of them.

So we have come up with a basic emergency parcel using stuff we will be able to lay our hands on.

First up. Broth. A go to favourite for Scotland in times of hardship. I checked out the supermarket shelves and with no great surprise I discovered the broth mix shelves had been stripped bare. So I called up the sales department at Whitworths, the company who make 'Great Scot' broth mix. Could they sell us some? They were kind of surprised, but they promised to do what they could. A couple of hours later they e mailed me. They had about a tonne of broth mix in stock and they were willing to sell it to us at a 20% discount. And deliver it for free. They could have profiteered. They didn't.

Respect.

My next step was to meet up with Anne Marie at Summerhill Community Centre. If Carlsberg were run a community centre...…! They are a great outfit. Every day of the week the place is buzzing with groups for young and old alike. Sadly all of these groups were closed down on Monday morning. Just like all groups. Everywhere.

Over the years Summerhill have invested heavily in their kitchen facilities. Now it is gleaming and state of the art. Crucially, they have a superbly motivated and competant team of volunteers who are well skilled in cooking large batches of food.

I asked if they might be able to start cooking up industrial quantities of broth for us. And they said yes. Why don't we start with 400 portions a week?

Progress, right? We had a tonne of broth mix and good people ready and willing to turn it into soup. Logistics? Plastic containers which are microwave ready and on the Bookers shelves for 9p a go. Tick. Procedure? Cook soup. Fill containers. Cool down and make ready for us to collect and take to the First Base freezers the next day. By hook or by crook, we are confident we will be able to buy the sacks of spuds, carrots, neeps and onions we will need to add to the the broth mix.

Next question. Did we have the required freezer capacity? No we didn't have the the required freezer capacity. So I called up Kevin Farish. Kevin has a Rolls Royce of a business selling electrical appliances right across Dumfries and Galloway. His man Murray told me they had been selling freezers like hot cakes all weekend. Well if people want to panic buy, they need somewhere to stow their panic purchases.

Did they have a couple of large chest freezers to sell us? They did. Huge ones. 430 litres each. They should have sold for £400 each. Kevin said the best he could do was £300 each. He could have profiteered. He didn't.

Respect.

They are due to be delivered at one this afternoon.

Another box ticked.

Next. Kerr at The Little Bakery in Dumfries. For years Kerr has been building his bakery business up on uncomplicated quality. His pies win all kinds of awards. If you are ever lucky enough to eat one, you will see why. We sat in his office. I laid our problems down on the table. I told him where we were up to on the soup front. I said it would be great if we could add two of his pies and three of his rolls to the two cartons of soup. And then we argued for the bast part of half an hour. I explained how we already spend £2000 a month on buying in food and some of this would need to head his way. He kept on telling me to piss off and asked me why he would even think of invoicing First Base in a time of crisis. In the end we agreed to disagree. This is the kind of guy Kerr is. He knows a bit about what a crisis looks like by the way – he was a volunteer fireman during the Lockerbie disaster.

After half an hour he promised us as many pies and rolls as we needed.

Respect

Tuesday morning and we had things in place to make a basic emergency parcel based on items manufactured locally out of simple, buyable ingredients.

Capacity. About 600 parcels a week's worth of capacity.

Promising.

Next up. How to get the food to the people who need the food? Right now, 50% of our parcels are collected from libraries across the 3400 square miles of territory we try to support. Do they have any freezers? No, they don't have any freezers. OK. Amazon. How much for a counter top freezer? About a hundred quid. I called up two councillors who picked up the phone straight away. If First Base buys up freezers and delivers them to libraries, could you guys guarantee to repay us at some stage? An answer is promised this morning. I am pretty sure the answer will be yes.

Which brings we to the part where First Base is asking for some help. We have already been contacted by lots of people who want to make themselves available. Now we want to start taking people up on these offers.

There are four ways you can help us out.

1. This one takes about five minutes. The Council is making money available to local charities who do anti poverty work. We are bidding for £12,000. The public makes the decision about who gets funded. The voting process is online. If you follow the link below, you can vote for us. Everyone who has voted for us tells me the process is quick and easy

CLICK HERE TO CAST YOUR VOTE FOR FIRST BASE

2. Money. Of course money. As demand for emergency food sky rockets over the coming weeks, there will be any number of unforeseen expenses. Having some cash reserves available can mean the difference between saying 'yes' and saying 'no'. Modest reserves meant we were able to buy in £1300 worth of broth mix and £600 worth of freezer capacity without having to waste vital time trying to raise funds. If you follow the link below, you will arrive at our online fundraising page. I hate to go all Tesco, but every bit really does help.

THE FIRST BASE ONLINE FUNDRAISING PAGE

3. Deliveries. As demand grows, we are going to need lots of help with getting our emergency parcels to the people who need them. We can make sure this is done safely for all concerned. Here is how it will work? A volunteer parks up outside our back door and opens the boot. We fill them up with parcels and hand them a list of addresses. Nobody gets within two meters of each other. Once the volunteer arrives at an address, they call the client and tell them their parcel will be left on the doorstep. Again, nobody needs to be within two metres of each other. If you are willing to offer your services to help get the parcels out, please either e mail me on markglenmill@aol.com or call me on 07770 443483. We cover an area from Kirkconnel to Dalbeattie and Castle Douglas to Langholm

4. Cooking. The volunteers at Summerhill have committed to make soup 2 days a week. There are three days available for more soup to be prepared should we need to help more than 200 people a week. And I am pretty sure we will need to help more than 200 people a week. Lots more. If you are a dab hand in the kitchen and minded to help out, then either e mail me on markglenmill@aol.com or call me on 07770 443483.

So. That pretty much does it. It is Wednesday morning and we are well on the way to having everything in place. The new regime goes live on Monday. With what we have in place already, we can already help a lot of people. If more and more people are willing to step up, either with money or with time, we will be able to help a whole bunch more people.

Can we manage 1000 emergency parcels a week? You know what, I reckon we possible can. With help. Your help. Here are the links again.

To vote for us, click below.

CLICK HERE TO CAST YOUR VOTE FOR FIRST BASE

To donate to us, click here.

THE FIRST BASE ONLINE FUNDRAISING PAGE

We are all about to live through a truly horrible time. We can either hide away and look to our Governent for everything. Or we can rally around and get stuck in. In my book, 'bottom up' is always more effective and efficient than 'top down'. 'Bottom up' means people like Anne Marie and Kerr and Kevin and the good folks at Whitworths. People who say 'sure, glad to help'. Decisions made quickly mean stuff can get done quickly.

So it's over to you. Please share this and help us out if you can.

FIRST BASE NEEDS YOUR VOTE TO HELP SECURE £12,000 OF ANTI-POVERTY FUNDING. PLEASE, PLEASE TAKE 5 MINUTES TO VOTE AND SHARE.

The last blog I posted was read by just over 100,000 people. Something tells me this one won't attract quite the same amount of attention! Unfortunately this one is rather more important. Well. It is for us. For First Base.

So. It's probably best keep things short and snappy I guess.

Here goes.

First Base is the largest foodbank in South West of Scotland.

This year we are on track to help out over 6000 people with emergency food.

The area we cover by the way is home to 100,000 people and it stretches out across 3.4 million acres of Scottish soil. Our emergency parcels can be collected from a network of 25 collection points.

6000 hungry people is a lot, right? And that is before we factor in the likes of Brexit and Coronavirus.

You won't be surprised to learn that all of this costs money. Quite a lot of money. Luckily, the local community are absolutely brilliant. Every year we receive over £40,000's worth of donated food.

But it ain't nearly enough. Each and every week we spent over £500 on deliveries from Tesco and Asda to make up the shortfall.

Then of course there is rent and wages and phone bills and electricity and delivery costs....

And on and on it goes.

So we need cash to do what we do. It is our lifeblood.

And basically we could really use your help in securing £12,000's worth of life blood.

We are not looking for your money here. How's about that! Instead we are looking for about 5 minutes or so of your time.

So here's how it works.

Dumfries and Galloway Council hace received a chunk of money from the Governement in Edinburgh to allocate to projects which are involved in Anti-Poverty work. As in us. Giving 6000 people a year something to eat when their cupboards are bare obviously ticks the box.

The Council have decided to pass on the decision as to who gets the cash to the public. As in you. Whoever gets enough votes, gets a share of the cash.

We are on the ballot in three Council areas – Nithsdale - £5000, Annandale and Eskdale - £5000 and Stewartry - £2000.

The process of casting a vote is actually really straight forward. I've just done it and it genuinely only took 5 minutes.

I'll put in the link in couple of minutes. Before I do, I'll sketch out what you need to do once you've got there.

First up, as far as I can tell there is no requirement for you to live in Dumfries in Galloway to cast a vote. So basically absolutely anyone reading this can play a part.

So this is how things play out.

You go to the Participatory Budgeting page.

Click 'Register to Vote'

User name – your name or whatever you fancy.

E mail

Confirm e mail

Then they sent you and e mail and you hit 'confirm'.

Once you're registered, you can choose to vote in any of the three areas.

My gut feeling tells me we will be looking hardest for votes in Annandale and Eskdale and Stewartry.

Once you get to the page, you will find a list of charities looking for support. You have three votes and hopefully one of them will be for us.

Again, it takes a couple of minutes.

And then you're done. Just like that.

So here's the link.

CLICK HERE TO CAST YOUR VOTE

OK. If you have done the deed then thank you and thank you again. Your support is hugely appreciated. Really.

Which leaves one last thing. It would be absolutely great if you could expend another few seconds of your life and give this a share. If you do, then once again – thanks!

So I guess that's me pretty much done. £12,000 is a big deal for First Base. Like I said – life blood.

And we need all the help we can get.