Post-lockdown: Wether to stay or Wether to go

IT’S all about risk.

As the British government prepares to reopen schools as part of its proposed easing of the Covid-19 lockdown, parents and teachers’ unions are naturally concerned about the threat of exposure to infection.

The outcome of the debate will provide valuable lessons on how we cope with another looming dilemma: when will it be safe to send our old people back to Wetherspoons?

For the uninitiated, Wetherspoons is a chain of some 900 pubs run by multi-millionaire man-of-the-people Tim Martin and patronised by, among others, solitary seniors who enjoy a cheap breakfast pint with their morning fry-up.

If you have an old person locked down at home, you’ll understand the toll self-isolation can have on mental health – yours if not theirs.

Better surely, despite the health risks, to have them back in the local Wetherspoons where they can reminisce with their contemporaries about “Two World Wars and One World Cup” or lament the imminent Muslim takeover of Britain.

Our local Wetherspoons, The Pommelers Rest, has been bolted and abandoned since the lockdown closed pubs on March 23, despite Tim’s argument that: “There’s hardly been any transmission of the virus within pubs, and I think it’s over the top to shut them.”

Nevertheless, Tim bit the lockdown bullet, assuring his 40,000 staff that, since he didn’t plan to carry on paying them, they could probably get jobs at their local supermarket.

With some pubs due to reopen as early as July, it’s already time to consider whether to keep your wrinklies close or send them back to The Pommelers.

There will always be a risk. However, given that one-in-three over-65s has a nasty fall at least once a year – some of them by just getting out of bed – the local Wetherspoons may actually provide a ‘safe space’.

Flexible opening hours mean you can pack them off at nine in the morning and leave them there until midnight under the watchful gaze of geriatric-trained bar staff. The cleaners start vacuuming Tim’s custom-woven carpets at around 10.30PM, so there’s no risk of your elderly loved-ones sleeping through last orders.

No option is risk-free. Even before the lockdown, Tim’s customers were exposed to pro-Brexit beer mats that warned, inter alia, that: “If the unelected President Juncker and his apparatchiks continue to be obstructive, remember that all EU products can be replaced by similar alternatives from the UK – or from the 93 per cent of the world not in the EU.”

The New Zealand-educated Britain Firster is a man of his word. He announced more than a year ago that wines from France, Italy and Germany were being removed from his pubs, along with a third of draught beers from the European Union.

“By choosing British beer and looking out for the British hops logo on your pint, beer drinkers can actively support businesses close to home.” Well said, Tim. As long as you can find a Romanian to pick them.

Sadly, by the time of the lockdown, the message had yet to filter down to his largely immigrant staff. The Turk at the Pommelers was dealing foreign booze across the bar right up to the last minute.

As the “Wetherspoons or not” debate looms, I must declare a personal interest. I not only belong to a vulnerable age group, I also suffer from an underlying condition – the inability of my aged companions to find their wallets as they stagger to the bar.

I suggested to my in-house carer that I could cover myself by standing the first round as soon as The Pommelers reopens. Her response: “You must be f***ing joking. Shut up and stay indoors!”