CGM blog: Take a Marvellous approach to COVID-19

25 Mar CGM blog: Take a Marvellous approach to COVID-19

If you haven’t seen the uplifting TV film Marvellous about the irrepressible Neil ‘Nello’ Baldwin I suggest you do so.

It might just provide a clue to how to get through Covid-19.

Born with learning difficulties, Baldwin worked as a clown, had a self-appointed role to welcome new students to Keele University where he also ran his own football club (with Gary Lineker and Kevin Keegan as club presidents) and later became a kit man at Stoke City in the 1990s.

Portrayed by Toby Jones in the BAFTA-winning film, Nello’s life was hugely difficult. Yet when quizzed why he maintained such an enduringly positive spirit he said: “I just decided to be happy.”

And he was…mostly. Good things happened. Not always but often.

It may seem trivial to suggest we adopt a similar carefree approach to the destruction that Covid-19 is wreaking but a touch of Nello is arguably what need right now.

We need to support doctors, nurses, care workers, emergency and essential services. We must follow the self-isolation and safe distance advice and hope we come through it. The world is on pause with a devastating economic impact in tow.

We can’t do what we normally do and most people don’t have the money even if they could. Our response therefore needs to be Marvellous.

What most of us do have, unusually, is time…and space.

Time to get round to tackling tasks we’ve put off. Time to get fit and eat less (fewer trips to shops?). Time to start hobbies and S-L-O-W things down rather than be in a constant hurry.

Time to do things that are free, cheap and don’t require leaving the house.

And we have space.

Space to enjoy our once a day walk, run or cycle. Space to hear the spring birdsong not being drowned out now there are fewer cars around. Space to enjoy fresh air.

Time to enjoy our own spaces. “We’ll never have such beautiful gardens,” Worcestershire poet laureate emeritus Maggie Doyle told me at the start of this crisis. Spot on Maggie.

Time and space together to breathe. To renew, to rejuvenate and re-think.

We can’t go on holiday – but we can bring sunshine into our lives.

And we should ALL give each other time and space – maybe by making social distancing a permanent feature of our lives long after Covid-19 is defeated.

If we stopped (awful phrase) ‘getting in people’s faces’ and constantly being angry we can make this pause in our lives count for something.

As for business planning, maybe now is the time to do it properly. There’s a gap, space to pause and prepare for the inevitable upturn – maybe to realign your business model?

It is time to start doing the right thing because it IS the right thing to do – and we can all start by being kind and considerate to one another.

As Gary Lineker said of ‘Nello’: “You don’t feel sorry for Neil Baldwin – you want to be like him.”

Now more than ever is the time we should all aim to be Marvellous.