Lockdown reads: Great journalism and writing you might have missed, part 4 (March 2020)

Wash your hands

We've reached March 2020 in our guide to great journalism and writing you might have missed.

It might not feel like it but there were people writing great pieces back in March, and not just about coronavirus either. I am including some pieces about corona here, but they're few and far between and, as a reflection of my personal taste and quirks, represent some of the more sideways and quirky looks at the virus.

But we begin with a local story with wider ramifications for life in the UK. Nick Statham, local democracy reporter for the Manchester Evening News, wrote two fantastic pieces for the paper about the impact the withdrawal of the 375 bus route would have on the village of Mellor, which has the dubious distinction of being Greater Manchester's most isolated village. Even if you don't live on the 375 route, or indeed in Greater Manchester, his articles demonstrated perfectly why decent public transport is such a lynchpin of community. This, the second of the two pieces, nails it.

One of the things coronavirus has thrown up is the insecurity of most forms of employment. This piece on Narratively by Angela Lundberg about a lucrative but unpleasant second job feels very timely in retrospect. 

CityMetric ran this perceptive piece by Shain Shapiro about how cities can protect the creative industries from gentrification. It feels like far less of a concern than it might have done when the piece was published but, whenever it is is we get to rebuild our tattered world, it will contain warnings that are worth listening to.

If you're looking to lessons from Italy about lockdown life, this beautiful piece about looking for love in Italy during lockdown by Sergio Colombo over on 1843 will fill you with hope.

Narratively ran an equally thought provoking piece by JB Nicholas about what it's like to be effectively homeless, living a nomadic lifestyle as coronavirus takes hold of the USA.

But there's reassurances from Wuhan, where Covid-19 first struck, in this piece by Betsy Joles for 1843 about  a mental health hotline that helped to keep the citizens of Wuhan sane during lockdown.

Lockdown reads will be back soon with a round up of interesting pieces from April.

Stay safe.

Image by Micheile Henderson on Unsplash