British Library archiving lockdown experiences, including passover preparation

The British Library has said it is archiving listeners’ experiences of life under coronavirus lockdown and including a Jewish family’s Passover preparations.

The ‘Covid Chronicles’ will be based of callers to BBC Radio 4 and will “document the national experience” of the pandemic.

Alongside the thoughts of the Jewish family will be recollections of a woman who gave birth at the height of the health crisis as well as a mourner’s experience of their mother’s funeral.

Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis said the Jewish people’s celebration of Passover this year was “exceptionally difficult” because it is “the ultimate family-orientated event” yet social distancing measures and limits on travel meant it many felt isolated.

Polly Russell, a curator at the British Library, said the Covid Chronicles would “provide a snapshot in a time of national crisis,” and be “a wonderful record of this time and a brilliant resource for researchers in the future”. She added that they were “personal, intimate, surprising, sometimes funny and often moving”.