Love in Lockdown is a free wordless story that shows how, with a bit of creativity, people can lead lives filled with love even in the most extraordinary circumstances, and how important vaccine uptake is for getting that long-awaited face-to-face meeting and hug.
Since the first UK lockdown in March last year, we’ve all missed seeing our friends and family in the ways we were used to. But what about partners, girlfriends and boyfriends? Less has been said about them – perhaps because for most of the general adult population living with your partner is the norm.
Love and relationships can greatly enrich our lives, but for people who need extra support, there are more barriers to dating and having a romantic relationship, with just 3% of people with a learning disability living together as a couple. When lockdown hit, this meant that couples living apart – like Beyond Words author Nigel Hollins and his girlfriend – suddenly found themselves separated indefinitely.
Our newest story, Love in Lockdown, is inspired by Nigel’s experiences over the past year. In the story, Kali and Stefan, who live in different households, struggle with the new rules and restrictions preventing them from being together. However, with the help of their supporters, they find ways to stay connected and gradually spend more time together again once it is safe to do so.
Nigel’s mother told us that Nigel and his girlfriend soon learnt how to connect for virtual daily chats and colouring sessions online. Nigel says that their Friday night film date was a bit more complicated and needed quite a lot of support! They had to have two devices each: one to see each other and chat, and one to watch a film simultaneously. Their library book club reading Beyond Words stories also started to meet fortnightly online – a highlight for them both. Now they have had the vaccine his girlfriend’s carers let them meet outside in a visitor’s dome – but still no hugging. Hopefully that will soon change.
Love in Lockdown is illustrated by Lucy Bergonzi and was trialled by several of our online book clubs who helped us improve the pictures and the story. As well as documenting lockdown life for Kali and Stefan, the story also sees the couple get their COVID vaccines and how this impacts on them. Supporting text at the back includes a guide on how to read the story and signposts to other useful resources.
Like all our coronavirus materials, Love in Lockdown is free to download from our website for you to read on screen or print at home. Find it at: www.booksbeyondwords.co.uk/coping-with-coronavirus
People with learning disabilities and/ or autism have a right to loving relationships the same as anyone else. We see how important Kali and Stefan are to one another, and their story shows how it just takes the right support for people to be able to sustain and enjoy a relationship.