Many thanks to Jan Morris for much of the information below from her Crawley u3a in Lockdown article.
The Start
It is now almost six years since that Monday evening of 23rd March 2020 when Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced the start of the nationwide Covid-19 lock-down. Our Trustees had already decided that monthly meetings, trips and outings planned for the next couple of months should be cancelled or postponed. This 23rd March lock-down announcement obviously meant that in-person Group meetings had to be cancelled also.
The Trustees were concerned that a lock-down would result in many members, especially those living alone, suffering from isolation. They hastily, together with Group Leaders, took a number of actions to help prevent this. Of course, back then, nobody then knew how long the lockdown would last – estimates ranged from a few weeks to many months.
On 19th March, our then Chair, George Redgrave, started his daily poem readings on the Crawley u3a Facebook page, with “Victoria” by Eleanor Farjeon.
The Lockdown News
Before the start of lockdown, the Newsletter Editor, Jan Morris, was issuing three editions of the Magazine “Learn, Laugh, Live” a year, interspersed with shorter newsletters covering forthcoming events. But from 1st April 2020 she started producing a monthly Lockdown News newsletter and continued and continued to do so monthly for 19 editions, the last one being for September 2021, when “normal” activities started again. This was the first time we had ever had a monthly newsletter.
A selection of the Lockdown Newsletters:
April 2020
May 2020
December 2020
June 2021
August 2021
Keeping in Touch with Members
Ann Sole also set up a group of members – called Member Support - willing to call members who had indicated they would benefit from a chat. During these first weeks they contacted 49 grateful members and, in many cases, contact was continued. Referrals were made to Welfare Support when a medical or long-term issue was found.
Groups Activity
Group Leaders worked hard to keep in contact with members. Several groups set up WhatsApp groups, to share photos of their gardens, exchange amusing clips and to pass on ideas on how to keep occupied. By September, several groups including Books, Ukulele, History, Bamboo Pipes, Poetry, and Quizzing were holding regular sessions on Zoom – a platform few of us had even been aware of pre-Covid.
Outdoor groups were able to take advantage of the easing of restrictions during the summer of 2020 to start up walks again - below is a photo of Walkers Extra on a bubble walk, so called because no more than six people from different households could be together.
Unfortunately, meeting up in person, even outside, had to be abandoned as the autumn progressed, and the number of covid cases began to spike again.
Events on Zoom
Zoom enabled the regular Friday afternoon monthly meetings to be resumed again from November. The first one featured Alan Charlton, a former diplomat who had been Ambassador to several countries including Germany and Brazil and deputy ambassador to the USA and a fascinating summary of his talk, written by Jean Austin (some things don’t change!). This talk attracted 99 members – more than the number attending many in-person ones.
In December, the annual Christmas Party was held on Zoom. The deferred 2020 AGM was held on February 12th 2021, and this went well, although problems with the voting were experienced.
A virtual coffee morning took place on Friday 26th March. Participants joined the Zoom meeting as usual and were then allocated to separate groups which then divided off for a 20-30 minute chat, before resuming as one group again. A second one was held in June.
The End in Sight
From March 2021 the restrictions began to ease. Outdoor hospitality reopened in April.
A particularly symbolic event was the 2nd June 2021 Open Day in the Memorial Gardens, organised by the Trustees to coincide with the National u3a day. This was of particular personal significance to me as it was the first time I was able to meet any other members other than on a Zoom screen, having joined in the February. Many more members came than anticipated. I really enjoyed the singing and the general fun and friendly atmosphere. Lockdown News 6 2021 shows more pictures.
Outdoor groups resumed their normal activities during the summer and indoor groups were being encouraged to restart in September.
The traditional Friday afternoon monthly meetings started up again on 10th September. The first meeting did not feature a speaker as it was expected that members would prefer to socialize with others they may not have seen for many months. It attracted around 130 members. The then annual Groups Open Day took place at the Friary in October.
Although Covid-19 continues to lurk around, in one variant or another, to this day, the autumn 2021 really did mark the end of the restrictions which, in varying forms of severity, had lasted 18-months.
Published: 2 Feb 2026