England has been operating in a form of lockdown since March 23rd 2020, which has resulted in an awful lot of time spent at home. If you’re anything like me and my girlfriend, you will have also spent a lot of time looking at your decorating choices and wanting to completely change them, from knocking walls down to tidying up the garden. It’s not only the big things that need discussing, it’s also the small things, the details that bring a room together. Accessories do that job beautifully.
Instagram can be a great source of inspiration if you look in the right places. There’s no end of interior accounts offering decorative wisdom, for which I’m eternally grateful. Becoming aware of what I put on my coffee table has not only been incredibly fun, but also allowed me to discover brands that I had never heard of and objects I never knew I needed. Books are a brilliant place to start, as not only will they be the biggest thing on the table, but with so many fantastic stories t
Covid self-isolation support scheme trials in Hackney
Local authorities will pilot alternative accommodation and translation help to further support those who have to self-isolate. Pic: Samuel Ryde.
Hackney is one of nine areas across England to take part in government pilot schemes to test new ways to encourage people to stick to self-isolation rules and get tested for Covid-19.
The government is backing the pilots with £12 million, which will be split between local authorities in nine areas with high infection rates.
The money will be used to provide alternative accommodation for people in overcrowded households, increase social care support and providing ‘buddying’ services for people needing mental health support.
Can you tell us more about how this idea developed?
Samuel Ryde: If I m honest, I think this project has been at the back of mind most of my life. Communication is a primal need and phone boxes are an icon of this. I ve been taking photos of them for years. In fact, my first-ever Instagram post was seven phone boxes in Golder s Green. It wasn t until recently I felt like I was ready to explore the idea further.
What was it about the phone box that struck you as an interesting subject?
Samuel Ryde: They are little confessionals – ever-present, life-saving, and, more often than not, especially when I was a kid, getting smashed to pieces. Every human on earth has a relationship with these, even if you haven t used one. They look so forlorn in recent years. Nobody wants to maintain them, nobody seems bothered to remove them. They have started to signify more than just communication, they reflect the human psyche. Our ability to forget what we once loved but not remove, just ignor