…was the father. After he’d been widowed, he was all alone in what used to be the family home.

At first, he took himself to the gym daily, went shopping, pottered in his garden and chatted to the neighbours. But once the pandemic hit, all that fell away- and as he sat in his chair by the window, looking out onto an empty street, his muscles began to wither and so did his mind.

His story is not uncommon, pandemic or no. Our country is full of lonely, isolated people. Each one fiercely and sentimentally guarding the capital and possessions that they have slaved all their lives to accumulate. Yet in the end these objects just amount to a sad call to the charity shop, just add to the mountain of consumer waste that our little planet can no longer accommodate.

This can’t be all there is to look forward to, right? There has to be another way.

And there is, of course.

Many traditional societies- of humans, animals and plants -thrive on connection, not accumulation.

So how do we, now, undo where we’re at, change direction, change focus? How do we resist the atomising of our lives? How do I make sure that I’m not sitting at the window gazing out on empty asphalt twenty years from now? How do I lift the burden of accumulated goods and chattels from my children and grandchildren?

Well, for me, that’s where this story began…