Cycling UK Forum

Annemarie Plas' initiative might have worked OK last time, back when it was warmer and lighter at 8pm, but now it just feels rather patronising at best and at worst, a display of thoroughly nauseating disengenous paper-thin public relations. What these people want, I suspect, is full staffing levels, a guaranteed supply of effective ppe, decent wages, patient numbers slowing to a trickle, on account of an effective & well-run vaccination campaign and lastly, a bloody good rest. No amount of hand-clapping is going to substitute for that lot.

From the beginning I thought it was cringeworthy and akin to something David Brent would think up.

peetee wrote:From the beginning I thought it was cringeworthy and akin to something David Brent would think up.

+1 .... no and no ...

landsurfer wrote:

peetee wrote:From the beginning I thought it was cringeworthy and akin to something David Brent would think up.

+1 .... no and no ...

+2

reohn2 wrote:+2

+3
I think that after the first week or so it became just embarrassing for the recipients.

I did a couple of times the first time round, and going out and hearing the sound of clapping from unseen neighbours all around the village was moving. It was a community coming together, expressing what we, together, think is important. Doing my own key worker job I had a few people clap as I did my job, for which I thanked them, but at the same time I found it embarrassing and was glad to get away. Yesterday I was suffering from a bit of a cold (just a cold, nothing more) so I didn't go out, but my wife and daughter did.

We personally know several hospital workers of various sorts and they have been working their socks off since March. My son is also a student nurse and a grumpy bloke we know made a point of walking over to him to tell him that NHS staff are paid to do a job and aren't heroes or anything special. That was his response to the start of the clapping thing last year. My son, at the time, was looking after covid patients unpaid, a part of his training.

Neither then nor now.

One thing that has troubled me about it is when you see all those people outside clapping all I can think is that a significant proportion of those clappers only recently voted for a party with a long term track record of NHS cuts, resource cuts, pay freeze/cuts, etc. for the very group they are now clapping for. I'd feel far happier giving those being recognised and clapped a pay rise or maybe some PPE to protect them in their work helping us, or enough staff to do the job (without long term ludicrous hours, fatigue), etc. Then when politicians who make those pay cuts, resource restrictions and cuts, etc. start clapping all I can see is hypocrisy.

Ian

At 8pm the shift at the Care Home where my wife was adjacent to my house finished and the staff walked past whilst we all clapped. They really appreciated it.

My wife worked as an NHS nurse all her life, We deeply appreciated the Care the staff in the home gave and I was pleased that our appreciation gave them a boost.

I agree that NHS nursing staff are underpaid whilst in my opinion senior doctors and managers are overpaid.

Whatever, I was pleased to be able to show all the folk in the NHS and other services my appeciation.

Al

Your not clapping for the NHS ... your clapping for the NCS ...

I think the need to clap is partly down to the fact that at this time of global emergency, all that most people can do to help is to do nothing, to stay indoors and watch the telly. While that is going on there are other people out there in the thick of it, struggling in dire circumstances. Clapping and other expressions of appreciation are a way of connecting. On the admittedly few occasions I clapped, I thought of the care home staff I knew who spent weeks living in the care home, sleeping in corridors rather than going home at the end of the shift, because they were afraid of bringing the virus into the care home. They never heard me clap for them, but I did it anyway.

When you see a crowd of people in close proximity to each other but clapping you wonder if they have a clue.

As an NHS worker

No and no.

First time round, the clincher for me was seeing Boris Johnson out clapping. A mixture of nerve and opportunism. IMO.

Loved the reports of <FFE> turning up for a photo opportunity at a GP's to see the vaccine rolled out and non was available .... The sound of one hand clapping could be heard around the country ...

The first time round I didn’t want to be the only person in the street not clapping but this time I didn’t want to be the only person who was clapping.