You Never Asked

''My dad never asked for the role you gave him in your play.

He knew of you. A humorous straight talker, he described you as someone 'who runs with the hare and hunts with the hounds'. Nineteen months ago you spoke directly to him. You asked my father to 'enlist' for the good of the Nation to save lives. You hit a nerve. You see, he was proud of his father who came over from Ireland to fight in the British army and as his son he looked up to him. You had his attention. You made it clear that you cared about him, his health and his life. Your order to him was to 'lock down' and not leave his home again until you said he could. He was isolated by you, left with the TV as his daily companion.

You continued to make your demands known all day, every day. My dad is an avid watcher of the news and sport. He was left with just one of those outlets. Every day your message boomed out of his television screen, on repeat and relentless. Slowly over the coming weeks your message seeped into the cracks of a mind already assaulted by Alzheimers. His mind, like a photograph album, contained so many memories, some of the past photos crystal clear, but embellished with hopes and dreams he had never realised; others sepia in colour and harder to grasp, eventually leaving an empty space where they once had told a story and those of his present, no longer held on to and recorded.

You took his life lines and severed them - his connections with those in his local coffee shop, people and staff who would give him the time of day, listen to his stories, keep his memories alive, set the world to rights with him and make him feel valued. His daily walk of 50 yards that made him feel able, and defied the voice that said 'you're getting old and your mind is failing you'. It gave him an independent purpose, a reason to get up in the morning and have somewhere to go, where he was welcomed in and acknowledged. Occasionally he 'escaped'. I would sometimes find him, bewildered and confused, as he had found his usual haunts closed, the streets empty of those he usually said hello to, who passed the time of day with him, or helped him across the road.

One person who is guaranteed to light up my dad's world is his granddaughter. We visited him daily, stood outside his window at distance and repeated why we couldn't come in as he tried to make sense of our words. Our conversation, on loop, would go like this:

Me: "A virus, Dad, that if you were to get it, could kill you because you are high risk, we are told."

Dad would frown, remembering the role you had given him, but firm in his familial role as her grandfather and what that was for him.

''Don't you worry about that, come on in."

Me, struggling to explain: ''She could have it and give it to you."

Dad, with anxious worry: "Is she ill?"

"No," I would say, and he would laugh with relief and say,"then I'll be grand. Bring her in for that hug."

You see, his granddaughter's visits held so much more than could ever be given through a window at distance. The minute she was through the door she would call his name, not with a pronunciation many would understand, but one that he recognised instantly as her name for him. She would climb into bed next to him, or up beside him on the sofa and give him unconditional hugs like no other. My daughter is non-verbal and yet together they sing, laugh and converse with an understanding only they share; she plays his harmonica and dances, lighting up his face as he sees in her those gifts he once excelled at; she brushes his hair with his clothes brush, as he giggles and never voices that 'gentle' is not how it feels; she feeds him, as he smiles up at me, because he can feed himself, but she gets so much pleasure from being able to do it, and with a wisdom that Alzheimers has not stolen, he knows this. He would have done what was asked of him indefinitely because the only way to make sense of your demands was to believe that he was keeping her safe. To see this in the reverse would be a request that totally contradicts a role he treasures and understands as her grandfather.

Time passed, and that still-silent voice in my head grew louder. It had been there from the very first handful of speeches you all gave, as you introduced a 'new' way of living under the mask of public health and civic responsibility. Your performances were very well rehearsed and at first I took you at face value; but as your patterns of behaviour and your personal characteristics began to reveal themselves, I recognised you.

I saw behind your mask, as with an unsettling realisation I drew on my past experiences to understand you and get clarity of thought. Taking back ownership of my family's little but significantly important life I started to research, listen and learn from those with expertise in the fields of virology, medicine, law, science, epidemiology, economics, vaccinology, pathology, politics and history - because you see, I had learnt in my personal life that the only way to de-weaponize Narcopaths is to understand them better than they understand themselves.

You have revealed yourselves in a myriad of ways, but let me talk you through some of the more obvious that are clear to me, now I understand and can see your 'true self'. You turned your attention very early on to our carers, and boy did you do a charm offensive. You placed them on a pedestal, which only time has shown was constructed of lies and calculated intent, as was clearly shown when you 'rewarded' all their frontline efforts with an insulting 1% pay rise which with inflation becomes a pay cut. Having devalued them, you then set about the next step of your abuse cycle and mandated vaccines, so that thousands now find themselves discarded and out of work.

You tell us we have reason to be afraid of a virus that has an average mortality similar to the 'flu at around 0.15% globally. You said that you would make us safe if we just locked down. The result was 70,000+ excess home deaths, only 12% of which are Covid related, and referral to mental health services have increased by 93%.

You told us the vaccine was for adults only, and yet you are now vaccinating children, whose risk from Covid is negligible, with experimental vaccines for emergency use only and for which we have no long term data. You hold over us the threat of vaccine passports and yet the vaccinated can still get and transmit Covid, so these passports obviously have no value. These insidious, continuous and deliberate acts of gaslighting that you are subjecting each and every one of us to are extensive because this characteristic lies at the core of your actions, strategies and behaviours.

You have manipulated our freedoms throughout in many ways. You have previously mandated the use of PCR tests, demanding full and total control over our wellbeing and freedom of movement, and yet they are not designed to diagnose infectiousness or illness, they merely detect SARS-CoV-2 genetic material, dead or alive. You have isolated us from family, friends and our support networks by ordering us to stay home, and you have made us wear masks to show our submission, even though data has clearly shown they are totally ineffective in reducing viral spread. You humiliate, intimidate, reprimand, threaten and verbally abuse any of us who question you, or disagree with your opinions, or go against your demands. Your coercive control knows no bounds or boundaries and you do all this without shame, remorse or empathy.

You have referred to us as 'blinkered' and yet your lens is narrowly framed to see only your own agenda. You call us 'dangerous' and say we are in need of punishment if we do not comply with your senseless demands, but we are not the ones taking away another's human rights without compassion. You call us 'reckless' and 'careless', even though it is you who chooses to vaccinate 12-15 year olds while putting aside morals, ethics and science.

Be certain, your descriptions of us reveals so much more about you, as you project your own faults and behaviour on to us, refusing to take responsibility or accountability for your venality.

You have silenced knowledge acquired over decades within relevant fields of expertise, spread misinformation, and smeared the character and reputation of anyone who has the courage to speak out - all in order to control your self-serving narrative, based on pathological lies and fraudulent information.

You have used human weapons against us by recruiting those in mainstream media and buying scientists and celebrities to enable and support your abuse and do your bidding.

Your pathology drives you and every one of your actions. We are cast as mere players in your self-serving production, there to provide you with the oxygen that you thrive on. Your psychological, emotional, physical, financial and intellectual abuse has been and continues to be life changing for us and far reaching.

Each of us has our individual stories to tell. From my dad you took, without asking, hundreds more memories. You took his mobility. He no longer asks to go out, his fresh clothes lying beside his bed remain unworn. You took his final farewell to his brother as he lay dying in hospital from cancer.

I will leave the final words to my dad. You turned your malign focus on to his grandchild, when with entitlement and exploitation you called her up for vaccination. I asked my dad's advice on whether we should vaccinate her. I watched as his frown deepened, his mind working hard to draw on the information imparted over the last 19 months. The importance of my request resulted in a moment of lucidity as, in staggered sentences, he falteringly stated, "In trial isn't it? Emergency use for the vulnerable... no one knows its effects... the possibility she has had it surely important?' For a few moments he showed himself as the father I remember, untouched by Alzheimers, wise, canny, perceptive and supportive, and he said, "If it is ok to say, I don't think so love. No. She doesn't need it, they don't know her or her health. It doesn't make any sense."

Then his articulacy left him. He turned to his granddaughter and smiled, wrapping protective arms around her.

Let me introduce you to love, compassion, empathy: the essence of my dad that you have not been able to touch, as you would never understand or recognise it, but which compelled him to speak up loud and clear when you had her in your sights.''

For those whose voices have not been heard, we are listening, Natalie.