The Lockdown Diaries of the Working Class 

New Self published book by The Working Class Collective

Our Diary - The Mad yellow Book

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In the first weeks of a growing global health crisis, like millions of people around the UK, ethnographer
and working class scholar Lisa Mckenzie found herself sitting at home alone, watching news reports on
the spread of COVID-19. Knowing from long experience that accounts of the pandemic would be certain
to be shaped and filtered by those with power and platforms, Lisa was determined to ensure that working
class people’s stories, voices and experiences would not go unheard.
When she put out a call for working class people in the UK to share their accounts of their daily lives
during the early days of the pandemic, responses came from all over. More than 40 people sent their
diaries to Lisa. Some accounts were traditional diary entries sent by email; others came via social media
status updates, text messages, or written longhand and posted; yet others were sets of images. Fearing
that the emotion and truth of these accounts of working class lives during the pandemic would all too
likely be lost in the editing and publishing process of academic research, Lisa decided to do it herself
instead. With thousands of people backing the book project through crowdfunding, and with the help of a
cooperative of storytellers, artists and allies, Lockdown Diaries of the Working Class was born out of
solidarity, and the conviction that working class people need to be in charge of telling their own stories.
This book, and the wider project, is a labour of love by the diarists, the cooperative, and the artists whose
images brought a rich additional dimension to the contributors’ words and experiences.
None of us really knew, during those first months of 2020, what impact COVID-19 and lockdowns would
have on our communities, families and society. What the accounts in Lockdown Diaries of the Working
Class show is that there was a sense that things can never, and should never be the same again.
Political leaders, celebrities and the self-styled experts in media all came in for acidic criticism; the diary
writers saw no connection between themselves and those who were constantly proclaiming their special
knowledge or important opinions, and throughout the diaries, the anger and lack of trust in our political,
economic and social systems are palpable. These accounts are as diverse as the people who
contributed them: full of humour and pain, loneliness and courage and community solidarity, love and
fear. Whatever official narratives are currently being “curated” in the usual quarters, and whatever is said
in future about working class people in Britain in 2020, this book will stand as testimony to the working
class people who wrote, drew and cared about the importance of telling our own stories.

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Dont die sally

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