A Blue Plaque that meant a lot

I was privileged in 2021 to play a very small part in a very big effort: the COVID-19 mass vaccination programme. My wife played a very signifiant part in the effort in Ipswich and I was proud to be able to make a contribution. She and I agree it was one of the best things we've ever done. I blogged about it during and afterwards.

A round blue plauqe with the words: COVID Pandemic. Trinity Park Vaccination Centre. This plaque is here to commemorate and remember all the staff who played their part in fighting Covod-19. An NHS logo and rainbow is at hte bottom

Many of the people involved, especially the clinical staff, were properly paid for their efforts. Along with thousands of others around the country, I volunteered.

Inevitably, when it was all over, there was a thank you party and barbecue at the main vaccination centre for Ipswich, Trinity Park (social distancing was behind us by then). Everyone involved was touched that the organisers arranged for a commemorative plaque to be erected, marking the fact that so many people received their two doses of vaccine, a vaccine that ended a pandemic. A vaccine that allowed normal life to resume. A vaccine that saved countless lives.

We forget the figures. Tens of thousands of people died from COVD-19 in the UK alone. Worlwide, estimates put the total deaths at nearly 15 million in 2020-2021.

So where is it? It's gone.

the blank wall where the plaque used to be. Just to the left is the nameplate for the building itself that says: Trinity Park Conference and Events Centre. Opened by HRH The Duke of Gloucester KG GCVO on 31st May 2006

I noticed it the other day when I went to Trinity Park to give blood and there's just a bit of dirt and the remaining fixings.

Initial attempts to find out what's happened to it have come to nought. Was it removed by the owners of Trinity Park? (the Suffolk Agricultural Association) If so, why?

The suspicion is, unforunately much more sinister. Thanks to a growing trend for misinformation and a bizarre hatred of evidence among sections of society, it might have been removed by "anti-vaxxers". People persuaded by charlatans, struck-off ex-doctors and people known for their performative ignorance that somehow "science" is not to be trusted, that facts and opinions are of equal value.

I despair.

Update

Through various contacts, I was able to get this blog post noticed by local media. The story was covered in the Ipswich Star (££) and its stablemate, the East Anglian Daily Times. Today (22 October), I recorded an interview with BBC Radio Suffolk. Both the paper and the BBC contacted the Suffolk Agricultural Association for comment of course. Just before the story was to go live on the BBC News website, the SAA wrote to the BBC to say that it had been taken down for repair. Apparently the fixings had become damaged so it had to be removed but they would be restoring it very soon.

That's obviously very good news and everyone concerned will be pleased to hear this.

Whether such restoration would have happened without the press getting involved, one can only speculate. But that's by the by. It's being done. A sincere thank you to the SAA and to the friends and journalists involved here. Yes, it's just a plaque that, let's be honest, few people would even notice, but it means a lot to a lot of people.

All that's left to do now is to check back in a little while to see it in place once more. I look forward to posting a picture of it here then.