Fatima Shafiq, one of volunteer gardeners, shares her story of moving to Bradford as the Coronavirus pandemic hit the country, and how Bolling Hall and its garden provided a much needed distraction and sanctuary for herself and her young daughter. Read on, and discover some of her gorgeous photographs of the garden, as well as photos of her in action as a volunteer gardener!

From climbing trees to rescuing strays, I have always felt close to nature and people. As a child, and even now, I have been painting and sketching, abstract designs blossoming into mysterious life forms – flowers with wings, cats with petals – came naturally to me.

Home isn’t where you’re from; it’s where you find light when all grows dark”
– Pierce Brown.

I grew up in Pakistan and spent most of my life there. I come from a close-knit family and several times a year, we would have family gatherings with all my relatives, on both sides of our extended family. It is a Pakistani thing; we love festivities, only needing the slightest of reasons for a get together.

I moved to Bradford in February 2020 along with my little daughter to join my husband. As luck would have it, we landed straight in the midst of a global pandemic scare beginning to sweep the world.

I found myself grappling with dread in an environment without the family support I was used to. Uncertain about coping in a foreign land that I knew nothing of, we were immediately forced into isolation upon our arrival. As the fear and anxiety around the spread of the pandemic mounted, I spent my days and weeks glued to the screen watching the devastating news. I missed my family as a  constant nerve-wrecking anxiety ridden isolation took a toll on me. I wanted nothing more but to be back in the protective fold of my caring family. Any chance of going back to be with them diminished as country after country imposed travel restrictions amidst wide-spread lockdowns. As the pandemic spread and countries grappled to check it virulent spread, the entire world literally came to a standstill. As I struggled to adjust with this unforeseen turn of events, it was the physical and mental health of my daughter that concerned me most.

 I noticed a huge change in her eating and sleeping patterns, loss of appetite and mood swings  as she grew increasingly sullen and difficult to handle. Like me, she was also missing her grandparents. Though my husband was also home-bound, my daughter was more attached to me and entirely dependent on me for her physical and mental wellbeing. Confined to home and without the company of children of her own age, I became her companion. I had to find ways and means to reassure her that I was there for her and that we would get through this together. That is when I decided to unhook the tv and turn away from the screen, with its non-stop coverage of the deadly scourge. One day, I decided to take her out. I packed a small picnic basket for the two of us and stepped out into an empty world, with its eerie silence, completely unnerving and new to me and my daughter who was used to having people around her,  mingling and playing free of fear and worry, as all children should. Feeling anxious about the new setting and a stressful new environment in the wake of the pandemic, our walk was both an exercise in freedom and fear. This first adventure was a turning point, and in time we turned over a new leaf to come to terms with our fears in a land far away from home. We roamed the empty streets around our neighbourhood, as a way of dealing with our anxieties and it was then that that the bond with my daughter grew stronger. More than daughter and mother, we became each other’s pillers of strength.

During one of these walks, we stumbled upon a beautiful tall building in our neighbourhood. It was closed as all public buildings were back then through the extended lockdowns. My daughter exclaimed in joy ‘Look Mama, there is a castle’. The smile on her face was priceless and it made me forget about all my worries. There in the street, we pretended to be in a fabled kingdom, new to us but rich with possibilities. She pretended to be a princess of the castle while I the queen.

The Bolling Hall Museum became our little sanctuary and a place that made me realize that even in the middle of a nerve-shattering reality, even in the unknowingness, even among all the questions, even without any answers — we were still growing into new possibilities, becoming familiar to a new country and finding our stories and dreams, indeed a new life, in its streets.