The Covid crafters - the craftspeople of Thanet making PPE

the covid crafters

Writer Eleanor Marriott

A pressing concern at the height of the Covid-19 crisis was the lack of PPE for frontline workers. Thanet’s sewing and crafting folk came to the rescue, discovering new talents and even winning an award along the way

The prize for best-named group goes to the Margate Scrubbers. It was created by Carole Dalton, principally to supply scrubs to Margate’s QEQM hospital staff. Her Facebook group attracted nearly 400 members, aged between 13 and 73, who have produced over 650 professional standard scrubs between them. Carole is incredibly proud of the hardworking band of scrubbers. “One GP declared he wouldn’t go back to wearing government-issue scrubs while he had a set of ours,” Carole recalls.

Another item in huge demand

The volunteers making visors at Chatham and Clarendon Grammar School, Ramsgate

has been face masks, particularly for carers and key workers. With disposable masks an even rarer species than hand sanitiser, Paula Erol decided instead to make fabric ones. An early indicator of the scale of demand came with her first order: 1,000 masks for a care agency. Undaunted, Paula and five friends set to work. She also set up the Thanet Face Masks Facebook group, which grew to 350 members; and a GoFundMe page, to help pay for materials.

The end result was over 10,000 masks distributed to 33 care homes, as well as to ambulances, pharmacies, and frontline local charities. The feedback was moving. “We feel so much safer now” and “we can’t tell you what this means to us” were common messages. The group were just happy to do something useful. “It made us feel less helpless when we watched the news,” says Paula.

Sometimes it’s the small things that make a difference. Sewers around Thanet made sets of palmsized fabric hearts to hold for both Covid-19 patients in hospital and their families, unable to visit, at home, bringing comfort and connection during those most painful of separations. ►

Scrubbing up: dressing QEQM's NHS staff. Photo by Leanne Medley

▼▲ Hospital and care home staff selfies Colourful hearts by Jo Bassett at Heart Felt. Photo by Eleanor Marriott

The crafty members of Westgateon-Sea Community Spirit Facebook group not only made 200 surgical gowns for the local Covid-19 testing centre, but also 2,400 scrub bags for NHS staff. These bags helped to protect the families of those on the frontline. The health workers would place their potentially contaminated scrubs into the bag before heading home, and then pop everything in the wash.

The final missing piece in the PPE set was protective visors. Tom Brewin, head of design and technology at Chatham and Clarendon school in Ramsgate, reckoned his department could help. A visor production line was set up, in socially distanced classrooms within the school, and later also in local fire stations. Eighty were made on the first day. They used the old school production method of guillotines and plastic line-benders (as the 3D printers were too slow). The masks were strong, pliable, and eco-friendly, made from recycled plastic. They could also be cleaned and reused - many a nurse wrote their name on their visor and made it their own.

Once word got out, around 150 people were on board. “The head teacher was making them every day, as was our head pupil, and whole families came in to assist,” says Tom. This collective effort produced up to 3,600 a day, and over 30,000 in total, for a range of places including hospitals, care homes, ambulance stations and hospices. Some visors helped to meet national demand, with Tom personally delivering them to prisons in Devon and Cornwall.

School governor Kate Gardner raised a whopping £16,460 for the scheme through GoFundMe, and a local firm donated materials. Such was the scheme’s overall success that it attracted media interest. Most significantly, it topped a national poll to be named “DIY Project of the Lockdown” by the Daily Telegraph.

But whether volunteers were making visors, masks, hearts or scrubs, it seems unlikely anyone was in it for the recognition, instead they were simply using their skills to meet a need. “It just goes to show that we can still do this!” declares Carole. During a time when our fortitude has been tested to a level not seen since WWII, hundreds of Thanetians rolled up their sleeves, dusted off their tools and demonstrated just what we’re capable of. And for that, the love and gratitude has been immense.

▼▲ Thanet ambulance staff selfies