‘Alone and bedridden’: how four people celebrated their birthdays during lockdown

A birthday party was held for prime minister Boris Johnson with cake and singing in the cabinet room on 19 June 2020, it emerged on Monday, with up to 30 staff present for Johnson’s 56th birthday under lockdown restrictions.

At the time, indoor gatherings were banned and pubs, restaurants and hairdressers remained shuttered. Meet-ups outdoors were capped at six people.

The Metropolitan police announced on Tuesday it would be investigating the string of alleged Downing Street parties, after notification from Sue Gray the senior civil servant leading the inquiry into Downing Street parties.Four people speak about birthday celebrations spent under tight lockdown restrictions.

‘I’m still incandescent with rage’

“I spent the day feeling so upset for her,” said Cathy Grafton about her mother, Kathleen, who turned 96 on 15 May 2020, the day the prime minister was pictured during a wine and cheese garden gathering at Downing Street. After testing positive for Covid in her care home, Kathleen was “alone, in isolation and bed-ridden” on her birthday.

Grafton, who is a retired social worker from Whitstable, said the latest allegations brought all her anger back. “It’s taken me over the edge,” said the 67-year-old. “It’s like I can’t get closure because I keep getting reminded of how people like Boris Johnson were just ignoring the restrictions, when we, the public, were following the rules and making so many sacrifices.

“Mum died in August 2020 and I can only imagine that she was very lonely, sad and depressed. We didn’t get a proper funeral. That’s not the death you want for your mother.”

She feels the prime minister should “pay the ultimate price [of resigning] for his arrogance”. “I’m still incandescent with rage. He should be setting an example to people not walking all over them,” she said. “Some MPs are still defending him and asking why we need to keep talking about all these parties. We need to because they’re the epitome of everything that’s gone wrong.”

‘My son put a lot of work into organising his 12th birthday party’

Gail Head, whose son has a pre-existing health condition, was planning a big party for him on 18 April 2020.

The previous three years, her son’s poor health had prevented a celebration with lots of school friends. But, for his 12th birthday, he was well enough to push the boat out. Fourteen children were invited to a Warhammer store to build, paint, play and eat pizza.

“He was very excited, he’d put a lot of work into organising the party,” Head, 54, of Maidenhead, said. “He’d designed some invites himself” – comic book style – “printed them out on the computer and given them out to his friends.” But the party would never go ahead because of lockdown restrictions.

On the day itself he was at home with his parents. The big party was replaced by a Zoom call with Head’s sister and his grandparents.

There were moments of happiness, but “he was very subdued,” Head said. “We’d made him a lovely cake, and when he was cutting it he was quite upset. It was the first time he’d ever had a birthday cake with just the three of us.”

Johnson’s seeming lack of regret irks Head most. “If it was any other prime minister, you would be so shocked that you wouldn’t be able to speak,” she said. “But the history of lies and obfuscations and apologies that aren’t actually apologies, it actually starts to not shock any more – and that’s worse.”

‘It was a pretty dull birthday for a 17-year-old’

On 7 June 2020, the same month Johnson celebrated his 56th birthday in Downing Street, Debbie Malpas’s son James celebrated his 17th birthday in their damp garden.

“It was a bit miserable, it was grey skies, and then just after we began to eat it started to rain,” Maplas, 53, said. “It certainly didn’t cross our minds to do something inside.”

Malpas and guests ordered pizza, ate chocolate cake with sprinkles and talked under one parasol and two umbrellas. James’s sister sat half in the doorway to avoid getting wet. The event stuck to the rule of six – James’s parents, sister and two friends – the rules for outdoor gatherings at the time.

“It was a pretty dull birthday for a 17-year-old,” Malpas, from Cambridgeshire, said. But given how friends had missed out on all celebrations between March and June, “it felt pretty luxurious to be able to do anything.”

Less than two weeks later, Johnson’s alleged 30-person gathering in the cabinet room was said to have taken place. When Malpas read the news, “you just roll your eyes and go, ‘Oh, it’s just another one,’” she said. “I don’t think it was a surprise, it was just confirmation of what we all guessed was happening.”

‘I remembered, oh, it’s your birthday, then let it slip by’

In the run up to his 50th birthday on 24 April 2020, David Welsh told his wife, Heather Armond, he didn’t want to celebrate amid so much death.

“This is wrong, even in some kind of minimalist way,” he told her. “It feels obscene.” She was reluctant, but agreed – there would be no fancy meal at home, no bottle of wine, not even a card.

“I found myself just disgusted and traumatised by the sheer number of people who were dying,” Welsh said. “The horrific toll that you’d hear in those ghastly press conferences day after day.” At the time, government data shows, the seven-day average was about 800 people dying with Covid a day.

Welsh, who is an executive career coach, spent the day at home in London like any other. “Sitting at my kitchen table working away like everybody else.” He ate his typical lunch of soup, bread and fruit. Then while he was watching that day’s Covid briefing, “I just suddenly remembered to myself, ‘Oh, it’s your birthday,’” Welsh said. “And then I just let it slip by.”

So when news broke of the prime minister’s parties during strict lockdowns, Welsh was angry. “The sheer brazenness of it was surprising,” he said. “And then we found it he was throwing a birthday party a few weeks after mine, it was really insulting. I said to my wife: ‘This is fucking embarrassing.’”