March 16th, 2025Recalling Covid … five years on

The Local journalist and delivery driver Tony Sawrey  

Empty roads. Diary of a delivery driver in the times of Covid.  I like driving open roads. I find the activity good for thought. And when the  plague came in 2020 I had plenty of time to enjoy those empty expanses of bitumen.  

When you work for a regional newspaper, the fences separating different roles tend to fall over. When I started at The Local several years before, I was pecking out stories, maybe doing a little photography when needed and eventually I started sharing delivery duties.

Soon it became a regular gig, was better than loading Christmas trees and was a nice opportunity to tour the shire.  

Anyway, I was doing the fortnightly pick-up and deliveries when everything went unusual. Not that much changed in my area of the forest though. Things were  actually quite idyllic, what with the drop in traffic volumes and a total absence of anyone in the bush. Happy days.  

But gradually The Local turned into a vital means of public communication,  especially since many of the other regional newspapers decided to quit or move online.

And suddenly I had become an essential worker and was working harder than I had ever cared to before or since. The mag had gone weekly, I had to produce more  stories and of course the delivery work doubled.  

Out on the freeway heading off to pick up our consignment from the (now  closed) print plant in Ballarat the only vehicles on the road were trucks travelling in  convoy and me. No impatient BMW M3 drivers, lumbering caravans or commuting  tradies bunching up and weaving about.

It was a form of bliss especially to someone like me who likes to drive. It was like the 1970s all over again, me a kid in the back seat staring at the empty tarmac ahead while counting the passing big rigs.  

Every week I would go out, an essential worker as I was, distributing important material for the good of the community. What an unusual position to be in.

From  Daylesford to Trentham, from Clunes to Creswick I would drive, dropping off  bundles at empty supermarkets and general stores. Everything else was shut. No cafés, no tourist info centres, no hotels or eateries.  

And you know what? People were actually glad to see me. How is that?

I shifted from a ghost with a hand trolley, a nothing people stepped around getting their morning coffee to a form of good news walking.  

“Good morning. Is that the paper?” a bemasked elderly person would say. “It is so  nice to have a paper to read.”  

“It is great you are still delivering,” says another. “That other mob gave up.”  

These were typical responses. In times when nothing was particularly normal, all  people could do was wait for things to get better.

The regular appearance of a bundle of nice fresh crinkly Locals in the supermarket basket became more than just a paper.  The Local became almost like.. like a beacon of light, a hope for better days ahead and I, the delivery guy was the messenger.

Above, Tony Sawrey and Logic