No two days are really the same
By Aideen O'Flaherty
LIKE many cities all over the world, the streets of central London, which are usually thronged with workers and tourists as buses and tubes ferry people in and out of the city in their millions, have been left eerily quiet as a result of the lockdown measures that have been put in place to tackle the coronavirus.
Firhouse man Niall Jackson is one of the few people who are allowed to venture into central London during the lockdown, as he is an essential worker who works as a floor manager for the BBC.
Niall Jackson working as a floor manager in the BBC
Niall works across a variety of the BBC’s output, including Newsnight, BBC News and the Victoria Derbyshire show, and has seen first-hand, both his commute into the centre of London and his work in the BBC, how quickly things have changed in recent weeks.
“When I cycle into work, I’m one of the few people in central London,” Niall, who also writes and records music under the name Swimmers Jackson, told The Echo. “There’s nobody on the bridges, there are no boats going down the Thames.
“For about a month now, it’s been like a ghost town.”
The past pupil of Firhouse Community College’s work environment has also changed, as the BBC is now operating with a skeleton staff as fewer studios are being used, and the number of guests who appear in studio for recordings has markedly decreased.
“I’m used to working with stress, because of deadlines and being in a live studio environment,” he explained.
“The presenters are being really good, they’re doing their own hair and make-up and the scripts are being sent to and printed out from their printers, so there’s very little interaction.
Niall Jackson working as a floor manager in the BBC
“We have to keep the set really clean and disinfect it between presenters, and we also have to clean down our floor manager stations.
“We’ve gone from having studios with huge crews, to being slimmed down fast. To the BBC’s credit, they have hand sanitisers outside every space. We have the busiest newsroom in Europe and now we’re operating it with 50 staff.”
Having spent the past three years working at the BBC, with experience working for Sky News and TV3 before his current role, Niall is used to what an ever-changing news cycle brings.
“Now we have a pandemic, but before that it was Brexit, and before that it was terrorist attacks,” he said. “No two days are really the same.”
Niall Jackson
While the uncertainty around everything is unnerving, Niall is taking each day as it comes.
“Myself and my fiancée don’t know when we’ll be able to get back to Ireland to see our families.
“I was supposed to be going on tour and getting married this summer, so it’s tinged with sadness,” he said.
“We just have to get used to living at a slower pace, and taking it day-by-day.”
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