‘I set my alarm for 2am’: Meet the people attending the Covid inquiry every day

• This piece was originally published at the start of December ahead of Boris Johnson's appearance before the Covid inquiry. For all our latest reporting on the inquiry, including on Johnson's evidence, click here.

In the middle of the night, Barbara Herbert’s phone buzzes by her bedside.

“I set my alarm for 2am,” she says, “and wake up thinking: ‘What the hell is that noise?’.”

By 3.30am Herbert, 66, is dressed and ready to leave. Bathed in darkness, she gets in her car and drives to the train station in the steel town of Port Talbot, south Wales. It’s three hours and 11 minutes before the train gets into London. Usually, she’ll read a magazine or answer emails – she tries not to fall back asleep. At around 7.15am, she arrives at Paddington station, picks up a newspaper and heads to her favourite cafe to get breakfast (an omelette).

A few hours later, she will walk to Dorland House, where the Covid inquiry has been taking place for the last six months. She will sit and listen to evidence from scientists, politicians and experts for six hours. When the day is done, she kills some time before she can get the cheap train back to Wales after 7pm. She drives home and falls asleep for a couple of hours until the routine begins again.

“Some days I wonder how I’m still standing,” says Herbert. “But I’m hanging in there.”

Herbert is one of a handful of people who attend the UK Covid inquiry almost every single day. The inquiry, which came about as a result of campaigning from groups like Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice UK, has been hearing evidence since June in a centre in west London, watched over by its chair Heather Hallett.

The first module examined how prepared the UK was, and its second module taking place now looks at political governance. Matt Hancock, Priti Patel, David Cameron, Nicola Sturgeon, George Osborne, Dominic Cummings, Chris Whitty and many more have all faced the inquiry lawyers.

But this week, for the first time, Boris Johnson will give evidence. The inquiry will hope to make sense of a man who, on 23 March 2020, solemnly told the nation: “We will beat the coronavirus and we will beat it together,” but is alleged to have privately said “let the bodies pile high”.

Johnson will spend two days answering questions about his government’s response to the pandemic, which has now taken the lives of more than 223,000 people. Lawyers will quiz him about Partygate, Number 10’s “toxic” culture, about why he called long Covid “bollocks” and why, under his watch, so many people died.

‘It’s making a difference for my family’

Herbert, who is originally from Australia, moved to Wales with her husband, Paul, seven years ago. Her journey to attend the inquiry almost every single day began on 12 March 2020 when Paul fell in their home and broke his leg. A day earlier, the World Health Organisation had declared coronavirus a global pandemic.

“Paul lay on the floor begging me not to call an ambulance because he would catch Covid in hospital and die,” recalls Herbert. “I thought: ‘Oh, don’t be ridiculous’. My next-door neighbour and I couldn’t get him off the floor so I had to call an ambulance. I didn’t have a choice.”

“Six and a half hours later an ambulance appeared and he was admitted to hospital in Wales,” she adds. “That was the start of the nightmare.”

A few days after Paul was admitted, doctors feared he may have Covid so moved him into a ward with other patients who may also have the virus. Tests came back and showed he did not have Covid, which was a huge relief to Herbert. But two weeks later she received a call informing her that Paul had caught Covid in hospital. Five days later he was dead.

The Covid inquiry would begin, officially, almost two and a half years after Paul’s death. It was at a preliminary hearing that Herbert decided she would try to attend almost every day – a decision she recognises as extreme.

“I commuted,” she laughs. “I went home, had three hours sleep, and came back and then went to a meeting at the Houses of Parliament. I seriously think that there’s something wrong with me for doing that.”

“I try to go as much as I can, but obviously there’s the time commitment and the costs are ludicrous for people to travel in,” she adds. “I make a choice to travel on a 4am train because it’s the cheapest train of the day.”

Herbert, who is retired, estimates she has spent over £1,000 so far travelling to the inquiry, though she doesn’t like to think about it too much. The full price for her train one way into London is £116.50 – though she gets it at a discount.

“That’s a choice that I make, the commitment to attend. It’s important somebody does,” she says.

“I would hate to know I hadn’t done everything possible…We’ve got to get this right and if we don’t get this right now, we have not looked after our families and future generations. It’s making a difference for my family, so I keep going.”

And of course, there’s Paul. “I know that Paul would be very pleased that I'm doing it.”

Herbert is not alone in the Covid inquiry’s public viewing room, with its free tea and coffee and black plastic tables and chairs. Sioux Vosper, 58, whose bright blue hair has made her a small Covid inquiry celebrity, has only missed a handful of days since the preliminary hearings began.

Vosper’s dad, John Leigh, caught Covid after he was visited by carers after breaking his hip. He didn’t get Covid, “Covid came to him,” she says. On 16 April 2020, aged 80, he died.

“Obviously I don’t blame anyone – people were asymptomatic. They didn't have PPE,” she says. “He was 80 but my mum is 89 so it does upset me when people say: ‘Oh, well he had a good innings’. It wasn’t my dad’s time.”

In June 2020, Vosper was one of six people who went to Parliament with a 20,000-signature petition demanding an inquiry into the pandemic.

“I knew it wouldn’t bring my dad back, but I knew there was a second wave coming,” Vosper explains. “We needed lessons to be learned very quickly so that before the next wave came, we could not make those mistakes again.”

Then the second wave came.

“People started to join the group [Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice] on the second wave,” Vosper adds. “I just cried and cried. Every person that joined the group, I felt responsible that I hadn’t managed to save their loved one. I’d done everything I possibly could and it was happening again.”

The few days Vosper has missed are mainly down to campaigning commitments for other groups she’s involved in, such as Fuel Poverty Action. But she also missed one day after Matt Hancock’s evidence session in Module 1. The former health secretary tried to approach the bereaved families in the hearing room, much to their anger, and Vosper was so shaken she didn’t attend the next day.

“I suppose it’s part of helping my grieving process. I believe that there should be a bereaved person and if that bereaved person has to be me, then so be it. I think we need the human element in that room.”

Vosper, who travels from Fulham in south-west London, also cares for her disabled son, who needs most support at night. How does she afford to attend?

“With great difficulty to be honest,” she says. “I’m in debt, but never mind. I’m living off my carer allowance. I just eat cheap. I can live off a pretzel or some fruit. It’s quite a strain. But I like helping people.”

Herbert and Vosper are often joined by Larry Byrne, who also comes to the inquiry most days.

Byrne, 63, was a carer for his father, an amputee with whom he shared the exact same name – Lawrence Christopher Byrne. He would take his father, a former railway worker of 43 years, on holidays to visit family in Ireland, as well as to France, Wales, and the west country. They were very close.

“He was a very, very, very easy going man,” says Byrne. “Very quiet. Had had no badness. Very kind-hearted, most considerate. He would give you his last pound if he had to walk home.”

When it became clear Lawrence needed constant care, he was moved into a care home. It’s there that he would become emaciated from Covid, before being moved into a hospital where he later died. Byrne does not believe the care home took care of his father or kept him adequately updated on his condition. It wasn’t until he was moved to Charing Cross Hospital that Byrne knew his father was ill from Covid.

“It was dreadful,” says Byrne. “I could not believe it. It was like he’d been starved to death and I was so so shocked when I saw him. The nurse said to me: ‘Your father does know you’re here,’ and I put a finger between my father’s hand and I said: ‘Dad, it’s me,’ and he squeezed my finger.”

“He knew I was there,” adds Byrne. “But I was in such shock.”

On 20 April 2020, at 4am, Byrne received a phone call telling him his father had died.

“I never imagined I wouldn’t be able to see my father again. Nothing in my life has affected me so badly as what I’ve had to go through with this.”

Byrne travels from Windsor to London almost every day, waking up at 4am to secure a cheap parking spot, and spending around £50 to £60 a day just to attend the inquiry.

“If I have to walk there, I will walk. It’s a sacrifice [but] I have to.”

He goes, he tells me, to feel less alone.

“When I see all the other people that are there, it gives me a bit of strength,” says Byrne. “To see I’m not on my own here.”

The inquiry is no easy listen even if you haven’t lost a loved one to Covid. openDemocracy has reported on every day of the inquiry, and it’s clear to anyone there that to sit through it is no easy feat.

So far, those watching have had to endure Hancock denying accusations from multiple people that he as health secretary repeatedly lied about having a plan to deal with Covid. They’ve had to hear how scientists were not consulted on Eat Out to Help Out, the equality minister’s dismissive attitude towards helping people of colour, and witness the childish and toxic spats between senior aides – which all took place while their loved ones were dying in hospital.

At the end of the day, Vosper, Byrne and Herbert will often decompress together, sometimes over a Jameson and Ginger, which Byrne has introduced to the other two.

“We have a laugh if we can,” Herbert says. “It's not always a laughing matter when you’re listening to some of that testimony. Some days I get cranky, other days I just sit there and think: ‘Here we go again’.”

It’s fair to say their commitment to the inquiry has prompted both confusion and concern from loved ones.

“Even my own family are very much like: ‘Shouldn’t you put that to bed now? Shouldn't you be over it?’,” Vosper says. “I mean, everyone grieves differently. A Covid death is very different.

“People are worried about me. People are concerned that I go every day, but I know everybody there – they’re kind of like family. Even the people who work for the inquiry are like my family, they do look out for me.”

Partygate

This week will be a particularly challenging watch for the bereaved. Many still feel rage over the Partygate scandal – revelations that Boris Johnson, senior ministers, political aides and civil servants were found to have broken restrictions at the height of the pandemic by holding gatherings in Whitehall. Johnson, Sunak, and others were fined and Johnson was eventually found to have been in contempt of Parliament when he claimed “all guidance was followed completely in No.10.”

“My dad died on 16 April 2020,” says Vosper. “My sister couldn’t come over. A year later, 16 April 2021, was when a suitcase [full of wine] was being wheeled across parliament for one of the parties.”

“I was in Brighton scattering my dad’s ashes by myself and my sister was still in Australia. She couldn’t come over. That was a huge punch in the stomach. It was like walking over my dad’s grave.”

Herbert has a sense of what’s to come, after reading Johnson’s witness statement. She cannot legally share its contents, but she knows what to expect

“I have never seen so much gaslighting in my entire life,” she says. “It was all fairy tales, just seriously fairy tales. I stopped reading because I thought: ‘What’s the point of trying to read any further?’. It'll be interesting to see how that pans out over the course of the inquiry.”

At times like this, those united in grief find solace in the community around the inquiry. The Covid-19 Bereaved Families for Justice group now has around 7,000 members, including Herbert, Sioux and Byrne. It has helped keep them from the darkest parts of their loneliness and loss.

“I was very lucky,” Herbert says. “It has focused me away from that worst part of the grief and I contact members on a regular basis.”

She pauses, then adds: “On a personal note, if I had not found the group, it probably wouldn’t have been a good outcome for me.”

The inquiry will continue until at least 2025, with its first interim report set to be released next summer. It will be years before we see any legislative impact from the inquiry, and years before the evidence sessions end. Will they all keep attending?

“Without a shadow of a doubt, while I’ve got my strength I will,” Byrne states. “The government hasn’t been honest with us. If I’m fighting to the bitter end with the rest of the group, I will go. If it’s another five years, if I’m able to, I will go.”

openDemocracy is fundraising to pay reporters to cover every day of the public hearings. Please support us by donating here.