Once more unto the breach dear friends –

Cry God for Shakespeare, Hospices and St. George !

We’re in a war, this time not against the French or any human enemy, but against a microscopic scrap of protein virus that has brought our world to a terrifying brink, beyond which we can’t see.

23 April, St. George’s Day, is the day that we traditionally celebrate Shakespeare’s birthday, and Stratford-upon-Avon launches its weekend of celebrations, with the Birthday procession, the floral tributes decorating Shakespeare's grave and the whole sanctuary in the chancel at Holy Trinity, an extravagant birthday lunch, with speechifying, toasts, and the presentation of the Pragnell award to a worthy theatre practitioner or academic– in 2020 intended for Juliet Stevenson. The Mayor’s Breakfast on Sunday precedes the procession of town worthies and honoured guests to the Shakespeare Sunday Service at Holy Trinity with a celebratory sermon, this year recorded by Greg Doran, Artistic Director of the Royal Shakespeare Company, for inclusion in a virtual service, streamed from outside Holy Trinity– the Church of England has decreed that all its church buildings should remain closed, except for security or vital maintenance purposes – not even a solitary, symbolic, token tribute is permitted on the grave.

The town remained silent throughout this 2020 Birthday Weekend, the streets deserted, the hotels, b&bs and restaurants shut up, and all the planned events cancelled, like so much else across our nation and the world – no crowds witnessing the floral procession, no wearing and strewing of the route with rosemary for remembrance, no Stratford welcome for international tourists, visiting ambassadors or celebrities, no town alive with all manner of Birthday mania. Nothing.

This eerie emptiness must have prevailed during the 1564 Stratford plague epidemic into which Shakespeare was born, and he would have been no stranger to the epidemics from which he fled for survival as a London player and playwright. As with his contemporaries, death and grief were constant presences throughout his life and in his dramas alike – ‘Grief fills the room up of my absent child’.

It is fitting, therefore that the Shakespeare Hospice in Shottery bears his name, but it is only one sad casualty of this present Covid-19, crisis among our many hospices nationally, both in being extremely vulnerable to the infection and in the loss of fundraising capacity.

This is where we can turn the cancellation of the 2020 Birthday celebrations to vital service on behalf of the Hospice movement, and make this year a memorable one in Shakespeare Birthday history; otherwise, despite valiant social media efforts by the RSC, the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust and Holy Trinity Church, among others, to commemorate the entry into the world of Stratford’s most famous son, in 2020 it risks becoming a footnote ‘of modest stillness and humility’.

We mustn’t let that happen in this hour of national crisis, so this is a call to arms, issued once again, despite the weekend's being over, to make this year a truly extraordinary celebration of which we can all be proud.

In the current Covid-19 emergency, the nation’s hospices, including our own Shakespeare Hospice in Shottery, are in urgent need of funding for PPE and all other aspects of their vital, compassionate work. Unlike the NHS and Care Homes, the majority receive only a third of their funding from the State, childrens’ hospices even less, and like every other NHS and social care facility, they need our help more than ever before.

The 2020 Shakespeare Birthday Celebrations Covid-19 Hospice Appeal was therefore launched last week to support the Hospice UK Covid-19 Crisis Appeal. Please give generously, and spread the word in your community and on social media. It's still very much active to receive donations.