Inside the coffee table book chronicling life during Melbourne’s COVID-19 lockdown

While some people baked sourdough, made pottery or planted veggies, neighbours Jude van Daalen and Belinda Jackson produced a book together during Melbourne’s long lockdown.

Together Apart: Life in Lockdown is a beautiful snapshot of how people reacted in those crazy times last year when the world changed forever. The black-and-white coffee table book chronicles how ordinary Melburnians coped and the extraordinary things we did to survive.

As well as publishing the book, the pair and their families have become close friends. In fact, there’s now a step ladder on either side of their back fence so children – and parents – can hop over any time.

“We worked surprisingly well together because we barely knew each other before we started,” van Daalen says.

When the first lockdown was announced, portrait photographer Jude had to close her studio. Then she heard about some children who had taken out 72 books from the library. Next a friend of hers opened an online yoga studio in her garage.

“I realised people were doing strange things and I needed to capture this.”

Van Daalen collected stories and took photos from a distance. After a chat over the back fence, Jackson – a travel journalist who couldn’t travel – offered to edit the words.  Finally the pair decided to turn the project into a heart-warming book that contains 60 portraits of people in their neighbourhood, ranging from families separated by border closures to children rediscovering the magic of rainbows to health workers under stress.

“We had no idea it was going to be such an all-consuming job – we really put our lives on hold to get it done,” Jackson says.

The pair got to know their local community in the western suburbs. With the launch, the publicity and their book in shop windows, they are now recognised regularly. The response has been overwhelmingly positive, they say.

The personal stories in the book are moving. One subject, Maryanne, talks about the emotional fallout from the restrictions, her children not being able to visit friends and the five-kilometre limit. “It’s the ‘corona coaster’! One day, you’re feeling really good, the next day, you’re clinging to a bottle of wine and rocking in the corner.”

Another, Jo, struggles with not being able to visit elderly parents, and watching interstate friends whose lives seem to have been barely affected. “You’ve got no idea. Even our beach is closed.”

In another entry, titled Bookworms, Sarah explains how her kids miss friends, school and exploring places. “The only adventures my kids can go on are those in the pages of the many, many books they read, including these 72 books.”

Despite a lack of family support, Grace gives birth to her fourth child. “I ended up having a beautiful water birth, bringing a strong new boy into the world amidst this pandemic,” she says. “Storms don’t last forever.”

But the experience took a toll on the authors too. A single parent, van Daalen’s children have lost their enthusiasm for school.

“I felt guilty because I was photographing all of these stories, leaving my children here while others were all at home baking cookies,” she says.  “I thought, ‘Oh my god, I’m a bad mum’.”

Jackson, whose husband is a doctor, had to deal with the loss of her work, her husband’s stressful workload and her daughter’s loneliness.

But she was amazed by the different ways people coped, how neighbours supported each other and the pioneering efforts of her local IGA, the first supermarket to introduce special shopping times for the elderly.

“When I moved here from the Netherlands, something big for me was that people are very community minded,” van Daalen says. “It got even stronger during lockdown and people were really looking after each other.”

Together Apart: Life in Lockdown by Jude van Daalen and Belinda Jackson, $79, available from lockdownstories.com.au