Ian McMillan: What it was like to take a Covid-19 test in a Yorkshire car park

So the other week my wife and I went for a Covid-19 test, simply because somebody we knew had got it and we wanted to make sure we were ok. To start with, I thought we’d send off for a couple of kits and get it done at home but then the writer in me said I should go and experience it.

I went online and booked a test for that afternoon in a car park in Barnsley. I asked somebody who’d had it done what it was like and he said it was “unpleasant but not painful”, which is a bit like when a doctor says “this might be a little uncomfortable” and you know it’s going to hurt like flipping heck.

It was during that very hot spell we had and when thousands of other people were stupidly flocking to beaches to spread the disease further we were driving to a car park with the windows up. The scene was odd, almost dystopian. The car park was almost empty and there were just two cars ahead of us in the queue. Under a marquee, two soldiers in camouflage waited and when it was our turn they beckoned us in.

A soldier, a woman in a mask and with her hair tied back, held up a piece of laminated paper with a number on it that I had to ring. This was the oddest part of the whole process in a way, ringing a person who was standing just a couple of yards away. I rang and she answered.

We exchanged pleasantries, weirdly, about the weather. Then she held up two testing kits and told us what to do, and then we had to wind the back window down and she dropped them in the car.

We then drove to an even more deserted part of the deserted car park and did the tests, which involved (there’s no delicate way to say this) sticking a swab into your throat so that you could tickle your tonsils and then sticking the same swab up your nose.

It felt like a very odd thing to be doing in a car park on a hot Thursday afternoon. As the man said, unpleasant but not painful. The main thing was that I wanted to get it right because I didn’t want to have to do it again.

Then the hardest bit for me was breaking the stick of the swab and putting it in the plastic tube; it took me ages and the sweat dripped off my nose and I was careful not to let it drip into the tube. Even as I was trying to break the stick I thought: this’ll be good for a poem. Or a column.

Oh, and you’ll be pleased to hear (as we were) that our tests came back negative!

Editor’s note: first and foremost - and rarely have I written down these words with more sincerity - I hope this finds you well.

Almost certainly you are here because you value the quality and the integrity of the journalism produced by The Yorkshire Post’s journalists - almost all of which live alongside you in Yorkshire, spending the wages they earn with Yorkshire businesses - who last year took this title to the industry watchdog’s Most Trusted Newspaper in Britain accolade.

And that is why I must make an urgent request of you: as advertising revenue declines, your support becomes evermore crucial to the maintenance of the journalistic standards expected of The Yorkshire Post. If you can, safely, please buy a paper or take up a subscription. We want to continue to make you proud of Yorkshire’s National Newspaper but we are going to need your help.

Postal subscription copies can be ordered by calling 0330 4030066 or by emailing [email protected]. Vouchers, to be exchanged at retail sales outlets - our newsagents need you, too - can be subscribed to by contacting subscriptions on 0330 1235950 or by visiting www.localsubsplus.co.uk where you should select The Yorkshire Post from the list of titles available.

If you want to help right now, download our tablet app from the App / Play Stores. Every contribution you make helps to provide this county with the best regional journalism in the country.

Sincerely. Thank you.

James Mitchinson

Editor