My father was my supporter, my friend and my role model. I remember when I was at university, I was having a bit of a hard time and my dad – as he always did – came to comfort and reassure me. This was emblematic of the relationship we had as father and son.”
Lobby Akinnola is very proud of his father, Femi, an emigrant from Nigeria, who worked as an engineer and was devoted to his family.
“He was a very intelligent guy, who always seemed to be helping someone. He was very funny and a real joker. When he wasn’t helping people, he loved spending time on his allotment. He also dabbled with photography and loved to listen to music, and was always singing in the house.”
Lobby lives in London, while his parents and younger sister lived in a town 2-hours’ drive away, but this didn’t stop them regularly communicating and seeing each other.
And when COVID-19 first hit Europe, the family became even closer, as Lobby remembers: “It was a strange period of time because me, my sister and my older brother had all recently gone through breakups. I’d also started a new job and was doing research, so it was exciting and there were lots of conversations about that”.
As the seriousness of the pandemic in the European Region became apparent, Lobby’s father was coming up with ideas for keeping people safe: “I remember him saying that perhaps we could have collapsible seats on buses, so people could more easily physical distance. That was the engineer in him – he just couldn’t help coming up with solutions to problems”.
The family were worried about catching the new virus, but most of the concern was for Lobby, not Femi, as he was living in a big city and was considered clinically vulnerable because of 2 blood conditions. “There was a real chance that I might die if I got sick,” says Lobby.
However, it was his mum, sister and Femi who got really sick with COVID-19, all at the same time, and each had to isolate in different rooms of their house.
