Covid vaccine: Older generation shows the nation the way by lining up for their jabs – Susan Morrison

They all know because they bellow regular health updates across the street. They’ve been jabbed, but they are still social distancing. I think they like it.

This standing close is a modern fad. Scots have always been keen on wide personal space. About a hundred yards should do it. Look at Scots on holiday. Can’t stand each other. Leave it to the Irish and the English to get to know each other, buy each other drinks and swap addresses for Christmas cards.

We prefer sunbeds as far away as possible from that embarrassing family from Paisley, and, if required, pretend to be Dutch if anyone gets over-familiar.

The pensioners around my mum roar like sea lions across ice floes, with the battle cry of “have you been done?”, followed by an intense conversation about the state of the doctors’ surgery.

They’ve been done, and they are strutting their stuff. None of your anti-vaxxer shilly-shallying for this lot.

This generation saw the impact of infectious diseases. Mum remembers tenements echoing with the sound of children battling whooping cough.

Glasgow closed the public baths to fight an outbreak of polio, but not fast enough for the kids who wore calipers for the rest of their lives. The ones who survived, that is.

Wee jabs work and they know it. They don’t understand anti-vaxxers, but their lively intellect does keep up with their objections. I know this, because I field regular questions raised at these high-volume pavement conferences.

This week, there was word of rumours that one vaccine makes women infertile. I reassured mum that in the first place, this is not true, and secondly, since they’re all over 80, I didn't think it was an issue.

On the other hand, perhaps it is. Soon they’ll be joined by the over-70s. They might just hit clubs. Mrs McIvor just up the road from mum says she’s on the hunt for a toy boy.

Might be an idea to get the community sexual health teams on alert.

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