It’s five years since the global pandemic was first declared. And dentistry basically stopped.

The first Scottish lockdown was declared on 26 March 2020. I was freshly back in Shetland after a trip to the Granite Noir book festival in Aberdeen, and spent the first few days in isolation at our cottage in Heylor, Northmavine. Susan, my wife was and still is the local GP and it was crucial that whatever happened, her ability to practise wasn’t threatened. At least by me.

Eventually we decided we’d be (forgive the phrase) better together, and the long battle to survive and help others survive began.

Good grief, this is hard to write. We’ve erased it, or tried to, haven’t we? I don’t want to remember those seemingly endless months of masked fear and sometimes despair. The frustration and fury at political ineptitude and health board fumbling. Despair at naivety in high places. Right now, in 2025, the Up Helly Aa viking fire festival season is coming to a close, and I remember one health board official stating publicly five years ago that the South Mainland UHA could go ahead “as long as people don’t share whisky flasks”. My wife being forbidden to wear a mask during hospital clinics as it would be bad for patient morale….

Six doctors in the immediate family, all involved at the front line of treatment, one in an ICU. And then people we knew started getting very ill. And the deaths began.

We can’t erase those losses. We mustn’t forget. Did it really happen? Yes it did.

For the next year I distracted myself and a few followers online by writing and performing songs of varying quality, many with themes related to politics or the pandemic. Hey, you had to seek your fun somewhere…

They can all (some 33 of them) by found over on my YouTube channel. However, as I’m currently battling a root canal issue, memories of 2020’s dental difficulties led me to this song. Perhaps enjoy is the wrong word…”no aerosol procedures’, indeed!

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Scottish teeth

For more than six months I’ve been waiting

But now my molars are disintegrating

I would even vote for Nicola Sturgeon

If she could provide me with a dental surgeon

Infection is inflaming my features

But they’re saying: No aerosol procedures

It’s my belief

I’m suffering from Scottish teeth

I was going to go to Hungary to get some crowns

But my trip fell victim to the first lockdown

And when the toothache started I was in distress

I had no option but the NHS

I got an appointment I was going to be seen

But alas these days I live in Aberdeen

There’s no relief

I’m suffering from Scottish teeth

I was raised on Black striped balls and Irn Bru

Soor Plooms, Love Hearts,McCowan’s Toffee too

Double nougats and sliders with raspberry sauce

Macaroon bars and sherbet straws

Tunnocks caramel wafers and teacakes

And that special tablet my granny would make

They used to take out all your teeth in your 16th birthday

In Glasgow, that was the kind and generous way

Instead I got mercury fillings galore

The jags and the drilling were both always sore

But now I’d give anything for some oral action

I’ll vote for whoever will get me an extraction

Oh good grief

I’m suffering from Scottish teeth

Copyright Tom Morton 2020