1st Edition

Remembering and Forgetting Britain’s COVID-19 Pandemic

By David Tollerton Copyright 2026
182 Pages 36 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

182 Pages 36 B/W Illustrations
by Routledge

Remembering and Forgetting Britain’s COVID-19 Pandemic presents the first critical assessment of British memorial sites created in response to impacts of the COVID-19 virus. Covering memorials established during the half-decade since the start of the first lockdown, this book considers the complexities of their origins, their varying forms and narratives, and how they have been received. The... Read more

Abbreviations

Preface and Acknowledgements

1. Introduction: Mnemolethe

2. Hearts: Grief, Grassroots Agency, and (Im)permanence

3. Human Forms: Heroism, Exhaustion, and Mutual Support

4. Trees: Planted Memory and Forgetting

5. Sacred Spaces

6. The British State

7. COVID-19 in the Uneven Shadows of War and Pandemics

8. Ethnicity, Gender, and Invisibility

9. Conclusion: Revisiting Northernhay Gardens

Bibliography

Index

Biography

David Tollerton is Associate Professor in Memory Studies at the University of Exeter, UK. His research focuses on debates in public Holocaust remembrance and emerging memorialisation of the COVID-19 pandemic. He is the author of Holocaust Memory and Britain’s Religious-Secular Landscape (2020).