Profits from Ronit Knoble’s time capsule life story films will go to the hospital where father Abraham made a ‘miraculous’ recovery from Covid 19
Film producer Ronit Knoble is so grateful to hospital staff for treating her father for coronovirus that she is donating profits from her business to the NHS.
The Fordington Road resident has also sent customised biscuits to the team at Barnet Hospital where 79-year-old Abraham made a “miracle” recovery from Covid 19.
Ronit takes up the story: “Two or three days after lockdown my dad started having real trouble breathing, I got a call that they had rung for the ambulance. I walk my dog in Cherry Tree Wood where there is a really nice community of dog walkers and one of them is paramedic Nicole Wigdortz. I messaged her asking where she was. She replied ‘just putting on my PPE about to go on shift’”
The East Finchley paramedic phoned back to say she had recieved a Code 1 - a critical case with sirens and lights - and checked whether it was Abraham’s address in Oakwood. Ronit adds: “She came to my dad’s assistance, carried him down the stairs took him to hospital and stayed with him - then went back after her shift to check on him.”
Abraham recovered after eight days on oxygen.
“He willed himself to get better, they said it was a miracle that he turned it around. He thinks it’s because of my mother’s chicken soup, but the staff were incredible and all the nurses came to say goodbye.”
Ronit’s husband and mother also showed symptoms of the virus so she was advised to consider both houses as one infection, and shuttled between them caring for her loved ones.
Now the former BBC and Channel 4 documentary maker is donating 20 percent of profits from her Memory Time Capsule films to Barnet Hospital’s charity.
Her company Fantastic Films makes charity films and people-based documentaries where a family member shares their personal story.
“The time capsules are a great way for older people in isolation to focus on their life and tell their story through a one hour film,” says Ronit, who usually interviews her subjects face to face.
Using Zoom and dropping off Amazon Fire tablets on their doorstep, she has managed to devise a way of continuing to operate under lockdown.
“It’s quite a structured interview so they don’t go off on a tangent,” she says.
“They provide the commentary and photographs and I package it all up with effects music and old newsreel. At the end I ask them to give a message to their family member. It’s a lovely moment and a historical record of a family in perpetuity.
“I can provide a service to people in lockdown who are feeling isollated from loved ones by getting their family history recorded in a unique and heart-warming way.”
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