An Imaginary Lockdown From Past Years

Callistemon so true.

When I was born in 1953 in the East End of London there was an outbreak of TB. My mother contracted it and was found to be pregnant on diagnosis. She was told she would have to have an abortion which she did not want. She was then told there was only one doctor and one clinic who would take as a pregnant women to be cared for through her TB where she went to wait for me and have Streptomycin which was somewhat experimental on a pregnant woman. When I was born she was allowed a brief cuddle and then I was whisked away to another town to be placed in a nursery until I was six months old. No wonder we didn't get on.

I’ve been in lockdown as an adult with children when living abroad, although not for virus seasons. There had been terrorist attacks in the country we were living in. We had to be prepared to be airlifted out at just a few minutes notice, which meant having grab bags within reach at all times. We were not allowed out and schools etc were closed. Luckily, we lived on a private estate so my two DD’s could go outside and use the swimming pool but it was all rather tedious. After three weeks, we were ‘set free’ again but so much had changed regarding security including armed soldiers patrolling the girls’ school and shopping malls etc.

I’ve just finished reading a book about the 1918 Spanish flu. It’s pretty clear from that that the places which instigated lockdown very early faired much better than those that didn’t. Spanish flu sounds terrifying, with people dropping dead in the streets, children dying at their school desks, entire families succumbing to the illness within hours of each other. The book also says that there was a collective memory loss over it, maybe because it was overshadowed by the Great War, even though more died from the flu than the war. The virus was only identified in around the year 2000.

Just read the link and realise my memory was wrong: there was indeed no cause for panic! In Dundee we were "just down the road" from Aberdeen, so it was a wonder that they managed to contain the outbreak so efficiently.

I remember that typhoid outbreak in Aberdeen. I was in Dundee at the time and one of my housemates was very anxious about it. She went to the doctor and demanded a typhoid vaccination which made her feel most unwell. The outbreak was well contained and there was never any cause for panic. When I was 15, I was in a large group from Ayrshire schools who were going to France and had to have typhoid vaccinations (this was 1956). A friend passed out on her way home from school and I had violent shivers all night, though both of us were fine the next morning.

grandtanteJE65 I’d forgotten about the typhoid outbreak due to contaminated corn beef. I had a google to refresh my memory. There’s an interesting BBC article from 2014 fifty years on.

I’ll try posting the link here. It includes a b&w photo of parents looking in at quarantined children in hospitals. They only had window visits just like the current situation in care homes.
www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-26957972

We had less developed health care and science but also less scary media. I think we were more inclined to follow government advice too.
I remember the white sheet over the table and huddling underneath in case of a nuclear blast!

Yes, it was smallpox, I remember it too.

Later we had typhoid fever that started in Aberdeen and was traced back to an infected tin of corned beef!

Between these too, there was a polio epidemic, at least in Scotland.

None of these needed a lockdown, as vaccines were available for smallpox and polio, and you couldn't start school in Scotland unless you had been vaccinated against smallpox, so it was only children under five that had to be vaccinated quickly.

I can't remember the precautions taken against typhoid, but I have a vague feeling there were travel restrictions in and around Aberdeen. Anyone remember more clearly than I?

As a child it would have annoyed me not to be able to go to school, but otherwise a lockdown wouldn't have bothered me at all.

When I was a teenager in the 60s, a lot of people worked in factories so, if they had been shut down, a lot of the population would have had no money, and I doubt there would have been furlough money in those days. I lived on a council estate and my friends lived in private housing miles away, as I went to the town grammar, so I was always self sufficient. I would have spent my time reading or listening to pirate radio stations-no siblings.

My own teen daughter would have spent all the evenings on the house phone calling her friends. I paid for unlimited evening calls up to an hour at a time so I would have been monitoring the time at 59mins. She would then have just put the phone down and restarted the process again and again. She would have been happy to engage with her younger sister playing with Barbies or board games in the day. Also, she was friends with the boy next door so they would have chatted over the fence for hours.

I only remember lying in a darkened room, with measles, probably pre school age, I can't imagine what it would have been like being cooped up at home with my parents say mid teen years and not being able to go anywhere. I also wonder how they would have dealt with not being able to go to mass which was of upmost importance to both of them.

I absolutely feel sorry for parents right now, but particularly those with teenagers, mine seemed to spend those mid teen years, roller blading, skateboarding, footballing, swimming and would have hated to be indoors most of the time, particularly in the summer and I just know I'd have been fighting a losing battle especially with my older one, trying to get him to adhere to social distancing.

Going back to my youth I do remember some talk of getting under the table in the event of "the bomb" being dropped, I think I was junior school age and thinking "that won't save us surely, we'll need a much stronger table"

Tweedle24

My school was closed in the late 50s for a 'flu epidemic. I did not catch it but, we were not kept in. It was just time off school.

Our school carried on regardless.
There were only 3 of us left in my class of 40 still standing.
Then I got it.

Asian Flu was 1957-58. Many of our teachers were ill, and lots of my fellow pupils, but the school never closed. None of the prefects had caught the virus, so were sent to babysit junior classes who I'm sure never learnt a thing! I got it on its return visit the next spring and it was awful, the worst flu I'd ever had; and I seemed to catch flu most winters!

Yes MayBee and Grannynanny horrendous prospect of even surviving a post nuclear war fall out with young children! At least this virus is not radioactive, can you imagine?

My school was closed in the late 50s for a 'flu epidemic. I did not catch it but, we were not kept in. It was just time off school.

I started school in 1959 with a boy who had been very ill with polio. He’d spent several months in an “iron lung” He was left with a very weak leg and wore a full length calliper for the rest of his life.

I sat next to him in class and can vividly remember him clicking the knee hinge on it to unlock it so he could bend his leg to sit down. When he stood up he clicked it into a rigid position to walk.

I remember polio, called Infantile Paralysis then I believe. I remember, too, seeing an affected child wearing a calliper on her leg. At its height swimming pools were closed to stop spread of the infection.

Terri I have often thought how lucky we are during this pandemic with distractions like social media, the ability to binge-watch various programmes, to join in zoom classes and conversations via Skype with family, and of course those valuable shopping slots.

It must be so difficult for parents of older children especially if the parents have to work from home.

Vulnerability is a big disadvantage at our (DH and my) age but
on the whole we are lucky, and it’s up to us to protect ourselves.

The Smallpox was 1962 i think, as my eldest son was vaccinated, only him for some reason.
Also a lot of TB around then too
My next door neighbours daughter, who i was friends with got Polio. i think it would be about 1950 -51,she was only 1 in our street, strange that i saw ger every daym but didn't strangely affect me or my sister

BlueSky you’ve just confirmed for me that my memory is failing me. My friend and I were walking and chatting yesterday and I was reassured by the fact that her memory was as bad as mine.

But I honestly have no recollection of the fear of an imminent nuclear attack in the late 70’s early 80’s when my children were small. Maybe I really am losing the plot despite my friend convincing me otherwise yesterday.

I do remember children I knew catching poliomyelitis and those who survived still suffer the consequences today. We were warned not to go to swimming pools when there was an outbreak near us.

It was something to be frightened and it affected children and adults to varying degrees although most displayed no symptoms.
The epidemic lasted for about 10 years at its height until a vaccine was discovered.

I remember having the smallpox vaccination our GP came to our house and did the whole family.
We were all quite ill afterwards with flu like symptoms.

I remember the smallpox scare, I was in London in College and we all had to go to a rather dismal hall where we queued for ages for the jab in the arm. Then later the rumour went round that the subsequent redness and blister could be soothed by alcohol. Suffice it to say that there were many who choose to misunderstand that the instructions were for bathing the sore spot. In the event the result was probably the same!

Blue sky: I can remember that. It said to hide under the stairs if I remember right and I wondered how I was going to cope with changing nappies in such a confined space. I was really scared.

It was the early 60s if I remember right for the smallpox inoculations and in the late 50s we had a series of polio inoculations.

I think our generation (I'm 70+) is lucky in this pandemic, provided there are no major health issues and finances are ok. We have no need to fear quarantine or losing a job, we can get groceries and other items at the click of a mouse - and how strange would that sound to our grandparents?

I can remember the Asian flu pandemic and we did just carry on as normal.

There would have been no internet so none of the discussions on social media but no online grocery shopping or other shopping either.

I think people would not have broken out like they are doing now; in fact very few people we knew had cars and few seemed to behave so irresponsibly as well as leaving their filth for others to clear up. Keep Britain Tidy.