Asian Flue Pandemic 1957

Yes I remember it. I was in the thick of it working on a hospital ward doing my cadet training. Many died. I was 17 at the time.

I was at boarding school with my sister. As more and more children got ill, domitories kept getting turned into extentions of the sanatorium and DS and I kept moving to nicer and nicer dorms. Finally with more and more teachers falling ill, the school was closed for a fortnight.

We went home to an army camp where again soldiers were falling ill, day on day. Not one of my family, parents and three children, caught the flu, in fact I do not think any of us has ever had flu.

The mother of one girl in my class died of it.

I remember it vaguely. Both my parents and the three of us were all in bed at the same time. The servants were all ill - 3rd world island - mum would get up and make soup in a pressure cooker, that we’d crawl out of bed and eat in their room.
I do remember the 1968 Hong Kong flu which was viscous, but didn’t get it.

I was 21 during this epidemic and it was nothing like this one. I only knew one person who got it; she went into a well known maternity hospital to have her baby and got the flu in hospital and both her and the baby died, she was 21. Everybody just carried on as normal. Asian flu was during the winter of 57/58 and the miners went on strike so there was a coal shortage; remember few people had central heating so you were hit two ways either lack of heating and also air pollution from the factories that were working.

I was 10 and was very very ill with it. I think the death toll here was 14,000 with no social distancing etc. It’s been estimated that with CV, hundreds of thousands would have died if measured had not been put in place.

I was at secondary school and at one point over half the pupils and staff were off. I was very unwell for several days but as the child of a working mother was soon back at school, doubtless sharing my germs with those who hadn’t had it. You either got better or you didn’t.

This link might be of interest.
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8027501.stm

I don't remember it as I was only 6 at the time but I do remember the 1968,69,70 pandemic. I'd just left school at had started training as a dispenser at Boots Chemists. Needless to say I caught it and passed it on to my immediate family.

I don't recall any particularly stringent measures being imposed other than the elderly were advised to stay at home. By the time it reappeared in 1970, a vaccine had been developed and the Boots company provided one for each member of staff.
I recall long queues at the prescription desk that stretched out of the shop door and almost every script had the same items written. Most involving the alleviation of coughs.
The NHS was swamped and according to my friend who was a nurse at the time, the porters at the hospital where she worked were constantly going between the wards and the ICU, collecting bodies.
Over 30,000 people died in the UK though recent computer modelling suggests a much higher figure in the region of 80,000 could be nearer the mark.
I do get cross with some news reporters who say this current pandemic is "unprecedented in living memory." I'm very much alive!

I had Asian Flu in 1957. Second year in Grammar School.

My lovely Grandma died in the Asian Flu pandemic - she was 63. She was very much weakened by a life time of poverty, having borne 9 children , 4 of whom died in childhood and suffering what we now know as PTSD from being in the East End of London during the Blitz.

I was a Physio student ,just started the course , we had a 3 week intensive tutorial on chest therapy and we were on the wards ! I didn’t get it , no masks , no gowns and most of the staff smoked like chimneys .
Straight home on the train to the family every night , the only hygiene was that we were not allowed to wear our uniform off hospital grounds
I had arms like a wrestler after lifting patients and doing percussion to get phlegm moving
I wonder what the mortality rate was then ?

There was very little that could be done medically. You caught it or you didn’t, your body overcame it or it didn’t. There was nothing available in hospital (like breathing aids, feeding drips) that couldn’t be given at home.

If you were orphaned, as I was, you hoped someone would take you in.

The support systems we have now were not in place. Nobody expected them to be.

I remember it. I was still at school, doing my A levels. I got it quite late in the epidemic when I thought I was going to escape it. Nobody else in my family had it, as far as I remember.

In 1968 we bought our first car together, it had been stored in a lady’s garage since the death of her husband from Asian flu. She always kept it polished and the battery on charge. He wasn’t that old, in his 50s I think.
In retrospect we shouldn’t have touched it with a barge pole, blasted thing never worked and was always stranding us in the middle nowhere.