Pandemic

As you will have seen on the news, the world is currently facing an outbreak of the Ebola virus, centred in Africa.  It is a terrible disease and governments are right to be concerned.  It is a pity, though, that they were not concerned a lot sooner.  As so often is the case, the rest of the world has to feel threatened (or totally shamed - see Band Aid circa 1984!) before serious situations in Third World countries get the attention they deserve.

 

Today, the BBC news website carried an article about Spanish Influenza.  I can see why they did this - it was at the end of the First World War that the pandemic took hold plus it is an easy comparison to the Ebola outbreak.  The article is very informative.  I certainly knew very little about the outbreak in 1918/1919.  I definitely did not know that it is estimated to have killed fifty million people worldwide.

 

The most recent modern day media reference to the Spanish 'flu outbreak was in Downton Abbey, when it very conveniently took away the fiancée who was getting in the way of the Lady Mary/Matthew Crawley, will they/won't they plot.  [There she is above, poor Lavinia.]

 

I had been going, in this post, to question the wisdom of putting out the Spanish 'flu piece on the BBC website, for fear of stirring people up - after reading it, I felt informed but disturbed, to say the least.  It made me cross with the Beeb  and want to rant about tabloid style scare mongering.  However, when googling to write today's post, I stumbled upon a piece about how accurate Downton Abbey's portrayal of the 'flu had been. 

 

This article about Downton Abbey argued that the rather sanitised view of the 'flu shown in the episode was bad for public health information as it would lead people to believe that there was no need to be afraid of such pandemics in the future.  It mentioned the lack of fear apparently shown by others in the house towards those who had succumbed.  The willingness to visit, the willingness to nurse the patients, the lack of face masks.

 

So maybe the BBC have it right and are starting to make people aware of how a pandemic actually works.  Let's just hope that they have jumped the gun and we will not ever find out truly how a pandemic works.

 

In terms of family history, I suppose the main point of interest for 1918/1919 would be to identify which relations, if any, we have who succumbed to the Spanish 'flu.  It only occurred to me as I was writing that I do not have cause of death for a number of ancestors at that time.  And therein lies the financial rub.  As mentioned previously on this blog, it is not cheap to order death certificates in bulk.  We need to be very sure that we have the correct person before we do so and we should have, in my view, a definite reason for wanting to know their cause of death.  Perhaps the ones "worth" spending money on are our direct ancestors - the great, 2xgreat etc grandparents.  Many of them will have come from very large families so it would be expensive to order certificates for all siblings.

 

However, if you have relations who died in 1918/1919 but were not killed in the First World War, it may be worth finding out if they died in the pandemic.  After all...

 

“It really was a major event in modern human history........Outside of wars, there weren’t many events seen like it. So to downplay it at all is wrong." (MNN Post article)

 

We can only wait to see and hope that such an event will not be seen again.

 

You can donate to the Red Cross battle against Ebola at http://www.redcross.org.uk/ebolavirus

What happened to our family in the First World War, Mum?

This week has, of course, marked one hundred years since the start of the First World War.  The commemorations have been, in my humble opinion, very well staged - dignified and well thought out.  The picture shows Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red, an art installation at the Tower of London by Paul Cummins and Tom Piper.  One of the many impressive tributes to the fallen of 1914-1918, at local, national and international levels.

 

CBBC has been doing a great job of helping my children to understand what this is all about.  They have always been fans of Horrible Histories but there have also been dramas and documentaries for them as well.

 

However, knowing my interest in family history, it has led them to many questions about our own family's part in the First World War.  And it seems, from what I can find out so far, that the immediate, direct families somehow did not have any real involvement.

 

My father's side, as readers of previous posts will know, were all in India.  There appear to have been a number of these Anglo Indian relations in the Indian Medical Service but I cannot find any evidence, as yet, that they served abroad in Europe.

 

As for my mother's family, it appears that my grandmother's side took no role - there not being many male relations.  My grandfather's father was a train driver so presumably his role was to remain at home and keep the trains running.

 

And my in-laws - my children's "other family" -  are Irish and do not appear to have been part of the Irish regiments that were raised, despite the continuing battle for independence.

 

So, a disappointment for my children's interest "what our family did" but obviously a good, if unusual, situation for the families involved!

 

The combination of these rather unusual family situations with an article that I read this week about the home services and their losses during the First World War has, though, spurred me on to investigate where Walter the train driver worked and to check more closely into the Anglo-Indian relations' service.

 

I do not like "presumably" and "seem to" - these phrases spur me on to find more definite information!  There is one place that I think I am going to have to start though and it fills me with dread in many ways.

 

My son, when aged 2-3, was a total train obsessive.  I understand that this is a fairly common toddler trait but given the many Anglo Indians who worked on the Indian Railways and also Walter's family's history, we did wonder.  Living in York provided the perfect place to satisfy all train cravings.  The National Railway Museum!  I knew that place inside out and back to front.  I knew every climbable footplate and every press-able button.  I could get round it blind fold pushing a buggy.... and that place gave endless (free!) joy to my son.

 

I have managed to avoid it in the past couple of years, especially once the "Wheel of York" was moved from its yard.  The article about the services recommends the archives at the museum though.  Who knew?  I thought it was just the hardware - the engines and the royal carriages, the turntable and the Flying Scotsman.  Apparently not.  Apparently it is a mine of useful information about those who worked on the railways.

 

Bet my son won't come with me though, unless they have the history of Minecraft too....  the train days are definitely gone!