Polio outbreak 1950s

Moved from another thread : Some very interesting shots in this - thanks Morgana for posting it I'm sure lots of us remember our polio jabs

You're welcome, Midland Red, I couldn't have any jabs at the time, I had an illness no specialist had seen before, so I had to have them a lot later in life, which was with a sugar lump The girl in the film if I'm right was my friend's sister, in the iron lung.

The outbreak was the reason for the panic slum clearance programme of 1957. Bad housing and poor sanitation were blamed for the outbreak but many interesting and historical buildings were destroyed at the same time

Thank you Dutchman for that extra information, shame such buildings got knocked down, I guess they see it cheaper to knock down and rebuild rather than renovate lovely historical buildings. Do you know if that is Bell Green shopping centre in the photo where the children are skating, doesn't it look better there than now if it is.

This is a very interesting piece of film, thanks It brought back memories of Whitley Hospital. In the early sixties I spent a week in one of the isolation rooms there, with meningitis. It was an awful experience, but I'm thankful that they saved my life!

You're welcome, Woodford, not a nice illness, pleased you're still with us thanks to Whitley Hospital.

My father passed away in there. Many years ago wasn't it actually called the "Whitley Isolation Hospital"? Was it purposely built as that, or just used for that purpose? I also can remember not having my "polio jab" - but do recall the "sugar lumps". On a similar subject - I can remember as a small child sitting at the hospital and having several "needle pricks" in the inside of one wrist - and then waiting to see which (if any) caused a reaction. I think this was checking some sort of "immunity" - would this have been polio related? If not - any ideas?

That was TB, TonyS, as that is what I was tested for when they couldn't solve my illness, if the skin was nt raised after so long you would be ok.

Hospital Records Database from the National Archives

Very interesting Cliff, thank you Curiously, the top section on that page shows Whitley Hospital hasn't closed yet!

This must be it then? Isolation Hospital, 1934

Just found this topic. Yes, nearly all kids in Coventry, including me, spent time in that hospital with ? they came and fumigated the room I slept in at home. My two brothers moved into my sister's room and she slept downstairs. Must have been 1935/6 time, but polio didn't hit Coventry I believe until the middle or late fifties. Everyone was glad to see the back of the forties, and looked forward to peace and better standard of living in the fifties, and for a time there was more food in the shops but expensive, and employment was picking up, but? There was a great coal shortage, and housewives had to bank the fire with 'slack' and coal dust damped down, to try and retain a little warmth. Then there was the 'power cuts', most days we suffered, many hundreds of meals were spoilt, it got to the point when there were large queues at the Gas showrooms with housewives clamouring to change back to gas ovens. We were also alarmed at the threat of Chinese and Korean intentions, anxiety and unrest, hinting of more atomic bombs, and King Farouk of Egypt was threatening us too so there was unrest and alarm throughout. The people sat staring into the fires as if it would find the solutions. But Littlewoods and Vernons introduced football coupons, that offered vast sums of money for a few shillings a week and the country became gamblers. New chemicals came into place and farmers spread the deadly DDT, and more gardeners became blind from a rose spray for blackspot than was leaked to the public. Then the weather thought it would take a hand too and Europe was lashed with storms. Lymouth was almost washed into the sea, water from the North Sea swamped towns and villages, killing hundreds. But there was also the Youth Hostels, the first of the back packers that I took advantage of and led to many stories you wouldn't believe. Apart from that, the dance halls and cinemas were packed.

I was diagnosed with polio in the outbreak in the fifties by our family doctor but unfortunately she never notified the local authority about me so although I had the treatment, "officially" I never had the disease which meant I had to go on Saturday mornings for the mass vaccinations they held along with hundreds of other terrified kids and parents. I was lucky in that the only real effect it had was difficulty in building muscle - many of the other kids ended up wearing callipers for years or worse in an iron lung. I found out later that couple of years after I was diagnosed our doctor stopped practicing because she kept forgetting things - probably what had happened with me.

When I was a toddler, the welfare clinic found I had one leg slightly shorter than the other, about an eighth of an inch or so, and diagnosed that I had picked up the polio virus. I cannot remember anything about it, but am relying on what my parents told me. I was either treated successfully, and/or my body's natural defences sorted it out, but I made a full recovery, and am perfectly normal now (physically!). I guess I was one of the lucky ones, as I remember that when I was at school, it was not uncommon to see adults in leg irons, callipers, or special built-up shoes because one leg was several inches shorter than the other. I was told that was because of polio.