Frontline of the Pandemic is based on the 1919 Spanish Flu pandemic that devastated Australia over a century ago. It features letters, rare documents and reports from doctors, nurses, patients, ambulance, drivers, chaplains and reporters whose stories and memories are recorded in our national archives.

I wrote this book as a tribute to the frontline workers of both eras. So little was known about events behind the scenes in the hospitals. When we were in lockdown, visits to our sick relatives were not allowed. Masks and mandatory personal protective equipment (PPE) gear was necessary to minimise the chances of catching the disease. Only those working behind the scenes could tell us the truth about what was happening.

In 1919, many schools and larger factories were converted into makeshift hospitals where thousands of patients were treated. There were 2,000 hospital beds available across our state, but over 25,000 patients needed hospitalisation for influenza or the pneumonia related symptoms. In 1919, visiting patients to bring food and comfort was allowed, but walking through clouds of the microscopic virus meant that many more people contracted the disease adding to the staggering death toll.

During one tour of Yaralla I was approached by the granddaughter of Ethel Turner, the writer of Seven Little Australians, asking me to transcribe a collection of letters that were written by Ethel’s daughter, Jean Curlewis, when Jean was a volunteer nursing aide at the Thomas Walker Convalescent Hospital. The Thomas Walker Convalescent Hospital was converted into an emergency centre for treating victims of the pandemic, as general hospitals were overcrowded.

Jean’s letters revealed the day-to-day life at the emergency hospital for the patients and the nurses. Letters revealed very gruesome details about what was happening to the patients, particularly towards the end of their suffering with Spanish Flu. Jean wrote about the camaraderie amongst the staff, how they supported each other through such trying times. She kept most details light, knowing that her family would read her letters and be worried about her health, working in such dangerous surroundings.

She said, “When the man from Wood-Coffill undertakers asked me for the keys to the mortuary, the death certificate book and a tape measure with which to measure the bodies, the pandemic became very real.”

We sourced rare documents, photographs and artefacts from the Royal Prince Alfred Hospital archives, where incidentally the vaccine was finally developed. Jean’s fiancé was Doctor Leo Charlton, working at another emergency hospital. They did not see each other for months at a time. Jean survived her experience as a nurse but died tragically a few years later. Men, women and children were all affected, rich or poor, young or old, the virus did not discriminate.

In 2020, I reviewed earlier notes when the COVID 19 pandemic hit our shores. I decided to update and complete my research and produced Frontline of the Pandemic based on Jean’s letters. Stunning things that I learned from research were how coffins were in such short supply that bodies were sometimes removed from coffins and the coffins were re-used for other funerals. So, the need of gravediggers and coffin makers were in great demand. One disturbing story came from a woman in Orange, who found her next door neighbours, a family of eight, dead from the Spanish Flu. She had the distressing task of arranging the burial of all eight bodies, including the two-month-old baby.

One personal highlight for me was when the Premier’s Department asked me to be the Guest Speaker at the Cenotaph in 2020, to speak about my book and the impact that Covid 19 was having on our community, and to contrast the two pandemics. The similarities across that century included wearing masks, the controversy of border closures (with many people still trying to breach those regulations) and being in lockdown. Like the Spanish Flu the COVID 19 virus changed with several distinct waves or variations. The Spanish Flu worldwide killed more than twice the number of people who died during WW1.

The outcome by promoting my book is firstly, to acknowledge and pay tribute to those frontline workers, particularly the deeply committed nurses who tended the patients twenty-four hours a day. That is why the front cover features a group of nurses within a map of Australia. Secondly, to leave a more permanent record for future generations. My grandparents never mentioned the pandemic. I actually found my grandfather’s personal story in the papers, when I discovered that he was appointed as a health officer at the Australian Paper Mills where he worked.

The Spanish Flu generation wanted to forget about the pandemic, never to mention it again, but that did not prepare our generation when Covid 19 so rapidly spread around our world, aided by the modern technology of aircraft flights and cruise ships. A nurse working with people with the Spanish Flu said: “Future generations will have modern technology to help them, but we need more help now.” If she only knew how devastated, we were to lose over 20,000 Australian lives during the Covid 19 pandemic and the fact that modern technology did not always help.

What excites me the most about my book is allowing the voices from the past to tell their unique stories. The photographs and cartoons from that era are truly worth a thousand words.  I was astonished by the wealth of memories available, with so many different viewpoints. My favourite quote from the book is by Professor, The Hon. Dame Marie Bashir, who wrote the foreword. She spoke of the deep humanity within the book which she found both distressing and inspiring, in showing how we, as a nation, came together both then and now, to help each other get through some of the toughest times in our history.

We must learn those lessons of history, as these pandemics have been around for thousands of years, and they will visit us again in the future. We need to be more prepared.

Frontline of the Pandemic is available from the City of Canada Bay Museum or from www.frontlineofthepandemic.com

Trish Skehan

 

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