FLU and Festivities: Roger Bingham reflects on the local impact of 'The Great Influenza Epidemic', which coincided with the end of the First World War.

THE First World War, in effect, ended, with The Armistice on November 11, 1918. Britain had 'lost' three quarters of a million men, so virtually everybody had someone to mourn.

But, with tragic irony, the genuine enthusiasm that greeted the Armistice was dampened by the 'Great Influenza Epidemic' which, worldwide, claimed more victims than the war itself.

In Kendal the flu had arrived on November 3 and had claimed 19 deaths by Armistice Day.

Thus, as crowds cheered the fireworks on Gooseholme, half the inhabitants 'could only hear the whizz bangs from their sick beds'.

Alarmingly, the Gazette reported that 'Coniston has been invaded by the plague and workmen on a munitions train were affected'.

In Cartmel the oldest inhabitant, 91-year-old Nurse Robinson, succumbed to the disease, as did the curiously named Mr Fell Walker of Silverdale, who was aged 60.

At Low Foulshaw, 81-year-old Robert Ormerod died but, mercifully, ten other members of the family who 'were also down with it' survived.

Even so, most fatalities were young adults who, ironically, included service men like Driver McGrath and Air Cadet Nutter from Burton, both of whom 'had succumbed to pneumonia brought on by the influenza'.

Likewise, 33-year-old Walter Cross from Burton 'contracted a severe cold at the funeral of his brother and died of influenza in Manchester'.

In another Burton tragedy, the parents of two young children, Mr and Mrs William Dobson died within four days of each other, aged respectively 32 and 37.

Tebay was especially hard hit when 11 residents died in a week, including a 24-year-old mother.

Another young victim was my grandmother Ethel Bingham, who came from Slyne. She was 30 and in her death throes she gave birth, prematurely, to a daughter, who also died.

Similarly May Howard, a teacher from Beetham, who was also an accomplished artist, died aged 32. Two of her paintings were subsequently given to me by her friend, Polly Sheldon, who, herself, recovered from the flu and lived to be 84.

As in previous 'plagues', death came quickly. Alice Prickett, 33, from Holme 'was only taken ill on Wednesday evening, but despite all attentions she passed away on Saturday morning'.

'To limit the contagion' most Westmorland schools were closed. Heversham Grammar School boarders who were sent home in November did not return until mid-February.

Heversham's day school, at Leasgill, stayed open, but Dr Henderson, the Medical Officer of Health, advised that the pupils should go for 'a daily walk for an hour in the frosty sunshine'.

He also prescribed, as a preventative measure, 'a gargle with warm water (which may also, be sniffed up the nostrils), to which has been added a teaspoon of salt and sufficient potassium permanganate to make the solution a deep pink'.

'But', he counselled, 'the main thing is not to be frightened'.