Brighton plagues

1930s - Scarlet Fever
I had only been to school two months when I caught scarlet fever, which in those days was a killer disease as they had no antibiotics, and very few other drugs. I was taken to hospital at nine o'clock at night, but it was like the middle of the night to me.

My mother had to have the bedroom fumigated, as well as my clothes, as it was very contagious. I was put into the fever hospital, which is now Bevendean hospital, and I was not allowed any visitors. My mother and grandmother had to stand outside and look through the window. Visiting hours were Wednesday and Sunday afternoons.

At the height of the illness I went blind for three days. I can remember sitting up in the cot screaming that I couldn't see, they put me in a small room and pulled the blinds so that the light wouldn't hurt my eyes.

After three days my sight started coming back and I started getting better. I was allowed to get up and sit in a chair each morning. Eventually I was allowed home, but was very weak, and not allowed back to school for some time. When I was, it was only on condition that I didn't do any drill, as P.T. was called in those days, or run or play games, as the illness had left me with a weak heart. If only they had seen what I used to get up to when I was playing with other children!
L. Scarborough - Backyard Brighton

Midge's Death
I had two brothers and a sister, who were much older than me, and a twin sister Gladys, or Midge as we called her. Unfortunately she died when she was seven from diphtheria. It was a custom on May Day to dress up in paper and go out to see people. Midge complained of a sore throat after we had been 'Maying' and she was buried on 6th May.

I then became very close to my mother and would sleep in her bed. When we heard my father's footsteps coming from the pub I would quickly run into my own bed.
Dorothy Betteridge - Backyard Brighton

The outbreak of Smallpox in the 1950s
Towards the end of 1950 there was one of the biggest scares ever to hit Brighton, which in some ways was even worse than the bombs we had during the war.

It all came about when a serviceman, I believe he was an airman, smuggled a fur coat into the country for his girlfriend. If that was not bad enough, the fur coat also harboured the deadly disease of smallpox.
At least this was the story that we heard in the shop, and the people who gave us this information got their privileged knowledge from "friends of friends". As the people started to be diagnosed as having this contagious disease, so the panic swept across the town.

By the 10th January 1951 there were already twenty-six cases of smallpox, of which quite a few had died. Vaccination was widespread, but not compulsory and over a hundred thousand people in Brighton and Hove were vaccinated in a fortnight. People were asked not to leave the town in the hopes of confining the disease.
There were so many close contacts to the original source of the outbreak, that it was unbelievable. Some of these contacts were customers in our shop. Although we had all been told to get vaccinated because of our vulnerability in being in touch with the general public, we were still very skittish at serving certain people - especially touching their ration books.

On February 6th the smallpox all-clear was given, but by that time there had been twenty-nine confirmed cases and ten people had died. It was the biggest outbreak in the area for decades.
Kathleen Wilson - International Rescue