OM Memories – Of Asian Flu

Christopher Cannon (B2 1956-61) emailed us with this memory of living through a previous pandemic. We felt guilty but it did make us laugh. He said we could share it with you all in the hopes that it puts a smile on your face too.

“Covid-19 brings back a painful memory. It was 1957 when Asian Flu struck and I was billeted in Field House which had been taken over by the sanitarium and converted into a ward for about 25 of us. As I had had pneumonia before, Doc Hunter, never one to be concerned about inflicting pain on his patients, plunged a large dose of penicillin into my back side. I still wince at the thought and has led me to self isolate before others this time round!

The other memory is the look of horror on my brother’s face (he was in the same ward) when my mother had travelled a hundred miles to give her support to the school in its hour of need. It wasn’t, as he thought, that she had come to look after her two darling boys.”