The Zombie Ward

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I seem to have had no time for blogging recently – so here’s one I prepared earlier. In my July Gallivanting post I said:

Over the last few months, I’ve been taking part in a project at Glasgow Women’s Library to research the women associated with the Belvidere Fever Hospital in the East End of Glasgow around the time of the First World War. There isn’t much detail in the records, so the idea was to use our imaginations to create a series of dramatic monologues around our chosen women. On the 4th of July, this came to fruition with a performance and a book, both called Voices from the Belvidere, bringing to life fascinating stories of laundry maids who ran away, nurses who caught fever after fever, and the rare women doctors who followed their calling against all odds. My contribution was called The Zombie Ward: some day, with more time, I might tell you its story. 

Now is the time! Here’s my introduction and monologue as it appears in the book.

Introduction

At the first meeting of the Belvidere group, my eye was drawn to a picture from the Alice Bauchop collection showing a group of nurses and a young male doctor on a set of ward steps. In particular, I liked the woman in the middle with her arms crossed nonchalantly and a friendly smile on her face, so I was really lucky to find her again in a photograph in the Mitchell Library. Even better: her name, the name of the ward, which disease it treated and the year were all identified. After that it was just a case of using a little imagination – and Wikipedia! I was worried that the term zombie might be an anachronism, but it was first recorded in 1819 and films featuring zombies have been a part of cinema since the 1930s. The former Nurse Watt is talking to her grandson sometime in the 1960s.

The Zombie Ward

Och, Jimmy! You’re not watching zombie films again, are you? I hate that kind of film. Why? They remind me too much of my worst days at the Belvidere. Look, this is me here – your Granny was Nurse Watt in those days. I was an innocent young lassie, just up from Kilcreggan. I’d never even been to Glasgow before, so it was a big shock – so busy! But I loved my work, most of the time. I’d always wanted to be a nurse.

We look happy here, don’t we? That must have been, oh, 1923 I think. Sour-faced Dr Smith left in 1922 and we had the new young doctor. We all liked him. He was much more easy-going. And handsome! Look at his lovely hair. And if it had been 1924, I don’t think we’d have looked so cheerful. If I remember right, that was our worst year ever on Ward 14W.

Encephalitis Lethargica – that was the fancy name for what we treated. Sleepy sickness for short. Doesn’t sound too bad, does it? Sleepy; lethargic. But it attacks the brain and some of the patients were left like statues. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t move. It was an epidemic for about 10 years – they say 5 million people round the world got it, and a third of them died. In one year we had more than 150 patients. Men. Women. Bairns. 15 died – one of them a little baby, not even a year old. That one nearly finished me.

Mind you, maybe the dead were lucky. Some of the ones that lived were never really alive afterwards. Conscious maybe, but not awake. Like ghosts. Or zombies. No, Jimmy, I can never watch films with zombies.

Historic figures, People ,

58 Comments »

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  7. Hi Anabel – all I can say is great story telling and I hadn’t realised about the epidemic of Encephalitis Lethargica – really very frigthening … back then – let alone now. Interesting – great that you shared it with us … cheers Hilary

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  8. I’m glad to see your story appear here at last! Encephalitis Lethargica was horrible, but so interesting! Diseases are fascinating things. I love the way you’ve made Nurse Watt sound like a pip (in the good sense) – just how she looks! I agree with her comments on the young doctor too…he has a certain twinkle in his eye!

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    • I thought she looked wonderful as soon as I saw her – just the sort of person I’d like to know. I got a laugh at the part about the young doctor: obviously my “acting” conveyed the right message!

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  9. I think you have distinct talent for historical fiction. You provided, in just a few words, a clear picture of what it must have been like to be a nurse in the fever hospital at that time. Honestly, when I read about what people used to endure, I am in awe. It gives me hope for the human race!

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  12. Wow, this sounds like Awakenings which might be about this illness. I wonder if this illness is around still or, hopefully, gone the way of the dodo. Rare is thatnit seems they are all smiling since so many photos of the day were told not to smile.

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    • It is the same illness, but I didn’t know about the film till another commenter pointed it out. Someone else also asked it the illness was still around so I looked it up and apparently there was never another epidemic but isolated cases sometimes appear. It was her lovely smile that appealed to me, that and her casual stance. She looks so modern!

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  13. I immediately thought of Awakenings, the Robert De Nero film, (I see someone’s mentioned that already)
    Had to check it was the same condition. Very powerful film in the 1990s I remember watching. Old hospitals and institutions really fascinate me and Scotland’s had its fair share. I,’ve visited quite a few of them after they closed down and worked in some decades ago all over the East End, doing repair and maintenance work..

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  18. that is a grand idea, this based on a true story sort of idea and you’ve created a compelling character and tale told to her granddaughter. I enjoyed it immensely

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  19. Beautifully written, Anabel. This one hits close to home. I had a cousin who was stricken by a rare neurological disease that left her completely paralyzed from the neck down. It was not the sleeping sickness that you have written about, though, as she remained conscious. Her illness occurred in the mid-sixties, I believe, and she was transported to a rehab hospital in the city where she lived out the remainder of her short life in an iron lung. Years later, I was working in the health care system in that city, and I had an opportunity to tour the hospital where she had been, and see the iron lung machines. They were enclosed metal cylinders that breathed for the paralyzed patient using mechanical air pressure changes. I was horrified to picture her existence in one of them.

    Jude

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  20. Very much my sort of a post. You really brought Granny Watt and Nurse Watt alive for me as well as the sad, and hard, times they lived in. Not only that, I learned something. I always thought that the word ‘zombies; was an invention of Hollywood and the creatures were dreamt up by the post-war generation. I’d love some more like this.

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  22. I love how your blog is currently highlighting women’s history, your detective skills and your eye for just the right photograph…all beautifully weaved together by your talented writing. Very engaging! I have been learning a great deal.

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    • Thank you – lovely compliments! Once I have given my talk on women’s history later in the month I’m sure the travel-writing bug will rebite. At the moment, my head is too full of history.

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  23. I agree with Karen. Old photos make great fodder for a storyteller and I often wish I had this talent.
    This sounds like one of those tragic times in history that gets long forgotten. Shocking how many people were affected.

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    • I hadn’t heard of it either till I got involved in this project. According to Wikipedia the cause of that epidemic was unknown and it’s never been repeated, though isolated cases sometimes crop up. Scary!

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  25. Terrific story, Anabel. You could easily have a whole new career doing this kind of research and writing for old photos. Then I, for one, would find those photos so much more interesting to view.

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