When polio stalked the land

Bobbing about in Cork

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He tells quite a bit of his days in hospital and feelings at the time. He seems, though, a bit reticent about it at times, because it was so long ago and also perhaps because of a resentment at his parents moving house to Cork, despite warnings about the epidemic. His parents were Claud and Patricia Cockburn.

His father was a leftist writer and his mother a daughter of Anglo-Irish upper-class parents. Both were adventurous and neither were accustomed to changing their plans if risks were involved. Much of the book, perhaps too much, is written about his parents and their background. For those readers of Alexander Cockburn, Patrick's brother, this family background is very familiar ground. Well-written and interesting in places, this is a slight contribution to the literature on diseases and epidemics.

Editorial Reviews

Cockburn laments the lack of information on polio epidemic in Cork, so perhaps this is spadework for another, larger book. For those who are interested in epidemics in general, Cockburn points to a classic account, Journal of a Plague Year by Daniel Defoe. I had polio, about the same in immediate and long-term effect as Cockburn, at about the same time.

The reason for the reticence the earlier reviewer notes is that at that time we were all bombarded by images of kids in iron lungs, and by encouraging stories about other little boys and girls who'd had polio or other crippling diseases and accidents the miler Glenn Cunningham was a teacher favorite and who'd gone on to greatness of one kind or another. Part of that message was that if we weren't going to be cheerful overachievers we should at least have the grace to shut up about it, since so many others the coffin kids had it so much worse.

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To be a polio survivor is to know absolutely that whatever you may think you deserve, there's another kid in the ward who deserves much more; however great you think you are there's another kid who's better. It screws me up at job interviews but otherwise makes me a better person than I might otherwise be -- though not, as noted, as good as Patrick Cockburn, most likely.

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Suddenly, though, he has the fever. Suddenly, his whole life turns on its head. He is alone, utterly alone.

He is one of a crowd of victims. He is a cripple. He'll be a cripple forever. Cockburn develops this moment of despair in two distinct ways. The first, with grace and precision, is to tell us how he felt and who and what he remembers. He remembers the thin, grey, hospital slop of minced meat and potato; the fear of tyrant nurses snapping his head off so that when he shits in his bed by mistake, he wraps it in a copy of the Beano and hurls it down a darkened ward.

He remembers the frail radio headphones that link him to an outside world, the twice-a-week visits from his mother and father, the ward tours by lordly consultants brooking no questions nor arguments. This is wonderful writing and wincingly true.

The Broken Boy

I know because, in an earlier, mainland epidemic, I was the lad in the iron lung and then the plaster bed, unable to move and far from home. I remember the headphones and the soggy toast and Dr Malkin on his touring pedestal and the sanctuary of physiotherapy, where Miss Butters and Miss White were human beings who helped make your psyche whole.

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Though he spent a lot of time in school reading by himself, he writes "I was not solitary and made friends easily. He'll be a cripple forever. I can relate that to other epidemics in other times. Cockburn's father, the radical journalist Claud Cockburn, wrote that children in Gurranebraher "seemed to be largely in the hands of maids - young country girls with no special training at all". I had polio, about the same in immediate and long-term effect as Cockburn, at about the same time. The author, who contracted polio at age six, was one of many victims of the polio epidemic in Cork, Ireland. Patrick is six, a cheerful, cosseted lad marked one-to-one by his nanny Kitty while Mum goes riding and Claud churns out his pieces.

Was Ireland any different to Leicestershire ? The ordeal, strangeness and fear were the same. But the second strand of Cockburn's book is harder-edged and more insistent. Fifty years on, his illness still rankles. The lordly consultants may be on more celestial duty, but he still wants answers. What exactly did so many suffer from, and why? Tiffany added it Oct 23, Julian Sharpe added it Jul 25, Samantha Hudson marked it as to-read Aug 08, Vanessa marked it as to-read Dec 28, Michael marked it as to-read Mar 22, Mark marked it as to-read Apr 02, Sophie marked it as to-read May 10, Anne marked it as to-read Dec 19, Rodney Ulyate marked it as to-read May 29, Denise marked it as to-read Aug 13, Michelle added it Sep 23, Alam marked it as to-read Jan 23, Hasan Brusk marked it as to-read Mar 06, Sheila marked it as to-read Apr 08, Syed Hassan Raza marked it as to-read Mar 18, Cynthia Alice marked it as to-read Jun 27, BookDB marked it as to-read Sep 14, Aravind M Honest reviews and promoter marked it as to-read Sep 20, Dana Hammer marked it as to-read Oct 21, Jan Ariana marked it as to-read Nov 07, Joseph marked it as to-read Dec 28, Charlotte marked it as to-read Mar 01, Lindl Lawton marked it as to-read Mar 06, Andy marked it as to-read Mar 25,