I remember young girls screaming in pain, crying out...

“THAT picture of me was taken in 1956, by the Cork Examiner on the opening of the Hydrotherapy bath. I’m in the steel bath in the orthopaedic hospital in Gurranabraher. I’m three years old. My mother had it on the wall in our house. I don’t remember it, but it was a very hard time for my parents.”

Anne Casey, from Mallow, contracted polio in 1956. Her story, and stories like hers, have attracted renewed attention since Covid. So much so that a book of 29 personal stories of polio was re-launched by Polio Survivors Ireland. The aim of the publication is to help ensure the legacy of polio is not forgotten, and that eradication through vaccination is protected.

The differences between the two viruses are clear. Whilst we sheltered the elderly in recent years, polio, or infantile paralysis, struck fear into the hearts of parents across the world in the early 1950s. The highly contagious disease could result in partial or complete paralysis of their children for life.

Despite their differences, Covid brought it all back for Anne.

“I was so scared. I thought to myself, this is here for a long time and who knows when we’ll get a vaccine. They started tests for polio vaccines in 1916. They didn’t find a vaccine until 1955. Ireland didn’t get it until 1957.

“I remember children getting vaccines in sugar lumps in school. But it took a long time. The way the world came together and got the vaccine for Covid was really something.”

Anne has no time for the conspiracy theorists who refuse vaccines. She still lives with the after-effects of polio, and she lives with her memories.

“If they could see those polio wards. If they could know the side effects of polio and what we went through as children. People suffer from Post-Polio Syndrome too. I don’t, but I know people who live in pain. People who 20 years after their infection have to wear callipers for the first time. 60% of sufferers develop that syndrome – who knows what Covid sufferers will face in years to come?”

For the most part, Anne draws more contrasts than comparisons between polio and Covid.

“Things were so different then. I had to go into hospital every year until I was 15. The doctors and the nurses then were different, very different to today. They were very cold and very distant. I brought my daughter into CUH when she broke her arm and I found it very difficult. I could see how warm the place was, there were teddy bears and kind faces. There was none of that in my day.

Anne tells me her story slowly, with care.

She was the only one in her family to contract polio. The family ran a farm in Dromahane, outside Mallow. An adult neighbour, Joe O’Callaghan, across the road also caught it along with one of his children, Helen O’Donoghue (nee O’Callaghan). Some doctors at the time were advising that children didn’t swim in the river.

“My mother told me that I was unwell for a few days. I had a sore throat and a headache, much like Covid. But then I woke up and couldn’t move my legs. I couldn’t get out of bed. I was sent to St Finbarr’s and put in quarantine.

“My parents could only look at me through glass. It must have been so hard for them. I couldn’t walk. I crawled around. Then I was sent to the orthopaedic hospital. I stayed there for a year and a half before coming home and after that, I went back for the summers. They did their best to do it during the school holidays, but I still missed a lot of schooling.”

I ask Anne if she made many friends in the wards.

“To a degree,” she hesitates. “But the atmosphere was different back then. There was little support given to us from the doctors and nurses. The only people who were kind to us were the cleaners. They were the salt of the earth. They’d slip us sweets while the nurses weren’t looking. My parents’ visits were very restricted. They could only come for an hour or so on a Sunday, so I really didn’t know them in the beginning, and I didn’t know my little brother. He’d speak to me through the window. My parents got a better car to make the journey because the Mallow-Cork road was so terrible then, there were over 100 bends.”

Anne had one advantage: city cousins from the Northside and Turner’s Cross.

“My city cousins would visit me a lot and spoiled me, so I almost knew them better. They’d leave me toys, but the toys would always be taken away by the nurses after they left. I wouldn’t get them back until I was leaving again.”

She paints a grim picture of the hospital.

“The nurses were brought in from outside because the polio numbers were so high, so they hadn’t specialised in working with children. There could have been 15 girls in a ward. We were in Block 3 and the boys were in a different block.

“The physio was in Block 4, and they worked us hard. They were very tough on us, very harsh, and we’d no parents to back us up. We were all terrified of Block 9 where they did the operations. We’d look out the window and see children being brought in and out in the open air in trolleys.”

She remembers moments of joy, like the school that Mrs Murphy ran in the hospital. She also remembers how the children loved their beds being wheeled out onto the veranda when the summer was fine.

“A connection of mine, Hannah Quinn called to the hospital on her wedding day and we were all enthralled by her wedding dress. She had to get special permission for her visit.”

But she can’t hide her pain when remembering for too long.

“I remember young girls screaming in pain, crying out, because one leg hadn’t grown like the other and they stretched them to make them even. I had different operations and a major one when I was nine on my left leg, but I never had the stretching.”

An operation at nine allowed Anne to walk with only one calliper instead of two. Before then, she walked very slowly. She has worn a calliper on her left leg since. She can’t walk more than eight steps without it.

“She uses a walking stick or a roller, complains of tender skin, and is prone to pressure sores from wearing steel all her life.

“Nowadays, people are so kind because they see the predicament you’re in, but it was different then. We had to fend for ourselves.”

My conversation with Anne leaves me certain of two things. Irish society is kinder and more compassionate, than it was in 1956. And science has changed our world for the better.

With Covid back in our lives, interrupting our plans and separating us once again, they’re two lessons worth remembering.

Polio & Us is available to purchase from www.polio.ie All proceeds from the book go towards services and supports for polio survivor

My parents could only look at me through glass. It must have been so hard for them. I couldn’t walk. I crawled around. Then i was sent to the orthopaedic hospital. I stayed for a year and a half.