{"id":6681,"date":"2021-09-27T21:41:12","date_gmt":"2021-09-27T21:41:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lyndsaycampbell.com\/?p=6681"},"modified":"2021-09-28T01:39:41","modified_gmt":"2021-09-28T01:39:41","slug":"the-lyndsay-letter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lyndsaycampbell.com\/the-lyndsay-letter","title":{"rendered":"The Lyndsay Letter"},"content":{"rendered":"
[et_pb_section fb_built=”1″ _builder_version=”3.22″ global_colors_info=”{}”][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” type=”4_4″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″ custom_padding=”||16px|||”]<\/p>\n
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[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” column_structure=”2_5,3_5″][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” type=”2_5″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/lyndsaycampbell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/poooobar.jpg” _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” title_text=”poooobar” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″ align=”center”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” type=”3_5″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
What day is it? asked Pooh.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s today,\u201d squeaked Piglet<\/p>\n
\u201cMy favourite day,\u201d said Pooh.<\/p>\n
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[\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” type=”4_4″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n
In my humble opinion, Pooh is a very wise bear.<\/p>\n
My newsletter is designed to keep you up to date with my writing projects and will touch on books in general and what goes on behind the scenes of my writing day. My main objective however, is to enjoy composing something worth opening and reading.<\/p>\n
Writers are readers, and readers fuel the whole publishing industry. Without readers we writers would indeed be lost. I always have a book on the go, sometimes in print and sometimes the e-version. I recently tried audio – a new delight that I hope to enjoy more. Having a story read to me is one of my favourite childhood memories and I don\u2019t mind regressing one little bit. I intend to include opinions and raves about the books I am reading as well as films and series.<\/p>\n
I have a particular interest in historical novels, as while the characters and even the places may be fictional, the times and societies they describe are based on reality. Historical novels invite us learn about the past, using the powerful vehicle of story. As a writer of historical novels based (so far) in New Zealand, I thoroughly enjoy recreating a world which once existed, or one quite like it. My characters are fictional, but the issues they deal with, and the social environments they live in, are as real as I can make them.<\/p>\n
Exciting news : I have finally set up my website. Check it out on \/\/https:lyndsaycampbell.com<\/strong><\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The subject of my first book, The Aro Street Girls, (pub 2018), marked a century since the world\u2019s first devastating influenza pandemic, and seems strangely prescient. With Covid 19 still raging around the globe, in August, that very clever virus managed to stealth its way through New Zealand\u2019s quarantine defences. Perhaps it was inevitable. The virulence of the disease and the way it can mutate into different versions of itself, is scary.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” column_structure=”2_5,3_5″ custom_padding=”40px||40px||true|false”][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” type=”2_5″][et_pb_image src=”https:\/\/lyndsaycampbell.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/08\/51Ja3lIQ7NL.jpeg” _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” box_shadow_style=”none” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″ title_text=”51Ja3lIQ7NL”][\/et_pb_image][\/et_pb_column][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” type=”3_5″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n Worldwide, according to Wikipedia, 500 million people contracted influenza during the 1918-19 pandemic and 50 million of them, or ten percent, died. The planet\u2019s human population was only 1.8 billion then, and New Zealand was home to a little over one million citizens. Almost 9000 New Zealanders died… half the total killed during WW1, and the Maori population was hit disproportionally hard with 2,500 deaths.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Many of the victims were young and medical knowledge had nothing to fight against it. A vaccine against influenza was not developed until 1945, and anti-biotics, which might have helped against secondary infection, did not come along until 1928.<\/p>\n That influenza devastated my grandmother\u2019s family, as two of the victims were her sisters, my great aunts. The virus was highly contagious and if you got it, and the lethal bacterial pneumonia that usually followed, your chances of living to tell the tale weren\u2019t terrific. The disease was brutal, but from what I can find out, after several waves, the virus had more-or-less petered out by June 1920.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default”][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” type=”4_4″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n My grandmother nursed one of her sisters who contracted the disease. She, an otherwise healthy young woman, died at age 25, along with another married sister and her husband, leaving two little girls. But my grandmother did not get ill. Why? We can only assume that she had built up immunity. Luckily for us.<\/p>\n One treatment back then consisted of drinking a borax solution, which is toxic to humans. Inhaling zinc sulphate was also supposed to help and public inhalation stations were set up. Many public facilities, including schools were closed. The common use of masks, (although some poked holes in them to smoke), practising careful hygiene and socially distancing was probably more successful than any of the so-called medical treatments.<\/p>\n The virus, commonly called, \u2018The Spanish flu,\u2019 was apparently first noted in March 1918 among U.S. military personal in the Kansas, before spreading to Europe and the U. K., then to the Pacific with returning soldiers. Today, with our much larger and denser population, and ability to jet around the globe, the virus has been faster to spreads.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][et_pb_row _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” column_structure=”3_5,2_5″ custom_padding=”14px||31px||false|false”][et_pb_column _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” type=”3_5″][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.10.8″ _module_preset=”default” hover_enabled=”0″ sticky_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n\u00a0Revisiting the 1918 Influenza Pandemic<\/strong><\/h3>\n