Carrying the dead - the 1918 influenza pandemic

Sound file

The sound of ambulances carrying the dead and dying was constant during the worst of the pandemic.

Transcript

[Man speaking] At all times it seems, day and night, ambulances were on the move everywhere. They must have been manned in relays. In those days there was no free ambulance; the hospitals carried their own. These vehicles had tinkling bells instead of sirens.

[Woman speaking] At night-time was, I think, the most saddest of all because the trucks were rumbling past my place all night long. We found out after that they didn't have time to make coffins; they were just buried in boxes. And the sad part was when we went over to [the] cemetery later, when it was all over, no one knew where they were putting the flowers. They just put them on a mound of ground and trusted the luck of it being one of their own.