'I was born while my mother was in an iron lung'
Family photoIn 1956, Elizabeth Mennell was 32 with an impressive career in the foreign office. She loved the outdoors, especially hiking and swimming, and she was also five months pregnant with her second child.
Then one day, she caught polio. She was paralysed and stayed in hospital for three years, much of which was spent in an iron lung - a horizontal metal cylinder that patients would lie inside to help them breathe.
Elizabeth's daughter, Susan Mennell, who is now 70 and from Bookham in Surrey, said her mother "apparently gave birth to me in an iron lung," although it was probably opened for the delivery.
"Polio affected her legs, her arms and also her intercostal muscles, meaning she couldn't breathe properly without assistance. My brother was 18 months old at the time, so that was quite an upheaval for the family," Susan explained.
Rosie Blunt/BBCPolio was rife in the mid-20th Century, and symptoms could range from none at all to lifelong paralysis or death.
The iron lung, which has now been replaced by modern ventilators, was used to help patients whose lungs had been affected by paralysis.
A motor would suck air in and out of the cylinder, forcing the lungs to expand and take in air. When the air was let back in, the lungs would deflate.
Historical records suggest women who gave birth while dependent on an iron lung would either briefly be removed to deliver the baby or the bottom half of the cylinder would be opened up. They would have been given alternative forms of ventilation to help with breathing during the birth.
Polio particularly affected young children. Fortunately, Susan was, overall, a healthy baby.
"I didn't speak apparently until I was about three, so they thought my vocal cords might have been affected," she said.
At its peak in the 40s and 50s, polio killed or paralysed more than half a million people a year worldwide.
Elizabeth was permanently disabled by the disease.
She never walked again and was unable to hold her children, which her toddler found particularly hard as "she wasn't the mother he had known", Susan said.
When their mother was in hospital, the children moved in with their aunt. She encouraged them to call her mother.
"My father was travelling up to London every day so wouldn't have had much of a hand in looking after us," Susan said.
Getty ImagesWhen Elizabeth did eventually return home three years later, life was very different.
"Our parents went on honeymoon to the Swiss Alps to go walking and she liked swimming, so she was a very healthy, fit woman, but it struck her down, so she just had to adapt to a new life," Susan said.
"We had lots of aids for her and she had the rocking bed (a bed that would tilt from one end to the other to assist with breathing) that she used at night. She had a ventilator too."
Family photoElizabeth had just missed out on the polio vaccine, which was created by US doctor Jonas Salk in the early 1950s and licensed in 1955, the year before Elizabeth caught the disease.
By 1957, annual polio cases had dropped from 58,000 to 5,600 as a result of the vaccination programme. The last recorded case in the UK was in 1984.
Today, polio has been eradicated in all but two countries - Afghanistan and Pakistan.
It is included in routine childhood vaccinations, but rates are below the World Health Organisation's target of 95%.
In England, 90.5% of children are vaccinated by 12 months.
Dr Patrick Murphy, a consultant respiratory physician at Guys and St Thomas' Hospital in London, thinks the risk of polio returning due to a dip in vaccination levels is "a real concern".
"If our vaccine level is falling and we're getting migration from an area which has higher rates of polio then actually there's potential for outbreaks coming in the future, and therefore maintaining vaccination is... really important," he said.
Susan said meeting people who express views against vaccination feels "very personal" and she has to "walk out of the room".
"I just think if only you knew how devastating certain diseases are," she said.
Getty ImagesElizabeth often had to return to hospital and go back into the iron lung, particularly when she was ill.
Rather than finding this upsetting, Susan said it became very normal and the family would say: "Okay, mum's in an iron lung because she's had a bit of a cold".
But Susan said her mother was "very positive".
"I never once heard her show any self-pity at all for her condition, but she made a life for herself, thanks to my father's support."
The family even managed to go on holiday to Brittany in France.
"My father had organised for a rocking bed to be available for my mother when we were in Brittany and we went over on the ferry - that was quite an adventure. [But] a logistical nightmare, I imagine, for my father," Susan said.
Family photoSusan said her mother had "a very good understanding of people".
"She was a very gentle person, a very astute, very intelligent woman. She had a huge emotional intelligence.
"She really understood people, because when you're in a wheelchair, people tend to ignore you, they talk over you.
"She could read people very well and I think that was because she was an observer a lot of the time."
Susan looks back in awe at the fact her father Francis spent the rest of her parents' marriage as her mother's carer, until she died aged 70.
"My parents raised the bar really high and I'm not sure I could be as strong as they were," she said.
