'I've never forgotten those who died of TB' - Glasgow soldiers survived war only to die of dreaded disease

Dan Harris, of East Kilbride, got in touch to tell us: “I have never forgotten the mass x-ray programme in Glasgow, just as I haven’t forgotten relatives who died because of tuberculosis.

“Before this x-ray programme, children like myself were unaware of the existence of TB – we only knew of consumption, because that is what we were told. Of course, I learned later it was the same thing.”

The Glasgow campaign to x-ray people for signs of the deadly disease, set a world record - Glasgow Corporation had initially set a target of 250,000 residents but final figures showed that 712,860 people were x-rayed – more than 85 per cent of the population of the city aged over 14.

At the end of the campaign, thanksgiving services were held at Glasgow Cathedral and St Andrew’s Cathedral, and a civic reception at the City Chambers paid tribute to 600 workers involved in delivering it.

The campaign had caught the imagination of the public and the media from the beginning. Rangers stars George Young, George Niven and Sammy Baird, and Celtic’s Charlie Tully all queued to be x-rayed. Tex Ritter, the cowboy star, who was appearing at the Empire at the time, also took his turn.

For Dan, reading the story reminded him of how his family, like so many others, lost people to the disease.

“During the Second World War, two of my mother’s brothers served in the Royal Navy,” he explains. “The elder, Bill, was on HMS Courageous, the first British Aircraft Carrier to be lost. His younger brother John was on the Aircraft Carrier HMS Eagle when it was sunk.

“Both of them survived the war, only to die premature deaths because of TB.”

Sadly, recalls Dan, John had already lost his young wife to TB, and both he and Bill had young children.

“At the end of the war there were hospitals which had whole wards devoted to TB patients, because of the rise in cases,” adds Dan. “I was evacuated to Canada during WWII, and I remember seeing letters with stamps on them which bore the Cross of Lorraine. Much later, I discovered they have a remarkable history.

“They were called Christmas Seals, which originated in Copenhagen in 1904, invented by a humble postal worker to help raise money for charity. The idea spread to neighbouring countries, then crossed the Atlantic and millions of these Seals were sold in North America.

“They were not postage stamps per se, but were used for affixing to Christmas presents to highlight good causes. The proceeds of their sales were used in the fight against TB. According to the World Health Organisation, the worldwide TB death rate has risen for the first time in a decade due to the Covid pandemic.”

Christmas seals were used to raise funds for a variety of good causes, but over the decades have become most closely associated with tuberculosis.

READ MORE: Glasgow's TB mass x-ray programme was a world record

When they were first created, by postal worker Einar Holbøll, tuberculosis was one of the major causes of death globally. According to the British Society for the History of Medicine website: “Organised national efforts to combat the disease were looking for means to raise awareness and financial support for the disease. These campaigns can be seen as some of the very first public health initiatives, in which the financial contributions of ordinary people were used to fund treatment of a disease.”

The Cross of Lorraine, which Dan recalls from his days in Canada, is a double-barred cross adopted as the symbol of the fight against TB, and it appeared on many of the Christmas seals.