UK 'plague village' proved 350 years ago that social distancing can win

When I was 12, my parents took my brother and me on a campervan adventure around England, my dad's country of birth. I can't say I remember much: I know my dear dad snored every night and we threw things at him from our bunks. I know my brother and I were deeply impressed by the "Major Oke" in Sherwood Forest. It's an oak, of course - under which, according to folklore, Robin Hood and his merry men slept - but we young South Africans thought "oke" was a good giggle.

I remember the thrilling hum on my fingers of the cold surfaces of Stonehenge (in those days, the stones had not yet been roped off and one could still actually touch them). And I remember wandering around a particular village and its church, St Lawrence's, pictured above. Who knew back then that - 30 years later - it would have such a pertinent tale to tell?

Eyam, in Derbyshire in the English Peak District, has long been nicknamed England's "Plague Village". In 1665 London was devastated by the Great Plague, the last major outbreak in England of the bubonic plague. People were urged to stay in their houses and watchmen were placed outside to prevent anyone from leaving.

Their efforts, however, were clearly not strict enough. In late August 1665 a tailor named Alexander Hadfield in the village of Eyam, 260km north of London, ordered some rolls of cloth from the capital - and they came.

When the tailor's assistant, George Vickers, who lived with Hadfield and his wife in their cottage, unpacked the cloth, he noticed it had an unpleasant smell. Deciding that this was because the cloth was damp, Vickers laid it out in front of the fire to dry. And so an army of infected fleas, fresh from the plague-stricken areas of London, were loosed upon the village.

Seven days later, on September 7 1665, Vickers died, the first victim of the Eyam plague. Five more died in the next three weeks in a cluster of four neighbouring houses. By June 1666 the village's death toll had reached 82.

By then it was clear to the vicar of Eyam, the Rev William Mompesson, that drastic steps were required. He came up with a three-part plan. First, that families should bury their own dead and second that the church would be closed and that future services would take place in the open air.

But it was the third part of his plan that gives Eyam its incredible place in the history books. Mompesson persuaded the villagers that Eyam should be sealed off in a self-imposed quarantine in order to ensure that the plague would not spread to the surrounding villages. The villagers agreed.

They created a perimeter of boundary stones that they vowed not to cross and went home to await their fate.

Over 350 years later what's incredible about their case is that, even without the benefit of the sophisticated science that we have today, they understood something about how the disease was spread and how cleanliness was paramount.

To get food into the village they struck a deal with merchants from neighbouring villages. Eyam's residents bored holes into their boundary stones and would leave coins in the holes, soaked in vinegar as a disinfectant. The merchants would collect the money and leave them meat and grains in return.

There can be no denying that the plague took a great toll on the village. Entire families were wiped out. And yet, over the several months that the village remained in isolation, only two people are known to have fled. And then on November 1 1667 the last victim, Abraham Morton, died. Suddenly the plague was gone as swiftly as it had come. The quarantine was lifted.

The final death toll is disputed but the church in Eyam records 273 lives lost. In the capital, meanwhile, the disease eventually killed 100,000 people. The folk of Eyam - who lost around a quarter of their 1,000-strong population (though this too is disputed) - to this day have been remembered for their self-sacrifice. They are believed to have saved the much more crowded nearby towns of Manchester and Sheffield, which the plague never reached.

There are a few documentaries on YouTube about the village, in one of which the narrator sums up their heroism thus: "These people saw their death approach but stood their ground. They could have fled but chose to stay rather than risk passing the calamity that had overtaken them to other people."

As South Africa and much of the world shuts down now in an effort to contain Covid- 19, take courage from the story of Eyam. I certainly do - firstly because their level of self-sacrifice is not being asked of us. We have access to information, health care and ways to sterilise. We may be stuck at home, and the long-term economic consequences are frightening, but we are not shut off from the world and we are not entirely helpless. We can still communicate with one another and entertain ourselves and hope for recoveries and cures.

Ultimately, the most heartening factor in the story of Eyam is that they showed it: successful social immobilisation can contain outbreaks. Its story proves right the insistence of WHO chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, who just this week said that "we are not helpless bystanders" and that "we can change the trajectory of this pandemic".

As much as you can, do your bit. And in the meantime, keep travelling (virtually, with our help), keep dreaming and stay safe.