Extract from “EYAM, PLAGUE VILLAGE” 

Introduction Most young children know the rhyme: Ring a ring o’ roses A pocket full of posies Atishoo, atishoo We all fall down. But this rhyme is not as happy as it seems. It’s a rhyme about a deadly illness that killed many people. It’s a rhyme about the plague. A plague that began when rosy rings were seen on the bodies of its victims. Some people thought they wouldn’t get the plague if they carried flowers or posies. But they found flowers were useless. They began to sneeze. Then they fell down. Dead. Nearly 350 years ago, the people of Eyam knew all about that ‘ring o’ roses’. Eyam is a village in Derbyshire. All around are trees and fields. It seems as if nothing bad could ever happen there. You’d be wrong to think that. Something terrible did happen in the village. People began to die of plague. It came out of the blue. No one knew why the plague had come. Or how it got there. Some thought the village was cursed. Many wanted to run away. A few did. But most of the people in Eyam stayed. They decided to fight the plague. Many would lose their lives. This is their story.

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