What decade should I set my story in?

Question

It's about a boy who gets TB and the way the characters behave is quite anachronistic- the teachers tell him to 'walk out of the room if he starts coughing' and sometimes call it 'wasting disease' or 'consumption'. His English teacher gives him lots of poetry and some other teachers are unsympathetic. It's sort of old fashioned, and a bit quaint (though not any less moving)

I think it'll be an all boys school- unless I have boys and girls taught separately.

Answer 1

Do it from 1900 to 1935.

My Grandmother died at the age of 32 from TB in 1932 and also her daughter at the age of 12 (my aunt) in 1933.

It was also called consumption then and children were going to school then on a regular basis. Don't forget they were also leaving school at the age of 14

Thank you for this question I suddenly felt very personal to this.

Answer 2

Well it can't be the 20th as during the 1880s it was established as a communicable disease and he would have never have been left in school.  So either switch the disease or the time period.

Answer 3

Setting your story in any period of the past is a huge challenge because of the amount of research you would need to do; I hope you're prepared for this, because there's nothing more frustrating as a reader than a story that constantly lets you down for being inaccurate or lacking credibility

Answer 4

     An English public school in the fifties would suit.  I know.  I went to one!!!

Good luck

Mike B

Answer 5

actually you could use any year from before 1990

because tb[tuberculosis] was not prevented in some parts of the world till around that year. i know this cause i have lived in africa annd there were people there who still had it. so yeah

Answer 6

Prior to 1900, tuberculosis was called "consumption". Any period before that would work.