Swine flu will kill 65,000 people. That is the stark assumption made by leading health experts. As the pandemic reels in more victims, people in Shropshire and Mid Wales are changing the way they live to make sure they emerge unscathed. We asked three typical families to write about their experiences of swine flu. Here are their Swine Flu Diaries.

Jools and Ian Payne with their children Holly, 13, Max, 16 and Naomi, 18.

Jools Payne

Mum Jools Payne, 50, runs Jools Payne Partnership communications consultancy in Oswestry and lives with her partner Ian, 51, and three children Max, 16, 13-year-old Holly and Naomi, 18.

Jools writes. . .

Whilst I am definitely a “glass half full” kind of person, not particularly given to hypochondriac tendencies, I have to confess I am just beginning to get a teeny bit alarmed by this swine flu pandemic.

My nervousness stems from the fact I have succumbed to rheumatoid arthritis again after being in remission for years.

I’ve been on a course of steroids for nearly a year now whilst wrestling with another complication that meant I’ve been unable, up until six weeks ago, to take the big grown-up rheumatoid drugs.

Steroids suppress the immune system and this puts me in the “at risk” category.

I cannot help but twitch when I hear that phrase “underlying health problems” when reading of another death. Gulp!

In contrast my three teenagers seem unfazed by it all – despite my protestations to them that they wash their hands more.

Not helped either by an e-mail from the Shropshire Chamber of Commerce today calling for case histories of swine flu crisis strategies.