//pretty sure that altho it was a killer it was nothing like corona deaths so a false comparisson?//
Not really.
The 1968 pandemic killed an estimated 30-50,000 people in the UK (Covid 52,000 so far) and between 1m and 4m worldwide (Covid 1.3m so far). The global population in 1968 was less than half that of today; the UK population today is 25% greater than it was in 1968; international movement is far more prevalent today.
So not a direct equivalence, but certainly a very widespread infectious disease that caused a large number of deaths. The contrast is that there was never any consideration given to locking the country down or closing the economy and remember, when it began, there was as much (or as little) known about it and how it was likely to spread as there was about Covid. I remember the outbreak and it hardly got a mention in most places at all. Lots of people contracted it; quite a few (mainly older or with other illnesses) unfortunately succumbed to it. But life went on.