An oral history of the response of the UK Health Protection Agency’s response to swine flu in 2009 revealed how, even after extensive pre planning, the turn of events took health agencies by surprise. The HPA rather than the NHS initially ran the on the ground response; and tensions occurred at the local level where health agencies operated uneasily in relation to each other. At the national level, politicians were unwilling to drop a crisis response and there were divisions about the nature of risk communication to the public. This oral history exercise, which ran into trouble with its funders, throws light both on problems of commissioned government funded oral history and on the issues for such history at a time of crisis. Key words: Swine flu: crisis: commissioned oral history : health policy