Call The Midwife: A True Story Of The East End In The 1950s: A True Story of the East End in the 1950s

Product Details

Author : Jennifer Worth
Binding : Paperback
EAN : 9780753823835
Number of Pages : 376
Product Group : Book
Publication Date : 2008-03-06
Publisher : Phoenix

ASIN : 0753823837

Customers who bought this goods also bought.

Editorial Reviews

Sunday Express 7th July 2002 - Fiona McDonald Smith

Jennifer Worth can rival James Herriot with her descriptions of childbirth in the Poplar tenements.

Review

"Funny, disturbing and incredibly moving" (YORKSHIRE EVENING POST )

"Worth's portrait is subtle, skilfully describing a sense of community that no longer exists" (FT MAGAZINE )

"an amazing if at times gut-wrenching read... a detailed trip into history which may raise a few tears and many eyebrows" (WARWICKSHIRE TELEGRAPH )

"Misery memoir meets EastEnders with a bang!" (GOOD BOOK GUIDE )

Eastern Daily Press 14th October 2002 - Rachel Banham

This Brillient book was written because there is nothing by midwives about midwifery in the whole of European Literature

THE TABLET

'This uplifting story is about love, that of mothers for their children, and the love of God that compelled the nuns to dedicate their lives to the well-being of the poor.'

BBC Radio Essex 2nd July 2002 - Dave Monk

You must get this glorious, glorious book.

Product Description

Jennifer Worth came from a sheltered background when she became a midwife in the Docklands in the 1950s. The conditions in which many women gave birth just half a century ago were horrifying, not only because of their grimly impoverished surroundings, but also because of what they were expected to endure. But while Jennifer witnessed brutality and tragedy, she also met with amazing kindness and understanding, tempered by a great deal of Cockney humour. She also earned the confidences of some whose lives were truly stranger, more poignant and more terrifying than could ever be recounted in fiction. Attached to an order of nuns who had been working in the slums since the 1870s, Jennifer tells the story not only of the women she treated, but also of the community of nuns (including one who was accused of stealing jewels from Hatton Garden) and the camaraderie of the midwives with whom she trained. Funny, disturbing and incredibly moving, Jennifer's stories bring to life the colourful world of the East End in the 1950s.

Synopsis

Jennifer Worth came from a sheltered background when she became a midwife in the Docklands in the 1950s. The conditions in which many women gave birth just half a century ago were horrifying, not only because of their grimly impoverished surroundings, but also because of what they were expected to endure. But while Jennifer witnessed brutality and tragedy, she also met with amazing kindness and understanding, tempered by a great deal of Cockney humour. She also earned the confidences of some whose lives were truly stranger, more poignant and more terrifying than could ever be recounted in fiction. Attached to an order of nuns who had been working in the slums since the 1870s, Jennifer tells the story not only of the women she treated, but also of the community of nuns (including one who was accused of stealing jewels from Hatton Garden) and the camaraderie of the midwives with whom she trained. Funny, disturbing and incredibly moving, Jennifer's stories bring to life the colourful world of the East End in the 1950s.

From the Author

Comedy and tragedy are the faces of the double mask of the ‘Commedia dell’Arte’. This is the Theatre of Life where the writer must start. Writers with no experience of life have nothing to say. The writer must dwell in the thick of human life and get the hands dirty. Truth is always richer and stranger than fiction.
What is more central to life than birth? A midwife is always present, yet a midwife’s role has never before been documented. I was a district midwife fifty years ago, going around the slums of the London Docklands on a bicycle.
The docks were fully operational and employed most of the men. The bug- infested tenements (those that were still standing after the Blitz) housed tens of thousands of people, and overcrowding was chronic. There was no Pill, and families were large, sometimes huge. None of the flats or houses had a telephone. Few of them had running water or even a lavatory. Babies were born by gaslight, lamplight, or the meter ran out in the middle of labour.
The setting is rich material for the Commedia dell’Arte tradition. The fever-ridden slums of Naples or the dark, sinister canals of mediaeval Venice could not be more redolent of atmosphere for drama and melodrama. Yet time and place alone are of limited interest. There can be no comedy or tragedy without people.
The Cockneys are the people I write about. I knew and loved them. I entered their crowded homes at the most intimate times of life – the birth of new babies. I saw their strengths and weaknesses, their open-heartedness and narrow prejudices, their humour and courage, their irresistible passion for enjoyment.
The book is teeming with unforgettable characters: Conchita and Len who produced twenty-five babies between them, the last one born prematurely in a London smog; Brenda who had rickets; Lilly who had syphilis; Molly, beaten up and on the game a fortnight after delivery; a breach delivery on Christmas day; Margaret, who died of eclampsia; Mary, a fourteen year-old Irish girl dragged into the seamy brothels of Cable Street (I am told that the strip show in a brothel is amongst my most powerful writing!); Fred, the boiler man at the Convent; and Mrs. Jenkins, who had spent eighteen years in the workhouse. And how does a white man deal with his wife (also white) after the birth of a half-black baby? How would any man react today? There are three such stories in Call the Midwife. We are not talking about an IVF error. This is not racism. This is adultery. This is the Commedia dell’Arte.
I have mentioned a convent. I worked with an order of nuns, heroic nuns who had been nursing in the slums of London since the 1870s, when no-one would go into those areas, except the police. The nuns are central to the book. They are saintly and wise, worldly and witty, sometimes infuriating, often eccentric. Sister Monica Joan’s verbal battles with Sister Evangelina are among the funniest things in the book, I am told.
The book is social history in story form. It is not a dull chronicle of events. It is about the living, breathing, suffering, laughing people whose lives were shaped by the docklands in which they lived fifty years ago.
As we grow older the days of our youth are illuminated by a golden glow that seems to grow ever brighter as the years pass. My memories of midwifery in Poplar approach high romance: the great cargo boats coming and going ceaselessly, with thousands of men entering the dock gates, loading and unloading; the pilots guiding a great white vessel as big as an iceberg through a narrow canal to her resting wharf; the constant deep-throated growls of the ships’ funnels and the shrill of the sirens. I recall the open-hearted friendliness of the people who lived cheerfully in grim conditions, who never locked their doors and who kept open house to just about everyone. I remember cycling home in the grey light of dawn when the docks were beginning to stir, my body tired after eighteen hours work, but my mind alight with the thrill of having achieved the safe delivery of a beautiful baby to a joyous mother

About the Author

Jennifer Worth trained as a nurse at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading. She moved to London to train as a midwife and later became a staff nurse at the Royal London Hospital, Whitechapel, and then ward sister and sister at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in Euston. Music had always been her passion, and in 1973 Jennifer left nursing in order to study music intensively. She gained the Licentiate of the London College of Music in 1974 and was awarded a Fellowship ten years later. Jennifer and her husband live in Hertfordshire. They have two daughters and two grandchildren.

Customer Reviews

Bittersweet memories (2008-08-27)

This is a brilliant book that at times made me cry, and at others, laugh out loud. My own mother was a Cockney, born in the East End in 1920, and reading this book brought back bitter sweet memories of the way that she was, and the wonderful stories that she used to tell. It has helped me to appreciate her humour much more and understand where some of my own ways have come from. I particularly enjoyed the stories of Sister Evangelina and her escapades across the Thames, jumping from barge to barge and the obsession with bodily functions, and also Sister Monica Joan with her knitting needles. As for the ordinary women, what happened to Mary once she left prison, how did Mrs Jenkins' children die, and how many more children did Conchita have. One of my aunts had 22 of them, but 25? Most of us cannot imagine the conditions that these women lived and worked in, and the daily struggle for survival. The modern existence is pampered in comparison. We complain about not having two bathrooms, while these women had one communal tap to each floor of the flats that they lived in and one shared toilet. Times may have been hard, and money tight, but they had more balls and more grit than anything you would see today, with no counsellors in sight!

Very good read! (2008-08-15)

This is an excellent book! The way how Jennifer Worth describes life (hers) as a midwife in the 50's East End is just so real you can almost see it in front of your eyes! Great book!

Disappointing read (2008-07-10)

I only persevered to finish this book as it had been lent to me by a friend who rated it highly. It is a cross between a midwife's manual and an historical account of the East End in the fifties. It may have been of interest to midwives of that era or people living in the East End of London at that time but it certainly didn't give me any pleasure. As the book proceeded I found I liked the author less and less and wondered why she stuck with her vocation and could well believe that she eventually gave it up for her real love - music. I was nursing in the sixties, not I may add in the East End, and could well picture Ms. Worth as the feared Matron of that time. A little humour thrown in at some point would have made the book more enjoyable and also maybe a little humility from the author. The "story" of Conchita and her family was the one redeeming factor in this book. If you have no attachment to the East End or midwifery in the fifties give this book a wide berth.

An insipring read (2008-07-05)

Once I started this book, I couldn't put it down. I'm currently training as a midwife and read the book with awe and fascination. It's amazing to think how much things have changed in 50 years (I'm glad I don't have to boil urine in a test tube!), but also to see how much is still the same. Not wanting to spoil the book for those who haven't read it, I'll only say that there are situations that she was in that we hopefully will never face, for which I'm glad, but it only makes my respect for her, and any others working in obstetrics at the time, increase. Her dediation to the job was inspirational and I look forward to reading the next two installments.

Brilliant (2008-07-01)

I loved this book. Jennifer Worth brought history to life for me and now I can't wait to read the next part of her story. The book is full of interesting characters and gritty stories and you're hooked from page one. As a result of this book I wanted to find out more about Father Joe Williamson who is mentioned in 'Call the Midwife' and I managed to track down his autobigraphy on Amazon. (once I've read it I'll submit my review. First impressions are favourable!) Anyway, read this book, you won't regret it if you're interested in social history, or like me, the history of the East End of London. It's a real eye opener, makes you realise the kind of lives many of our Grandparents would have lived. I highly recommend this book.

Look for similar items by category

• Subjects > Biography

Related Link