Jennifer Worth - Call the Midwife

Praise for Call the Midwife

Worth is indeed a natural storytellerin the best sense of the term, with apparent artlessness in fact concealing high artand her detailed account of being a midwife in Londons East End is gripping, moving, and convincing from beginning to end.[Call the Midwife] is also a powerful evocation of a long-gone worldand in Worth it has surely found one of its best chroniclers.

David Kynaston, Literary Review

A chilling insight into life for the average mother [in the 1950s].

Sunday Express

Worth is a stylish and dramatic writer.

Matthew Parris, Spectator

This delightful memoir brings to vivid life Londons East Endfull of humorWorths talent shines from every page.

Sainsburys Magazine

In her marvelous new bookthere are desperately sad stories here, but tales of great hope too. Of ordinary people living, giving birth and building their families despite enormous hardship and poor sanitation. And of midwives delivering superb care in the toughest conditions.

East End Life

Nobody who reads [Call the Midwife] will ever forget it.

The Woman Writer

The Docklands in Londons East End in the 1950s seems more like the nineteenth century than fifty years ago.

Good Book Guide

Sheer magic.

The Lady

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Jennifer Worth trained as a nurse at the Royal Berkshire Hospital in Reading. She then moved to London to train as a midwife. She 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 married Philip Worth in 1963 and they lived together in Hertfordshire. Jennifer died in May 2011, leaving her husband, two daughters, and three grandchildren.

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Call the Midwife

A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times

JENNIFER WORTH

Clinical Editor
Terri Coates MSc, RN, RM, ADM, Dip Ed

PENGUIN BOOKS

Previously published as The Midwife

PENGUIN BOOKS

Published by the Penguin Group

Penguin Group (USA) Inc., 375 Hudson Street, New York, New York 10014, U.S.A. Penguin Group (Canada), 90 Eglinton Avenue East, Suite 700, Toronto, Ontario, Canada M4P 2Y3 (a division of Pearson Penguin Canada Inc.) Penguin Books Ltd, 80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England Penguin Ireland, 25 St Stephens Green, Dublin 2, Ireland (a division of Penguin Books Ltd) Penguin Group (Australia), 250 Camberwell Road, Camberwell, Victoria 3124, Australia (a division of Pearson Australia Group Pty Ltd) Penguin Books India Pvt Ltd, 11 Community Centre, Panchsheel Park, New Delhi 110 017, India Penguin Group (NZ), 67 Apollo Drive, Rosedale, Auckland 0632, New Zealand (a division of Pearson New Zealand Ltd) Penguin Books (South Africa) (Pty) Ltd, 24 Sturdee Avenue, Rosebank, Johannesburg 2196, South Africa

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80 Strand, London WC2R 0RL, England

First published in Great Britain as Call the Midwife by Merton Books 2002

Published as The Midwife in Penguin Books 2009

This edition published in Penguin Books 2012

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

Copyright Jennifer Worth, 2002
All rights reserved

This is a work of nonfiction, and the events it recounts are true. However, certain names and identifying characteristics of some of the people who appear in its pages have been changed. The views expressed in this book are the authors.

THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS HAS CATALOGED THE PAPERBACK EDITION AS FOLOWS:

Worth, Jennifer, 1935

The midwife: a memoir of birth, joy, and hard times / Jennifer Worth; clinical editor, Terri Coates.

p. cm.

Rev. ed. of: Call the midwife / by Jennifer Worth. Twickenham: Merton, 2002.

Includes bibliographical references.

ISBN: 978-1-101-61440-2

1. Worth, Jennifer, 1935 2. MidwivesEnglandLondonBiography.

I. Coates, Terri. II. Worth, Jennifer, 1935 Call the midwife. III. Title.

[DNLM: 1. Worth, Jennifer, 1935 2. Nurse MidwivesLondonPersonal Narratives. 3. Home ChildbirthhistoryLondon. 4. Poverty AreasLondon. WZ 100 W932m 2009]

RG950.W675 2009

618.2dc22 2008054663

Except in the United States of America, this book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publishers prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

The scanning, uploading and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the authors rights is appreciated.

Version_4

This book is dedicated to Philip, my dear husband

The history of Mary is also dedicated to the memory of Father Joseph Williamson and Daphne Jones

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

All nurses and midwives, many long since dead, with whom I worked half a century ago

Terri Coates, who fired my memories

Canon Tony Williamson, President of The Wellclose Trust

Elizabeth Fairbairn for her encouragement

Pat Schooling, who had courage to go for original publication

Naomi Stevens, for all her help with the Cockney dialect

Suzannah Hart, Jenny Whitefield, Dolores Cook, Peggy Sayer, Betty Howney, Rita Perry

All who typed, read and advised

Tower Hamlets Local History Library and Archives

The Curator, Island History Trust, E14

The Archivist, The Museum in Dockland, E14

The Librarian, Simmons Aerofilms

PREFACE

In January 1998, the Midwives Journal published an article by Terri Coates entitled Impressions of a Midwife in Literature. After careful research right across European and English-language writing, Terri was forced to conclude that midwives are virtually non-existent in literature.

Why, in heavens name? Fictional doctors grace the pages of books in droves, scattering pearls of wisdom as they pass. Nurses, good and bad, are by no means absent. But midwives? Whoever heard of a midwife as a literary heroine? Yet midwifery is the very stuff of drama. Every child is conceived either in love or lust, is born in pain, followed by joy or sometimes remorse. A midwife is in the thick of it, she sees it all. Why then does she remain a shadowy figure, hidden behind the delivery room door?

Terri Coates finished her article with a lament for the neglect of such an important profession. I read her words, accepted the challenge, and took up my pen.

Nonnatus House was situated in the heart of the London Docklands. The practice covered Stepney, Limehouse, Millwall, the Isle of Dogs, Cubitt Town, Poplar, Bow, Mile End and Whitechapel. The area was densely populated and most families had lived there for generations, often not moving more than a street or two away from their birthplace. Family life was lived at close quarters and children were brought up by a widely extended family of aunts, grandparents, cousins and older siblings, all living within a few houses, or at the most, streets of each other. Children would run in and out of each others homes all the time and when I lived and worked there, I cannot remember a door ever being locked, except at night.