The Midwives of Raglan Road

by Jenny Holmes

  About the Book

  September, 1936. Newly trained midwife Hazel Price returns to the Yorkshire streets of her childhood, only to find that her modern methods and ‘stuck-up’ ways bring her into conflict with her family and other formidable residents of Raglan Road.

  Determined Hazel battles on, assisting with home deliveries and supporting the local GP. The days are long and hard but Hazel brings knowledge and compassion to the work she loves.

  Then tragedy strikes and accusations fly on Raglan Road. Will Hazel’s reputation survive? And what of John Moxon, the man she is beginning to fall for – whose side will he take in the war between the old ways and the new?

  Contents

  Cover

  About the Book

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Also by Jenny Holmes

  Copyright

  THE MIDWIVES OF

  RAGLAN ROAD

  Jenny Holmes

  This is for Jenny Symons and Shirley Emptage. Thanks for the endless measuring out of our lives with coffee spoons (trace the quote, Jenny!)

  CHAPTER ONE

  ‘Wakey-wakey!’ A voice in the street roused Hazel Price from a deep sleep. It was followed by an urgent knocking and a cry of, ‘It’s Leonard Hollings here. Come quick – baby’s on its way.’

  Hazel jumped out of bed and slipped into the set of clothes laid out on her bedside chair – her underthings followed by a crisp white blouse and dark blue skirt.

  Down on the first-floor landing, Hazel’s mother Jinny appeared, keen to make sure that her daughter had heard the call. ‘Get a move on before Leonard wakes the whole street,’ she grumbled.

  It was six o’clock in the morning, and Raglan Road was silent except for the raucous caller at number 18. Slipping on her shoes and jacket, Hazel picked up her bag and flung open her attic door to see her bemused father in shirtsleeves, with braces dangling from his waist, standing alongside her mother in their bedroom doorway.

  ‘Do you want me to go down and tell him you’re on your way?’ Robert’s voice was still thick with sleep.

  ‘No, ta. I’m all set.’ Rushing downstairs two at a time, Hazel brushed past her mother and father then down again to open the front door just as the scrawny man waiting there raised his fist to knock a second time. His hair was prematurely grey and his figure small and permanently stooped, as if in recognition of the fact that the life he’d been born into was hard and getting harder by the day.

  ‘About time too,’ Leonard grumbled, backing down the stone steps and wheezing his way up Raglan Road until he reached one of the alleyways leading into Nelson Yard. Following close on his heels, Hazel almost bumped into him as he paused for breath. ‘At this rate Betty will have gone ahead and done the job herself,’ he complained.

  ‘Let’s hope not.’ Hazel gave a shake of her head. She knew every crack of these stone pavements, the worn steps, the rusty iron railings and the lion-head knocker on each front door. Even the dank smell of the alley and beyond that the washing lines strung across the yard, with weeds pushing up between the cobbles, were familiar to her. All the details seemed just as they had always been – except for her, of course. She was the one who had changed.

  Leonard fumbled in his jacket pocket for his cigarettes, then thought better of it and shuffled on across the yard that consisted of four rows of inward-facing dwellings, each row made up of eight terraced houses. Even in their heyday, these dwellings had never offered local mill workers more than basic accommodation. Most were owned by absentee landlords who shirked their responsibility to keep the houses in good order so it was no wonder that when roof tiles slipped and fell, they were left in the gutter and when a windowpane was shattered by boys at play, a wooden board was haphazardly nailed to the frame, never to be replaced.

  Hazel and Leonard passed a row of dustbins lined up against the wall of an outside privy and then a lean-to shelter that housed a dented pram with a broken hood and a bicycle frame without wheels. Beyond that, tucked away in the corner, was an open door.

  ‘Home sweet home,’ Leonard muttered sarcastically, standing aside to let Hazel cross the threshold into a cramped kitchen with a chipped pot sink piled high with dishes. Hazel saw the heel of a stale loaf of bread on a bare table and from under the table two grubby faces stared up at her. They belonged to Leonard and Betty Hollings’ half-naked offspring – a boy of three or four and a girl under two – sitting cross-legged, still and silent as little Buddhas amidst the chaos around them.

  ‘The midwife is here!’ Leonard yelled up the stairs.

  ‘Take the kiddies to Doreen next door,’ his wife called back before a fresh wave of contractions must have gripped her – the sentence ended in a series of groans.

  ‘I’ll need hot water,’ Hazel instructed the down-at-heel father. ‘Plenty of it. Plus towels and some sheets of brown paper if you have them.’ She hurried upstairs, following the sounds of a woman in labour into the bedroom where she found her patient prone on the bed. The grate in the small fireplace was empty and the only objects in the room besides the old-fashioned iron bedstead were a washstand with an enamel basin and a rack with a scrap of striped towel hanging over it.

  ‘Hello, Betty. It seems Leonard called for me in the nick of time,’ Hazel remarked as she put her bag on the washstand then picked up the frayed cloth. ‘I take it this is the only towel you have?’ It was straight down to business and no mistake.

  Betty turned her head away and gripped the sides of the thin mattress. She was propped up on two pillows, their covers stained a nasty brown. A torn yellow eiderdown had slipped from the bed onto the bare floorboards.

  Once the latest contractions had passed, Betty looked wearily at Hazel. ‘Do me a favour – make sure Len gets off to work, there’s a love.’

  Hazel tilted her head to one side. ‘Are you sure? Won’t he want to stay until after the baby’s born?’ Quickly taking everything in, she grew concerned about the lack of hygiene and heat in the room. Still, she’d better lay out her instruments on the washstand – scissors, cord clamps, foetal stethoscope – and not act in any way that would cause alarm.

  ‘Not Len; he’s not interested in this end of the business,’ Betty told her matter-of-factly. ‘Don’t get me wrong – he’ll be happy enough after baby puts in an appearance. But for the time being, he’s better off putting in his shift at Kingsley’s.’

  Hazel took out cotton swabs and forceps. Betty was as scrawny as her husband and her hips were narrow so it was best to be prepared. By the look of things, there would be no brown paper available to slide under her to absorb some of the mess. Hazel could manage without this, but not the hot water. Approaching the bed, she put her stethoscope against Betty’s swollen abdomen. ‘I’m sorry – this will feel cold,’ she murmured, counting carefully until she was satisfied that baby’s heartbeat was normal. She finished just in tim
e, because Betty drew up her knees sharply and clenched her teeth at the start of yet another contraction. ‘I’m afraid we’ve left it a bit late to give you something for the pain,’ Hazel admitted.

  ‘Not to worry. I never had anything for the last two either. They say it slows things down.’

  Hazel patted Betty’s hand and smiled. How was it that the ability to endure labour pains without chloral hydrate was still seen as a badge of courage in these parts?

  ‘I never went to the infirmary either – not once. You wouldn’t catch me in one of those places, not even for a check-up. I stayed at home both times and I’ve got two healthy kiddies to show for it.’

  Though ill-informed, Betty’s pride in her own achievement drew a warm smile from Hazel. Then, hearing movement outside the room, she went out to find Doreen, the elderly next-door neighbour, struggling up the narrow stairs with a large pan of steaming water. ‘Champion!’ she exclaimed, hurrying to relieve the stout woman of her burden. ‘We’ll need more of this. And towels, too, if you have any to spare.’

  Doreen nodded then bustled away while Hazel took the water into the room. The maternity pads that she carried in her bag would have to do the mopping-up job of the more usual brown paper, she decided. ‘Would you like Doreen to send for your mother?’ she asked as she prepared Betty for a further examination.

  ‘No ta,’ came the resigned reply. ‘Mam and Len fell out soon after little Poll was born. Mam’s gone to live with my sister over in Welby.’

  ‘Is there anybody else – someone closer to hand?’

  ‘There’s no one.’ Raising her head from the pillows, Betty attempted to peer beyond the clean sheet that Hazel had draped over her crooked knees. ‘How are things looking down there? Please tell me baby’s ready to make his entrance.’

  ‘I think so, Betty.’ Gentle palpation of the lower abdomen and a rapid vaginal examination had confirmed that the cervix was nicely dilated. ‘Now, I want you to turn onto your left side and draw your right leg up towards your chin. That’s good. Breathe deeply – in, out, now in again as deep as you can. Try not to push until I tell you to.’

  There were more contractions and this time Betty did cry out – so loudly that Doreen came scuttling in from next door.

  ‘Why have you got her on her side, trussed up like a Christmas turkey?’ she demanded as she burst into the room. ‘What are you trying to do – finish the poor blighter off?’

  ‘This is what’s recommended,’ Hazel calmly explained. ‘We need to go nice and slowly now, Betty, so the head isn’t forced out. Steady as we go.’

  ‘Recommended?’ Doreen echoed, her face aghast. ‘By who?’

  ‘By the Royal College, that’s who.’

  As Hazel and Doreen debated the pros and cons of the new method, Betty’s free hand clutched at the rails of the bedstead. She cried out again and pushed hard, despite Hazel’s warning.

  ‘They never did this in my day,’ Doreen muttered.

  ‘No, well, this is 1936. And we need more hot water, please.’ Casting a firm glance in the old woman’s direction until she backed out of the room, Hazel used her trumpet-shaped pinard stethoscope to listen again to the foetal heartbeat. Still regular, still normal, which meant there were no complications with the cord, thank heavens, and really the only difficulty would be the size of the head compared with the mother’s narrow hips. ‘Betty, you have to keep your knee up to your chin as high as you can,’ she advised. ‘More deep breaths – that’s good. And now – now you can take short ones. That’s right – pant as fast as you like. But don’t push yet.’

  Hazel saw the dark crown of the baby’s head. The contractions were stronger than ever and now she must let Betty push down as hard as she could until the face appeared, bluish in colour, its mouth puckered. ‘Push now. That’s good, Betty – that’s grand.’

  Sooner than expected, Hazel saw a shoulder emerge and then part of a tiny torso covered in mucus and blood, then a second shoulder. After another moment or two she was able to clamp the cord in two places and make a clean cut then take the baby by the ankles and hold her upside down until she sucked the first vital breath of air into her lungs.

  ‘It’s a little girl,’ she said gently as an exhausted Betty rolled onto her back and held out imploring hands.

  Quickly Hazel wiped the baby’s head and face, swaddled her in a square of soft cotton fabric from her bag, then gave her to Betty.

  The mother’s job was done, the pain already put behind her, and she was holding perfection in her arms, but Hazel had to work on. She must follow the textbook and see to it that the placenta was delivered whole and that haemorrhaging did not occur.

  As Betty cuddled and cooed over her infant, Doreen reappeared with more water and towels, together with further old wives’ advice and grumbles about what it cost these days to have a baby, what with doctors’ visits and medicines to stop morning sickness, not to mention the money that Hazel would charge.

  ‘Believe me, you won’t get much change out of a pound note,’ the garrulous neighbour warned Betty. ‘Not like in the good old days when you knocked on your fire-back with the end of a poker and someone like Rhoda Briggs, God rest her, or Mabel Jackson from down the road came running and you paid her fifteen bob for her trouble. That was all it took back then. Not college girls with certificates like Hazel Price here. Just nice and natural did it – flat on your back and with no one breathing down your neck telling you what to do.’

  For a second or two Betty managed to tear her attention away from her newborn baby. She looked at Hazel with the sleeves of her white blouse rolled up waiting patiently at the bottom of the bed, then at Doreen standing hands on hips by the washstand. ‘Pipe down,’ she said sternly to the old woman. ‘Do you think Len and me are wet behind the ears? No – everyone knows Hazel is fresh out of college so my Daisy here is her first since she got herself qualified.’

  Listening with half an ear as she dealt with the afterbirth, Hazel allowed herself a smile. She liked the name Daisy, and especially enjoyed the disgruntled frown that had appeared on Doreen’s face.

  ‘As soon as we heard she was back, Len went straight round to Raglan Road and haggled until she brought the price down to what we can manage,’ Betty announced with a triumphant smile, followed by a sly wink at Hazel. ‘A pound note, my backside! We’re paying her ten shillings and sixpence for my lying-in, not a penny more. So tell Mabel Jackson to stick that in her pipe and smoke it.’

  At home in the kitchen later that day, Hazel took off her tan-coloured brogues and rested her feet on a padded footstool. She undid the top button of her blouse then loosened her thick, shoulder-length fair hair from its tortoiseshell comb. There was no fire in the hearth on this warm September day. A trapped wasp buzzed against the windowpane.

  That didn’t go too badly, she told herself as she reflected on her first solo delivery. Her London college had set her up nicely with a mixture of theory and hands-on experience, but walking out after a year through those wrought-iron gates into the big wide world didn’t quite prepare you for the real thing – the taking charge and being responsible for the life of both mother and baby. There had been a few anxious moments on Nelson Yard and the state of the Hollings’ house was far from ideal, but on the whole everything had gone smoothly, thank heavens.

  Leaning her head against the antimacassar draped over the back of the chair and looking around the neat, orderly room (everything familiar, everything just so), Hazel felt a glow of satisfaction. True, compared with what Betty Hollings had just been through, her role had been the easy one. All she’d had to do was to follow her training step by step in what had turned out to be a straightforward delivery. The less palatable fact was that Hazel was yet to be paid, but the money was promised for a week’s time when Leonard would have put in the overtime.

  ‘Ta very much for everything,’ Betty had said in her pragmatic way as she’d pushed her lank hair behind her ears and accepted a cup of tea. Holding her baby close to her chest, t
he new mother had watched Hazel pack her bag. ‘Doreen’s happy to look after Keith and Polly for the rest of the day, love. That means I can have time all to myself with Daisy here. It’ll be the only chance I get.’

  The words echoed in Hazel’s ears as she relaxed in the quiet kitchen at the end of a busy day on Raglan Road. Betty had two kiddies under four and now an infant to look after in a house that hadn’t seen a good spring clean in Lord knows how long. Not that it was any different from most on Nelson Yard, which was notorious for putting a temporary roof over the heads of families who failed to keep up with the rent and were regularly moved on to even less salubrious quarters on the far side of the canal. Unlike Leonard, the men in such families were often on the dole, their wives worn down, their children underfed.

  I don’t envy Betty, Hazel thought, padding to the window in her stockinged feet to waft the wasp out into the open. She’ll be up and about tomorrow morning, I shouldn’t wonder, slaving over the cooking, washing and ironing as usual. And Leonard will be no help. He’ll leave it all to her.

  But then again Hazel remembered with a sigh of satisfaction the look of joy in Betty’s eyes as she’d held her baby for the first time and her lips had touched Daisy’s soft cheek. It was a feeling Hazel could only imagine – that bond between mother and newborn child.

  The dazed wasp refused to leave. It buzzed back into the room and spiralled to the floor where it settled on the hearthrug. ‘Dozy thing,’ Hazel murmured as she tried to persuade it to crawl onto a sheet of newspaper.

  The sound of mill buzzers in the distance signalled the end of the working day – soon the peace would be broken by the tramp of feet on cobbles, the chatter of voices and the rumble and rattle of trams on nearby Ghyll Road.

  Succeeding with the wasp at last, Hazel quickly released it into the open air then closed the window. Then she lit the gas ring under the kettle to make tea for her father. She put two rich tea biscuits on a saucer and two scoops from the tea caddy into the pot. I can’t wait for Dad to get here, she thought. He’ll be pleased as Punch when I tell him about Betty and the baby.