Call The Midwife: A True Story Of The East End In The 1950S

by Jennifer Worth

  The only person who did not look happy was Alan. In fact he looked downright furious. Sister Julienne tried several times to draw him into the conversation, but he would have none of it. He had been made to look a fool by a nun of ninety, and he wasn’t going to forgive her, or any of them for that matter. He never did produce his story, I was told.

  To my great alarm Mike told the story of when they had lived in the drying room of the nurses’ home for three months, and how they had climbed that treacherous fire escape twice a day, in the dark of winter. I had long since left the hospital involved, so could not be sacked, but I felt alarmed about what the Sisters would think of my sins. One glance at Sister Julienne’s face, a little flushed with wine, reassured me. She looked towards me and laughed.

  “You were taking a chance. I remember when a young man was caught in a nurse’s bedroom at St. Thomas’s. The girl was immediately dismissed. She was a good nurse, too. It was a pity. However, a few months later, four young men were found in the broom cupboard - or was it the laundry room, I forget - and no one ever discovered who was responsible. It’s just as well, because goodness knows how many nurses would have been lost to the profession if they had been found out. That was just before the war, when we needed all the trained nurses we could get.”

  Puddings arrived, and Sister Julienne rose to serve them. A strange noise from across the table caught my attention, and I looked in that direction. To my astonishment, it was Sister Evangelina, laughing! In fact she was laughing so much, she was spluttering into her napkin. Her neighbour Jimmy, kind and gentlemanly, patted her on the back and handed her a glass of water. She gulped it down, and sat, dabbing her eyes and nose, muttering through chokes and giggles.

  “Oh dear. This is too much for me ... it takes me back to the time when ... oh, I shall never forget ... ”

  Jimmy set to work seriously slapping her back, which seemed to help, but it caused her veil to slip sideways.

  We were all determined to get to the bottom of this. Never before had Sister Evangelina been seen laughing convulsively in the Convent, and it obviously had something to do with young men in nurses’ bedrooms.

  “What happened? Tell us.”

  “Come on, now. Be a sport.”

  Sister Julienne paused, serving spoon in hand.

  “Oh come on, Sister. You can’t leave us in suspense like this. What’s the story? Jimmy, give her another glass of wine.”

  But Sister Evangelina couldn’t, or wouldn’t, tell. She blew her nose, and wiped her eyes. She spluttered and gurgled and coughed. But she wouldn’t say any more. She just grinned mischievously at everyone. A grin from Sister Evangelina was unheard of, never mind a mischievous one!

  Sister Monica Joan had been watching this little exhibition with half-closed eyes, and a tiny smile playing round her lips. I wondered what she was thinking. Sister Evangelina certainly looked a mess, with her veil askew, her face bright red, moisture seeping from every orifice. I feared an icy comment and so, I think, did Sister Evangelina, for she looked at her tormentor with apprehension. But we were both wrong.

  Sister Monica Joan waited until the laughter had subsided, and with the timing of an instinctive actress recited slowly and dramatically, ” ‘Oh - I shall remember the hours that we spent, In age I’ll remember, and not to repent.’”

  She paused for effect, then leaned across the table towards Sister Evangelina, and winked. In a stage whisper that could be heard by all, she said confidentially, “Don’t say another word, my dear, not another word. The nosy lot. They clamour and clatter. They chatter and natter. Don’t feed their idle expectations, my dear, ’twill only debase your memories!”

  She looked Sister Evangelina straight in the eyes, and winked again, with warmth and understanding. Was it possible? Did I imagine it? Was it a trick of the light? Did Sister Evangelina, or did she not, wink back?

  Sister Evangelina never told. I daresay she went to her grave with the story locked in her heart.

  The puddings were a masterpiece of Mrs B.’s creative skills. Sister Monica Joan had two helpings of ice cream with chocolate fudge sauce and a little apple pie. She was in brilliant form.

  “I remember a young man shut in a wardrobe at Queen Charlotte’s Hospital,” she recalled. “He was locked in for three hours. It would have been perfectly all right, and no one would have found out, but the foolish fellow had borrowed his father’s horse, and tied it to the hospital railings. Now you can hide a young man in a wardrobe or under a bed. But how, I ask, can you hide a horse?”

  With a gasp I realised that these memories dated back to the 1890s! What happened? But she wouldn’t remember.

  “I only remember the horse tied to the railings.”

  What a pity! Life is so fleeting, and the past so rich. I wanted to hear more. Her mind was perfectly clear at that moment, and knowing how it could cloud over, I asked if she had not found the discipline and petty restrictions of nursing to be intolerable.

  “Not a bit of it. After the confinement and restraints of family life, nursing was freedom and adventure. We did not have the licence you young people enjoy today. It was the same for all of us. I recall my cousin Barney. His mother, my aunt, had a French maid. One day - in the middle of the day, my dears - she, my aunt, stepped out on to the terrace to find the French maid seated on a chair, and Barney on his knees placing the shoe on to the foot of the gel. The shoe.”

  She paused and looked around her.

  “Not the petticoat, or anything like that. Just the shoe. My aunt screamed and fainted, I was told. The maid was immediately dismissed, and the family was so scandalised that Barney was given a ten pound note, and a one-way ticket to Canada. He was never seen or heard of again.”

  Mike speculated that being sent off to Canada was probably the best thing that could have happened to him. Sister Monica Joan looked very thoughtful before replying, “I would like to think that. But it is just as likely that poor Barney died of hunger or disease in the Canadian winter.”

  It was a sobering thought. I asked for more stories. She smiled at me indulgently.

  “I am not here for your entertainment, my dear. I am here by the grace of God. Four score years and ten, it has been. A score too long ... too long.”

  She fell silent for a minute, and no one dared speak. She had seen so much, done so much in life - fighting for independence in her youth; entering a religious order in middle age, wartime nursing and midwifery in the London Docks when she was nearly eighty years old. Who could match such experience?

  With a slightly amused, slightly quizzical expression in her fine eyes, she looked around at us, so young, so frivolous, so superficial. Her elbow was resting on the table, her slender fingers supporting her chin. We were spellbound by her presence.

  “You are all so young,” she mused reflectively. “Youth is the first fair flower of spring.”

  Lifting her head, she spread out her eloquent hands towards us. Her face was radiant, her eyes shining, her voice joyful and triumphant.

  “Therefore ... ‘Sing, my darlings, sing, Before your petals fade, To feed the flowers of another spring.’”

  SMOG

  Conchita Warren was expecting her twenty-fifth baby. I had seen quite a lot of the family during the past year because Liz Warren was the dressmaker of my dreams. She was the oldest daughter, twenty-two years old, and had been making clothes since she first had a doll. It was all she had ever wanted to do, she told me. On leaving school at fourteen, she went straight into an apprenticeship with a firm of high-class dressmakers, with whom she still worked. She did not usually take private clients at home because she said the mess was such that she couldn’t ask ladies to come to the house for fittings. However, as I was accustomed to the house, it did not bother either of us. She was an expert in her trade, and enjoyed making garments for me over many years.

  I had always loved clothes, and took a good deal of time and trouble over them. My clothes were specially made for me, and I turned my nose up at r
eady-to-wear stuff. Today this would be unusual and terribly expensive, but it was not the case in the 1950s. In fact it was cheaper. Really good quality clothes could be made for a fraction of what they cost in the best shops. Beautiful materials could be found in the street markets, going for a song. I usually designed my own things, or adapted styles. When I lived in Paris, I would attend the catwalk shows of the great French couturiers - Dior, Chanel, Schiaparelli. The opening of the season was, of course, reserved for the press and the very rich, but after about two or three weeks, when the excitement had settled down, the fashion shows continued, perhaps twice weekly, and anyone could attend. I loved them, and made careful notes and sketches of what I knew would suit me, in order to have them made for me later.

  The only trouble was finding a dressmaker skilled enough to make her own paper patterns. Liz was perfection. She not only made up her own patterns, but she had a real stylish flair, and often suggested or adapted things to suit the cloth or the cut. We were about the same age, and it was a happy collaboration.

  During one of these visits Liz told me, with a wry smile, that her mother was expecting again. Together we speculated on how many more Conchita was likely to have. Her precise age was not known, but she was probably about forty-two, so she could have another six to eight babies. Going on past form, we put our money on a total of thirty babies.

  Conchita booked again with the Sisters for another home confinement, and requested antenatal visits at home. For continuity’s sake, I was asked to take the case. She was in perfect condition again. She looked radiant, and did not really look pregnant until about twenty-four weeks, although once again her dates were uncertain. The youngest little girl was one year old. Len was all excitement and anticipation, as though this were only his second or third baby.

  It was winter, and very cold and icy. Heavy snow clouds hung over the city, trapping the smoke fumes from all the coal fires, steam trains, and steam engines, the profuse smoke from the ocean-going vessels, and above all the factories, which were largely fuelled by coal. A thick London smog developed. One can have no conception these days of what they were like. The air would be heavy, foul-smelling, and a thick yellowish-grey colour. It was impossible to see more than a yard ahead, even at midday. Traffic was virtually at a standstill. The only way a vehicle could move would be for a man to walk ahead of it, carrying two bright lights - one to shine ahead of him, so that he could find his way, and the other shining behind him for the vehicle to follow. These smogs were a feature of many winters in London at the time, and lasted until the atmospheric pressure lifted, allowing the trapped fumes to escape.

  Conchita must have gone into the backyard for something. She either slipped on the ice, or tripped over something she could not see. She must have fallen heavily and lay partly concussed on the freezing concrete for some time. The only children in the house were the little ones under five. She was found by the other children when they came home from school. Apparently she was sufficiently conscious to crawl and with the help of her children, all under eleven, she got back into the house. There was evidence that she had tried to do so before but, being unable to see through the smog, had actually crawled away from the house. It is a miracle that she did not die of exposure. She was in a bad way. A small child went to get a neighbour, who wrapped her in blankets and gave her hot brandy and water. Older children began returning home after 4 p.m. and learned of their mother’s accident. Len and the oldest boys were last to return, because they had been on a job in Knightsbridge and the journey home had taken two and a half hours.

  That night Conchita went into labour.

  The phone rang at about 11.30 p.m. I was called to the phone, as it was my case. I was aghast - firstly because of the premature labour, and secondly because of the weather conditions. How on earth was I to find my way to Limehouse? I was speaking to one of the elder sons, who briefly explained the circumstances. My first question was, “Have you called the doctor?” Yes, he had, but the doctor was out. “Well, you must keep on trying,” I said, “because your mother may be ill. If she was concussed, and her temperature dropped a lot, she may need medical treatment, quite apart from the pregnancy. Ring the doctor again now. He may have difficulty getting to you, but so will I.”

  I replaced the telephone, and looked out of the window. I couldn’t see a thing. Thick grey swirls of fog seemed to be circling the window panes, trying to get in. I shivered, as much with apprehension for Conchita’s awful plight as reluctance to go out at all. The sirens from the river boats, and those in the docks, moaned a hollow call.

  We had hardly been out of the house for three days, hoping and praying that no one would go into labour before the smog lifted. It was a situation I could not, should not, handle alone.

  I went up to the Sisters’ floor to call Sister Julienne. Nuns go to bed at about nine o’clock because they get up before 4 a.m. for the first Office of the day, so eleven-thirty would be the middle of the night for them. Nonetheless, with the first light tap on the door, Sister was awake.

  “Who is it?,” she called out.

  I said my name, and that Conchita Warren was in premature labour.

  “Wait a minute.”

  I waited thirty seconds, and Sister joined me in the corridor, shutting the door of her cell behind her. She was wearing a coarse brown wool dressing gown, and, amazingly, her veil. The question, does she go to bed in the thing? flashed through my mind. It must be damned uncomfortable.

  But there was no time to reflect upon the habit of a nun. I told her briefly the story that had been given to me over the telephone.

  She thought for a moment and said, “Limehouse is over three miles away. You might not get there. There is no point in me, or any of the midwives, coming with you, because two people can get lost just as easily as one. You must have a police escort. Go now and ring the police, and God be with you, my dear. I will pray for Conchita Warren and her unborn baby.”

  The knowledge that Sister Julienne would be praying for us had an extraordinary effect. All the tension and anxiety left me, and I felt calm and confident. I had learned to respect the power of prayer. What change had come over the headstrong young girl who, only a year earlier, had found the whole idea of prayer to be a joke?

  I spoke to the police and told them it was an emergency. I was told that the safest way to get there would be to walk, but the quickest would be by bicycle. The policeman said: “There is no point in sending a car, because you can’t see further than the bonnet, and we would have to have a man walking ahead. We will send a bicycle escort.”

  I said I would be ready within ten minutes. My delivery bag was already packed and ready. All my thoughts were with Conchita - I did not think that the baby was likely to survive at around twenty-eight weeks gestation. Finding the bicycle shed in the smog and loading up my bike was a tricky business, but I was at the front of Nonnatus House in less than ten minutes.

  Two policemen arrived shortly after on bicycles with very powerful lights, front and rear, which illuminated about two yards ahead. One rode ahead of me, and I was instructed to follow him. The other rode beside me, I being on the kerb side. Thus we progressed with surprising speed, because there was no other traffic around.

  Looking back over nearly half a century it seems absurd to be racing to an emergency labour on bicycles at about ten miles per hour. But even today I can think of no better way. What would be the advantage of the most powerful police car with nil visibility?

  We arrived at the Warren household in less than fifteen minutes. I could not have done it alone. The men said they would wait, in case I needed them further, and a couple of the Warren girls took them down to the kitchen for a cup of tea.

  I went upstairs to Conchita. She looked ghastly, deathly white, with bright pink splodges under her eyes. She moaned. I took her temperature, which was 103°F. At first I could not feel her pulse, but, on careful counting, I found it to be 120, and intermittent. Her blood pressure was barely perceptible. Her breathing
was shallow and rapid, at around forty breaths per minute. I watched her in silence for a couple of minutes, as a contraction came on. It was powerful, and her features distorted in pain, a high-pitched groan emanating from her throat. Her eyes were open, but I don’t think she could see anyone.

  Len was cradling her in his arms. The suffering on his face was enough to break your heart. He was stroking her hair, and murmuring to her, neither of which she seemed to feel or hear. Liz was in the room.

  I enquired if the doctor had been called. He had, but was still out on a call. The call had been put through to another doctor, who was also out with a patient. All doctors worked terribly hard at these times. The London smogs were notorious killers.

  I said that we should arrange for a hospital admission as soon as possible.

  “Is she tha’ bad?” Len asked.

  It is astonishing how people do not see what they don’t want to see. To me it was obvious that Conchita could easily die, especially if complications arose from labour and delivery. But Len couldn’t see this.

  I went and spoke to the policemen. One said he would telephone the hospital. The other one undertook to try to find one of the local GPs and escort him to the house, if possible. How an ambulance would get there and back was an open question.

  I returned to Conchita, and started to lay out my delivery things. It was possible that I would be alone with a premature delivery, and a sick and possibly dying woman.

  Suddenly I remembered that Sister Julienne was praying for us. Again, the relief was overwhelming. All my fears vanished, and the calm certainty that all would be well flooded my mind and body. I remembered the words of Mother Julian of Norwich: