The Midwife's Here!: The Enchanting True Story of One of Britain's Longest Serving Midwives

by Linda Fairley

  ‘She’s in front room with Flora and Megan,’ Mr Blythe said, pointing at the house. ‘Please, go in, and I’ll put t’ kettle on.’

  Mrs Tattersall gave me a look that said ‘Oh dear, what did I tell you?’ even though Mr Blythe had not yet, so far as I could tell, done anything to live up to his ‘daft’ reputation.

  I helped Mrs Tattersall carry in the equipment, and we heard Mr Blythe call loudly to his wife: ‘The midwife’s here!’ He sounded very relieved.

  ‘Come in!’ Mrs Blythe called out, sounding equally pleased at our arrival. We followed her voice into a large, hot and dusty room on the ground floor, where she lay on a high double bed that was covered with an assortment of hand-stitched quilts and crocheted blankets. Two Collie dogs lay either side of her, slathering and sniffing.

  ‘You’ve met Flora and Megan before, haven’t you?’ she huffed politely to Mrs Tattersall, wincing slightly as a contraction rippled across her belly.

  ‘Yes!’ Mrs Tattersall replied rather sharply. ‘But let’s be having them off the bed while I examine you, shall we? This is Nurse Buckley, my assistant, by the way.’

  I had imagined Flora and Megan to be a clucking mother and motherin-law, or perhaps a couple of sisters, but certainly not a pair of lolloping farm dogs. I was astonished they were even in the room, let alone allowed up on the bed.

  It turned out that Mrs Blythe’s labour was already well established and, being her fourth child, it progressed very quickly. The dogs whimpered and whined each time they were batted away from the bed by Mrs Tattersall, and what with the noise of the now-squawking hens and the three excited lads playing tag in the yard outside the open window, we had a job hearing the nuances of Mrs Blythe’s peculiarly controlled cries of ‘oooumph’ and ‘yeeuuuurrr!’

  Sometimes she gurned horribly when she cried out, which seemed to unsettle the dogs, and they both made repeated attempts to jump up and lick their mistress’s face back to normal. I could see that Mrs Tattersall was getting increasingly irritated with the dogs’ presence in the room, and when the pair of them started to sniff around the hem of Mrs Blythe’s nightdress Mrs Tattersall nearly had a fit.

  ‘Get down!’ she spluttered. ‘Be off with you!’

  I was amazed she didn’t just throw the animals out of the room and shut the door, but after her outburst she managed to bite her tongue as the labour continued to progress quite quickly. It was only when Mr Blythe appeared with another cup of tea for us all, just minutes before his fourth son burst triumphantly into the world, that Mrs Tattersall finally exploded once and for all.

  Two scraggy hens had followed Mr Blythe into the room, and they strutted straight over to Mrs Tattersall squawking loudly, with chests puffed out as if they owned the place.

  ‘Enough!’ Mrs Tattersall bellowed. ‘Mr Blythe, please get these birds out of here, NOW! Where’s the hygiene? Tell me that? Where’s the hygiene? OUT! NOW!’

  The poor man was taken aback at his telling off and began to chase the hens around the room in his haste to obey, leaving clumps of manure-scented mud across the carpet as he did so. Baby Blythe, a magnificent boy weighing almost ten pounds, was delivered in the midst of this chaos onto a quilt covered in dog hairs, to the sound of shouting and screeching that had nothing to do with his mother.

  ‘Could you not have insisted on taking the dogs out of the room?’ I asked Mrs Tattersall later.

  ‘Well,’ she said, in a voice laden with prudence, ‘it’s like this. When you’re a community midwife, you have to fit in with the community. Women who want to have their baby at home usually do so because they feel more comfortable in their home environment than in the clinical surroundings of a maternity hospital. It’s our job to fit in with them, not the other way around. If she wants her dogs there, then it’s best to try to accommodate her, as far as possible.’

  ‘But … not hens?’

  ‘Not hens, no, never hens,’ Mrs Tattersall said firmly.

  I expected some pearls of wisdom about the dangers of toxoplasmosis or even salmonella poisoning, but Mrs Tattersall simply said with a rasp: ‘I flamin’ well hate birds!’

  On the way back we called in to see Mrs Shawcross, who lived in a tiny terraced house close to the hospital. She had given birth to a little boy called Stanley the previous week, and Mrs Tattersall wanted to check that all was well. In those days, new mothers were visited by a community midwife every day for the first ten days after a home birth.

  ‘She’s a nice young girl, seems a bit anxious though,’ Mrs Tattersall told me. ‘It’s her first baby.’

  Mrs Shawcross answered the door in her dressing gown, though it was now the afternoon. She had black circles under her eyes and looked utterly exhausted. We had to squeeze past a pram and bike that cluttered the hallway before finding baby Stanley sleeping soundly in a Moses basket on the floor of the cramped living room. Mrs Shawcross had clearly been dozing on the settee close to her son, but she nevertheless welcomed us warmly and began plumping up the cushions and removing a newspaper and a pile of cloth nappies from the seats, urging us to sit down in comfort.

  When Mrs Shawcross went to put the kettle on, Mrs Tattersall had a quick look at Stanley, then said to me, ‘Get used to this, Linda. People treat midwives like local dignitaries! Quite flattering, I suppose.’

  Mrs Shawcross reappeared with a tray of tea served in what must have been her best china cups and saucers. There was also a small glass on the tray, containing a purple-coloured liquid. ‘Stanley seems to like a bit of Vimto on his dummy,’ Mrs Shawcross said by way of explanation, gesturing towards the glass.

  Mrs Tattersall shot a glance at Stanley, who had a large blue plastic dummy in his mouth. ‘Perhaps that isn’t a good idea,’ Mrs Tatterhall said tactfully. ‘Vimto’s not made for babies, you see. May I ask, did you put it on neat?’

  ‘Oh yes, I did. He didn’t like it diluted. He only settles when we give it to him neat.’

  ‘Well, I don’t think you’ve done him any harm, but let’s not give Stanley any more Vimto, shall we not?’

  ‘Right you are,’ Mrs Shawcross immediately agreed. ‘I probably wasn’t thinking straight, I’m so short of sleep.’

  I loved the way Mrs Tattersall handled the situation. There was no embarrassment or chastisement; she had delivered her professional advice tactfully yet authoritatively, and Mrs Shawcross wasn’t in the slightest bit put out.

  ‘I can see for myself that you’re looking ever so tired,’ Mrs Tattersall went on. ‘How is Stanley sleeping at night?’

  ‘Not brilliant, as he doesn’t like sleeping upstairs,’ Mrs Shawcross said flatly. ‘Last night he just wouldn’t settle at all. We were up and down to him for hours, so we brought him downstairs. My husband eventually managed to get him to sleep on a blanket on the rug here, so we brought our bedding downstairs and slept beside him.’

  I could hear Mrs Tattersall drawing in a long breath before telling Mrs Shawcross that perhaps this wasn’t such a good idea either.

  ‘It’s like this,’ she said patiently. ‘Stanley probably doesn’t know whether he’s upstairs, downstairs or in m’Lady’s chamber for that matter, but he will certainly sense that his parents are getting a bit anxious about him. Take my advice and don’t sleep on the floor with Stanley again. Stay in your own bed where you will feel more comfortable, and try not to fret. Stanley will settle better when you and your husband are more relaxed. How does that sound?’

  ‘Right you are,’ Mrs Shawcross said again. ‘Do you know, sometimes you can’t see the wood for the trees when you’re short of sleep, can you?’

  On the pavement outside, Mrs Tattersall raised her eyebrows to the sky. ‘God help them, whatever next!’

  ‘Couldn’t she give the baby gripe water to help him settle?’ I enquired.

  ‘She could eventually, if colic is the problem, though it’s too early to tell and you don’t give it until the baby is at least a month old,’ Mrs Tattersall replied. ‘But in my experience gripe water works ve
ry well. I think it’s probably the alcohol in it that does the trick. Vimto indeed! Whatever was she thinking, giving a baby something so sugary!’

  That night Graham lapped up my stories. He laughed his head off when I told him about the chickens at baby Blythe’s birth and he couldn’t believe that the entire Shawcross family had slept on the floor together because of seven-day-old Stanley.

  ‘I love being out in the community,’ I told him. ‘It’s such an eye-opener.’

  ‘You can say that again,’ Graham chuckled. ‘And I can see a change in you.’

  ‘How do you mean?’

  ‘You’re enjoying yourself,’ he replied. ‘You don’t seem nervous or daunted at all, yet you’re doing what’s effectively a brand new job. It’s as if you were made for this. I’m ever so pleased for you.’

  Graham’s words rang true. I felt I could really be myself with Mrs Tattersall, and over the coming weeks and months I looked forward to every day spent with her. She was a real, down-to-earth human being, and a very caring one at that. Funnily enough, I can’t say I got to know a great deal about her personal life. I knew she had two sons and some grandchildren and lived over by the Army barracks about half a mile from the hospital, but she wasn’t a great talker. Whenever we were together her focus was on the task in hand. I guessed she was in her late forties or early fifties, but I wasn’t sure and would certainly never have asked her anything like that. Likewise, I could never have called her May in a million years; she was always Mrs Tattersall to me.

  In time I began to get to know how Mrs Tattersall’s mind worked, and I was constantly impressed by how very skilled she was at her job. I saw the way she expertly scanned the room whenever we walked into someone’s home, taking in much more than the mother and baby she had come to visit.

  ‘I’ve got some liquid here to put on their hair,’ she often said, after watching a young child scratch its head, then she would gently enquire about nits at the local school. Everything she said sounded matter-of-fact, and nobody ever took offence.

  ‘Have you finished with that other carrycot?’ she would ask if she spotted a new one in a house. ‘Only I know a family who could get some use out of that …’

  We often left our routine visits carting out old baby baths or high chairs that might ‘do’ for somebody else, and people were always willing to help and share. Everybody seemed to respect and admire Mrs Tattersall for showing such generous community spirit.

  On one occasion I was shocked to hear my mentor ask a new young father, ‘Have you got enough to eat?’ Ashton and its surrounding area were neither deprived nor wealthy. Men tended to do blue-collar jobs, typically working as tradesmen, bus drivers or for companies like the local electricity board, Norweb. I had never heard of anyone going hungry, but Mrs Tattersall knew the young man had lost his job recently and money was tight.

  ‘We’re getting by,’ came the dignified reply.

  The next time we passed the house Mrs Tattersall had loaded the car with goodies, which she delivered to this man’s grateful wife, completely without ceremony.

  ‘Here, one of my colleagues was baking last night and she gave me these buns and a milk pudding. I won’t use them – will you?’

  The woman beamed appreciatively as we drove quickly away. It was classic Mrs Tattersall.

  Nothing seemed to faze her, and I felt able to ask her most questions that popped into my head, without feeling embarrassed.

  ‘What’s “payment in kind”?’ I asked one day. I had heard two midwives discussing a patient who had given birth at the hospital a few days earlier. I gathered that the married young woman had decided to have her baby adopted because of this ‘payment in kind’ problem, and I didn’t understand it.

  ‘Linda, love, I know the girl you’re talking about. It’s like this. She slept with her landlord because she and her husband couldn’t afford to pay the rent. It was either that or be thrown out on the streets. Sadly, the young woman fell pregnant, with the landlord being the father of the baby.’

  I was horrified. I’d been shocked by the stories of the prostitutes I’d heard at St Mary’s but I was absolutely stunned that such a sordid arrangement could take place right here on my own doorstep.

  ‘So that’s why she is having the baby adopted,’ I gasped, the penny slowly dropping. I knew that babies who were being put up for adoption were removed from their mothers as swiftly as possible after the birth. The poor women weren’t allowed to hold their babies, even for a minute. This was the kindest way, it was thought, as it stopped the mother becoming attached to her child, and would help her cope with the separation.

  ‘What will happen to that girl now?’ I asked.

  ‘Her husband is letting her stay, I believe. He said she could stay but the baby had to go, so I hear.’

  That was the end of the conversation. Mrs Tattersall always gave straight answers, but she wasn’t one to gossip. I liked that. I was learning so much from her, things you couldn’t possibly have learned from a midwifery textbook.

  Despite being exposed to some of life’s tough realities, I was in my element. I aspired to be as good and experienced a midwife as Mrs Tattersall, and I watched and listened eagerly each and every day, lapping up everything she said and did, and feeling privileged to be her pupil.

  Chapter Thirteen

  ‘So you’ve had the baby? … Let’s have a cup of tea and a cigarette then’

  One night in September 1970, when I was in the third month of Part Two of my training, Mrs Tattersall and I were brewing a pot of tea in the nurses’ kitchen when we were called out to a delivery.

  ‘Bloody hell, why do these women always leave it till an ungodly hour to go into labour?’ Mrs Tattersall rasped. ‘And will you look at the night!’

  I looked out of the rain-splattered window as Mrs Tattersall stubbed out her cigarette in the sink. It sizzled when it made contact with dregs of cold tea, no doubt discarded by the last midwives to have their break interrupted.

  It certainly was a filthy night outside. Mrs Tattersall and I had not long returned from checking up on another expectant mother, and the weather had closed in. The sky was as black as the ace of spades and thick curtains of drizzle were clearly visible beneath the streetlights.

  ‘Want a lift or will you take the scooter?’

  ‘I’ll take the scooter. I’ll see you there,’ I smiled, thinking of the lipstick-stained fag ends that littered the floor of Mrs Tattersall’s Avenger and deciding that despite the rain I’d rather ride my moped. With its small 50cc engine it was officially a moped, not a scooter, though I would never have corrected Mrs Tattersall.

  I pulled on my blue NHS-issue raincoat to protect my uniform from the rain, took out my bun, which was held in place by a little blue velvet ribbon over a rubber band, and headed out into the night.

  As I pulled on my crash helmet I ran through a mental checklist. Mrs Tattersall had visited Mrs Willis last week, two weeks before the baby’s due date, to deposit vital equipment. There would be two sets of Spencer Wells forceps, the same as ones we used in the hospital, a pair of scissors and a roll of cotton wool already waiting for us.

  Tonight, Mrs Tattersall would bring a kidney-shaped receiver dish in which to collect the placenta, scales to weigh the baby, a Pinard stethoscope to monitor the heartbeat and a sphygmomanometer to test the mother’s blood pressure. All I needed were my notes and, most importantly, a Jacob’s Tea Cake to stop me fainting with hunger. I’d learned by now that expectant dads are absolutely brilliant at making cups of tea, but they never, ever offered us midwives anything to eat.

  I checked my coat pocket for both the notebook and the biscuit and set off into the darkness with Mrs Tattersall’s directions ringing in my head.

  ‘Straight over at the junction, keep left until you pass the bus shelter and keep your eyes peeled for Willshaw Lane, for goodness sake. It’s easily missed in this bloody rain!’

  I must remember to put the Tea Cake discreetly in my uniform pocket bef
ore I enter the house, I thought, then I could eat it when I nip to the bathroom later.

  ‘Must think we run on thin air!’ Mrs Tattersall frequently complained, though I never saw her eat a thing as she seemed to prefer a cigarette to a snack.

  As my trusty moped slowly but surely carried me to Willshaw Lane I ran another mental checklist through my head, this time taking stock of my own life.

  I was in the final stage of my midwifery training. I had three hard years of nurses’ training behind me and had passed Part One of my ten-month-long midwifery course with flying colours. Now, at the tender age of twenty-two, I was out in the community, well on my way to completing Part Two, which would make me a qualified midwife at last. I could feel my confidence growing daily, and I felt lucky to be learning from a professional like Mrs Tattersall.

  I felt a rush of excitement, even though the rain was now spiking my cheeks like cold needles. This part of the job was exhilarating. I felt important, riding through the night to the aid of a pregnant woman. I wasn’t afraid, as I didn’t yet have the responsibility of delivering a baby all by myself, but I was that close, and was finally starting to feel like a proper little midwife.

  I was glad to see that Mrs Tattersall had beaten me to the semi-detached house, but nevertheless when the expectant father answered my knock at the door he gave me a broad, relieved smile. It was a look I was beginning to know well, and I liked it.

  ‘The midwife’s here!’ he almost sang as he welcomed me in. When his wife is in labour, it was becoming apparent, there are no more comforting words a man can utter.

  Mrs Willis was labouring on a bed that had been brought down to the lounge so as not to disturb her two young sons who were sleeping upstairs. It was 11.30 p.m. and she’d been in slow labour for a few hours already, but was clearly coping very well.