Sisters of the East End

by Helen Batten

  ‘And then there’s Sister Julia.’

  I nodded. Cecilia and I weren’t the only ones to be moved around. In fact there seemed to be a policy of moving all of us, every few years. It was probably something to do with not wanting us to become too settled, a need to feel they were challenging us. Sister Julia had been offered the job of midwife tutor at the hospital two years before and as her pupils, we were going to have to see her every day, be examined by her and in fact were dependent on her assessment of us in order to be able to pass. Cecilia had never had an easy relationship with Sister Julia and that added to her difficulties.

  ‘I begged to be allowed to go to King’s College Hospital but Mother wasn’t having any of it.’

  ‘Did you? Gosh, Cecilia, good for you! What did she say?’

  ‘She said it would look most irregular to send one of the Community to be trained somewhere else when one of the Sisters is the midwife tutor at the Lying-In Hospital.’

  ‘Well, perhaps she has a point?’

  ‘Nonsense! It shouldn’t be about what things look like and anyway who’s going to notice, and as you well know, we have a long connection with King’s.’

  That was true. The first school of midwifery was set up by the Community of St John’s at King’s College Hospital.

  Cecilia’s tone then became more sad and serious. ‘I don’t know why I’m being tested now. Why, when I have just committed myself for life? It’s too late.’

  ‘Perhaps that’s why. You’re being tested because it’s safe.’

  Cecilia looked unconvinced. I was unconvinced. My words sounded a bit trite, and the thought crept into my mind that perhaps it wasn’t so much God choosing this moment to test Cecilia; but that she was indeed right, this was not her calling.

  However, this was the only time that Cecilia and I spoke about her feelings about midwifery and her vocation. This was something that I was later to sorely regret; but as the weeks went on, although I could tell she wasn’t fully engaged, she seemed to be settling in, and I took her at face value. It wasn’t just in the religious life that discussion of problems was difficult, but the whole of British society still had its imperial stiff upper lip in place. Although I prided myself on not being taken in by the system, I guess this was one of the signs that despite my best efforts, I had become part of it.

  Cecilia’s doubts were also pushed out of my head because from the day I started, I loved training to be a midwife. The General Lying-In Hospital was opposite St Thomas’s Hospital on the South Bank in central London. It looked out onto the Thames and the Houses of Parliament, which felt pretty exciting after five years in Hastings. Since I had been away, London had climbed out of its dreary post-war austerity and was just starting to swing. Even a Sister could appreciate the excitement of the new freedom of the young – the clothes, the music, the relaxation in formality. Even if I couldn’t fully participate, I felt as if the mood would somehow percolate down to me.

  The work itself was exciting and absorbing. Most of our training took place on the wards, with a weekly study day. It was organised so that we each spent some time in every area of the maternity hospital – the antenatal clinic, the antenatal ward, the labour ward, the post-natal ward and the special care baby nursery. In this way it was easy to link what we learned in the classroom to what we saw and experienced on the wards. What I found especially useful was the requirement that every time we witnessed a baby’s delivery, we were sent to interview the mother a couple of days later. We asked them what was helpful, what could have been done better? Of course I had my own impression about how it had all gone, but the mother’s perspective was often quite different. It gave me all sorts of insights that helped when I started to be in charge of deliveries myself.

  Unlike today, where mothers seem to be discharged as soon as possible, in the Sixties mothers were expected to spend the first ten days after giving birth in hospital, basically resting. Yes, they were encouraged to get up and have a walk around, but the main purpose of their stay was to make sure they recovered and healed. It worries me that today too much is expected of a new mother; it seems to have been forgotten, or perhaps ignored for financial reasons, how exhausting giving birth is. It’s vital that a woman is feeling as well and as strong as possible when she starts out on those first crucial, intense and exhausting months of her baby’s life.

  Keeping new mothers in hospital meant that we carried on building our relationships with them, which in turn meant we were better able to help mothers settle, bond, and feed their babies, and pick up potential problems. We helped them to give their babies their first bath, change them and get them into a routine. Every night we tucked the mothers up and took the babies into the nursery so the mothers slept. Generally the babies, first fed then carefully swaddled in the dimly lit nursery, slept too. We fed them, or took them to their mothers to be fed, every three or four hours to start getting them into some sort of a routine. Generally this was very successful and it felt like we were establishing them and getting them off to a good start.

  When the mothers went home from hospital their care was taken over by the community midwives and then the health visitors. The downside of building up these relationships is that when the mothers left the hospital you didn’t know what happened to them. I remember working in the post-natal ward and meeting a 14-year-old girl who had just given birth to her first baby, a little girl. In between looking after her baby, she would read Jane Eyre. I wanted to weep for her. I don’t know what happened to her. Perhaps her baby was given up for adoption, but whatever did happen, her life had been changed forever. But then I also learned not to jump to conclusions. A young woman was rushed in to deliver twins early, at 30 weeks of pregnancy. She already had one set of twins who were only 18 months old. One afternoon I was in the special care unit and she was standing between the two incubators where her twins were lying and holding each of their hands.

  ‘Aren’t I lucky?’ she said. ‘They’re all mine.’

  I couldn’t stop the thought going through my head that if it was me, I’d hand one set back but she was obviously seeing things a bit differently. I was left wondering what would become of some of these mothers and babies. It seemed perilous sending some of them back out to face the tough city beyond.

  But of course the most critical part of our training was in the labour ward. The first time I witnessed a birth was the most extraordinary experience. The bell rang and I dashed off to the delivery room, feeling that I was probably as excited (and nervous) as the mother. It was a routine delivery of a young 20-year-old having her first baby. As was usual in those days, the father wasn’t present. The mother was in the final stages. We may have been in a modern, bright hospital room but there was something essentially primeval going on. The midwife, however, was calm and concentrating, talking her through. The mother’s sheer phenomenal effort and energy filled the room and it was difficult to witness. I felt my body wanting to push too, to help: I felt like she needed it. However, despite the initial appearance to the contrary, no help was needed; a head appeared and then another phenomenal push and the baby was born.

  It was one of the most moving things I had ever seen. Of course at one level I knew a baby was going to come out, but it wasn’t until I had seen him emerge that it really hit me. A baby, a real live baby, another human life had entered the world! It didn’t seem possible and yet I had witnessed it myself, with my very own eyes.

  As I watched the mother hold her new baby son in her arms, silently gazing at him, a sudden picture of calm and peace after the tremendous struggle, I was struck by the feeling that no birth could ever be commonplace and that feeling has never left me. I don’t know how anyone could see a baby being born and not be moved to the very core of their being. It’s a sacred time, the miracle of life playing out in front of your eyes. This was my first overwhelming impression. But during my training a slower realisation dawned: it became apparent that getting to know each mother was very important, so as to be able to su
pport her at this vital time in her life.

  The general rule was that we had to witness about five deliveries before we were gradually allowed to start delivering ourselves. I say ‘gradually’ because at first you would be delivering, but with the midwife’s hands on top of your own. It’s one thing to be in a classroom practising with a doll going through a plastic pelvis, quite another to be there in the heat of the action, down at the business end.

  It was at this point that I was really struck with how much midwifery is an art as well as a science. The midwife intuitively seemed to know exactly the right place to put her hands, exactly the right amount of pressure to put on the baby. Her hands felt so alive and flexible, totally responding to the smallest changes in movement and pressure. She explained how critical it was to know exactly which position the baby was in while trying to enter the world. Through finding the angle of the sutures and fontanelles she would know whether the baby was coming in an anterior or posterior position (basically, facing the front or facing the back) and from the size of the birth canal and the head whether the baby would be able to come out without assistance, or whether a cut would have to be made or, indeed, whether the mother would need a Caesarean.

  As the labour reached the final stages the midwife would place the pad of her left hand at the mother’s rectum and her right hand would feel the baby’s head, constantly checking the bones and the position of the suture lines, which are where the bony plates of the baby’s skull meet, and the fontanelles, the soft spots in the plates which are flexible during birth to allow the baby’s head to squeeze down the birth canal. I very quickly had a sense when a delivery had gone well, and this was not only when both mother and baby came out of the experience healthy and intact, but also when a mother had felt that she herself had enabled her child to come into the world.

  Of course there were times when this was not possible. In the Sixties in London it was normal for a first-time mother to have her baby in hospital. However, as long as there were no complications, subsequent babies were often born at home. This meant that in the hospital we saw more high-risk cases and there were far more complications than if we were working on the district.

  One day a woman came in with very strange amniocentesis results. I was worried when I met her in the antenatal clinic. It wasn’t possible from the results to actually pin down what might be wrong with the baby; they were strange in the most unusual way. It seemed impossible to believe that the baby could be normal and healthy. Of course there was just the possibility that this was a rogue test but I couldn’t seem to shift the alarm bells in my head. Obviously the doctors thought so too, because they insisted that she give birth in hospital. And when summoned by the bell, I rushed into the delivery room to see this lady in the final stages of labour. I was filled with foreboding. It wasn’t just the medical warnings; I think it is possible to have a sixth sense about these things. As the baby emerged, I saw the horrified look on the midwife’s face and then she did something I’ve never seen before – she turned away.

  ‘Catherine, can you get the consultant for me?’

  The midwife in charge was very experienced and her voice was calm, but her face had gone grey. I walked purposefully out of the room and then ran down the corridor. Luckily, the obstetrician was on his rounds and easy to track down. We hurried back into the room. By this time the baby had just come out. I caught one glimpse of him; that’s all I needed. Where there should have been eyes, there were none. Instead he had one large eye in the middle of his forehead. He was a cyclopia, commonly known as a Cyclops baby.

  It’s a very rare condition, usually caused by the mother being exposed to toxins in early pregnancy. The baby’s eyes do not develop and a large eye in the centre of the forehead appears instead. Often the baby’s other organs have not developed normally either. Usually a Cyclops baby will live for only a few hours. I have to say that one brief glimpse of the poor child has seared itself into my memory. One of my first instincts was to pick him up and comfort him. I was attracted and yet deeply repelled; I couldn’t bring myself to be the one to step forward and pick him up. One of the nurses did clean him, wrap him up and take him out of the room. After that I don’t know where he was taken or what happened to him for sure, but I believe that he did die after a couple of hours, as these babies have no chance of survival for any length of time with this extreme disability.

  I was left in the room with his mother and the staff midwife. The mother was not told what was wrong with him, but she was told that her child had a gross abnormality and sadly, would not live, and that the doctor would come and see her shortly. We did our best to comfort her in this distressing situation where everyone present was upset.

  Later that night when I got back, relieved to be in the peace and safety of my little room, I prayed for a long time. I had been shocked at my own inability to help the poor baby. My courage had failed when it was most needed. I felt terribly guilty; I also wondered whether the baby had had a chance to be baptised. I prayed:

  ‘Please God, forgive me. I’m so sorry. Poor, poor child. I’m sorry I couldn’t comfort this baby. When You needed me to act, I failed. I am so sorry, forgive me, Lord. I wasn’t there for your child.’

  But whatever doubts I had became totally insignificant when I finally got to deliver my first baby all by myself. For the second part of my training I had to spend six months working with the Community delivering babies at home. It felt so right to be back in Poplar, like coming full circle in a good way. When I walked into the old square with the huge All Saints church on one side, then at right angles to it the big house where I had lived in my late teens and had so many happy times as a parish worker, and going on to live in the big Mission House on the third side of the square, it felt very satisfactory. I had come back, but in a new incarnation – in a Sister’s habit, as if fulfilling the prophecy that had first been revealed to me in Old Sue’s flat, just around the corner.

  I had been back once before, in my first year in the convent. I was invited to the wedding of one of my fellow parish worker’s and the handsome young curate who had taken a fancy to my hat. I’d taken the invitation to Mother Sarah Grace, who’d stared at it for a long time as if trying to read between the lines.

  ‘You can go back, but only to the service. You must come home before the reception.’

  And before I knew it, that question had popped out again.

  ‘But why, Mother?’

  ‘You might miss the last train.’

  ‘But it starts very early, I’m sure I could pop in for just an hour.’

  There was a moment of silence and then I could see resistance was futile.

  ‘Yes, Mother,’ I said quickly.

  I withdrew from the study immediately, feeling like a holy Cinderella: condemned to receive an invitation but never to go to the ball. Strangely enough the day before the wedding, Mother Sarah Grace stopped me in the cloister and said, ‘Catherine Mary, you may go to the reception, but you must be sure you are on the last train home.’

  I have no idea what changed her mind, but I still felt like Cinderella. Now the fairy godmother had given me permission to go as long as I was back by midnight (except that Jesus was my prince and I had sensible shoes instead of glass slippers).

  My first impression was that Poplar, a bit like myself, was the same and yet fundamentally different. It was a world that was changing very fast. A bit like the modern-day city of Rome, the old layers were there and could still be seen poking through, but new layers were being built on top very fast. While there was still rubble left on the bomb sites from the Blitz, half the old tenement buildings had been taken down, new buildings were going up and some shiny high-rise blocks towered above the whole scene. But many of the same old faces and families that I had known from five years earlier were still there; it still felt like a second home.

  It was an interesting and dynamic time to be working on the district; we all had to learn fast. My tutor was Sister Alice. Again, she had a firm
manner. However, I experienced her differently to Sister Julia because underneath, I found her rather soft. I realised this quite early on: I had only been there a couple of weeks and it was Ash Wednesday (indeed, the fifth anniversary of my arrival in the religious life) when I’d been out all night following the duty midwife at two difficult deliveries and by the time I’d unpacked my bag and sterilised my equipment, I felt totally washed out. I knew I had just three hours to get some kind of sleep before I must attend the afternoon antenatal clinic. As I climbed wearily and somewhat despondently up the stairs to my room, Sister Alice came round the corner and glided down the stairs, beckoning me towards her.

  ‘Give me your hand,’ she demanded.

  Rather scared, I did as I was told. From inside the folds of her habit she produced a small, bulging, white paper bag and pressed it into my hand.

  ‘For you,’ she said. ‘For Lent.’ And she moved swiftly on down the stairs.

  When I got to my room I opened the bag. Inside were exactly 40 large mint humbugs: one for every day in Lent. I was so touched. I ate one a day for the next 40 days and with each one, I felt a wave of love for my tutor. After that I couldn’t see her without a metaphorical golden halo above the top of her head, no matter how stern her manner.

  I spent the first three months dutifully working with the midwife and gradually I was allowed to do more. Finally, one day I was called out to attend what was expected to be a routine birth. I arrived at 7 p.m. By 7.30 the mother was in the final stages of labour and I knew the midwife was not going to be there in time, but I felt totally calm and ready. A few minutes later I delivered a healthy baby boy; the mother called him John.

  I was overjoyed. It was my 25th birthday and it seemed wholly appropriate he should be called the name of our patron saint.

  CHAPTER SIX