Call the Midwife (original 2002; edition 2006)

I enjoyed the miniseries, and I enjoyed the book. ( )

Oh how I had to struggle to finish this book. I somehow had the idea that it would be like James Herriot's books, as in All Creatures Great and Small. Not Even A Little. Angela's Ashes? Oh ha, not close. Overall, it was a grim read without much redemption.

There were parts of the book that I found engaging, probably because of my own work as an RN in labor & delivery. Then there was my favorite character, Chummy, who unfortunately appeared in only one chapter. However, there were some real spoiler chapters in the book, particularly where Worth chose to write (three chapters!) about a prostitute she had met on her rounds. If her book had been about prostitution, I suppose she would have been justified; however, I felt blindsided after reading those chapters and wished that I had skipped them. I also could have done without about 90% of the bathroom "humor" that was written into this thing.

Probably the most interesting part of the book was the community of the London Docklands as they existed in the 1950s. Worth's book left me wishing she had been able to incorporate more about the area into the book. I imagine a book like London's Docklands by Fiona Rule would cover the subject better.

I think my basic problem with the book could be summed up pretty simply: Worth isn't much of a storyteller. This book seems like a real missed opportunity. ( )

Jennifer Worth's memoir of her midwifery training in London in the 1950s is fascinating and entertaining. The narrative device of childbirth and midwifery is used as a great equalizer that allows Worth to examine and describe not just the obstetric practices of post-war England, but housing and class, education, personal relationships, and evolving culture. The personalities Worth describes are both bigger than life and entirely natural, and more than once I found a character either strangely familiar, or wishing they were. The conditions of life in the not-too-distant past seem to be from another world, and yet completely sympathetic to a contemporary American reader, as I viewed it through the lens of a mother and supporter of modern midwifery. The Midwife (also titled Call the Midwife) is a joy,. ( )

I read the companion book to this last year and hadn't been able to get this in the US, but now I am in the UK with my terminally-ill mother I took the opportunity to find it. You wouldn't think that the world of the 50s was so different as it is now, but this depiction of the 50s, of bombed-out London, health care where antibiotics were the new miracle drug and children played safely in the streets because there were no cars is truly another world. This, though, is also the story of a young nurse living in and operating from an inner city convent of nuns dedicated to midwifery, good cooking, the odd glass of wine and full of the most eccentric characters. Its a wonderful book, history, memoir and a full of cockney humour. ( )

This woman has seen a lot. Being a midwife really gets you in amongst the real lives of people, and it shows with this book. The author went from nursing into midwifery training under the care of Nuns, and even though she wasn't religious, lived in the convent while practicing.

1950s East End London was a poor and rough place but her nurses uniform afforded her respect. Just how poor and crowded the area was shocked me. Most families lived packed into small 2 room places, and it was the norm to have at least 5 or 6 kids. Most families kept clean and tidy homes, but descriptions of some who lived in squalor- piles of human waste indoors, flies, half naked dirty children- astounded me.

People couldn't afford to get a doctor for the delivery of a baby, and as mothers grandmothers, aunts and any older woman about could tell you, you didn't really need one. Such was the level of knowledge amongst them all, things were managed at home with the local midwife and GP if needed.

Chapter by chapter Worth reveals the personal stories of the people she encountered in the course of her early career. So often, the stories are sad. Families were destroyed upon the early death of the husband/father, and few options were left for a mother trying to support a large brood of kids, and little or no income and no social security. Alcoholism, prostitution, condemned housing tenements. And then stories of loving and supportive families, sober hard-working, proud men who loved and helped their wives in the home- which was so unheard of then. The mixed bag that is humanity. A fantastic social history. ( )