This trilogy lovingly recounts the life of a midwife through a memoir series. Follow her experiences in the East End of London during the 1950s as she encounters diverse characters and navigates profound human stories. It's a poignant narrative of life, death, and community strength that captures the spirit of an era.
Life in London's East End in the 1950s was tough. The brothels of Cable Street, the Kray brothers and gang warfare, the meths drinkers in the bombsites - this was the world Jennifer Worth entered when she became a midwife at the age of twenty-two.
In the follow up to her bestselling Call the Midwide, Jennifer Worth tells the true stories of the people she met. There's Peggy and Frank, who were separated in the workhouse when their parents died. Until Frank's strength and determination enabled him to make a home for his sister. Jane was a bright, lively child, whose spirit was broken by cruelty, until she found kindness and love later in life. Then there is the matchmaking nun, Sister Julienne, and Sister Monica Joan, who ends up in the High Court...
This final book in Jennifer Worth's memories of her time as a midwife in London's East end brings her story full circle. As always there are heartbreaking stories such as the family devastated by tuberculosis and a ship's woman who 'serviced' the entire crew, as well as plenty of humour and warmth, such as the tale of two women who shared the same husband! Other stories cover backstreet abortions, the changing life of the docklands, infanticide, as well as the lives of the inhabitants of Nonnatus House. We discover what happens with the gauche debutant Chummy and her equally gauche policeman; will Sister Monica Joan continue her life of crime?; will Sister Evangelina ever crack a smile? And what of Jennifer herself? The book not only details the final years of the tenements but also of Jennifer's journey as she moves on from the close community of nuns and her life takes a new path.