Call The Midwife: A True Story Of The East End In The 1950S
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Review
"Funny, disturbing and incredibly moving" YORKSHIRE EVENING POST "Worth's portrait is subtle, skilfully describing a sense of community that no longer exists" FT MAGAZINE "an amazing if at times gut-wrenching read... a detailed trip into history which may raise a few tears and many eyebrows" WARWICKSHIRE TELEGRAPH "Misery memoir meets EastEnders with a bang!" GOOD BOOK GUIDE
LITERARY REVIEW
'Worth is indeed a natural storyteller... gripping, moving and convincing from beginning to end... a powerful evocation of a long-gone world '
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
19 of 19 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Atmospheric and utterly absorbing,
By Jordan (stoke-on-trent, england) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Call The Midwife: A True Story Of The East End In The 1950s (Paperback)
I purchased this book after watching the first two episodes in the BBC adaptation of Call the Midwife and I have to say that I found the book even better than the TV series. The author writes with a great depth of knowledge and warmth about a world of poverty and deprivation into which she stepped in the 1950's. The descriptions of London's east end are descriptive and at times shocking to the modern reader. This is a fascinating memoir with some great characters. Loved it!
135 of 140 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Call the Midwife - a salutory experience,
This review is from: Call the Midwife (Paperback)
'Call the Midwife' is a most extraordinary book and should be required reading of all students of midwifery, nursing, sociology and modern history. It tells of the experiences of a young trainee midwife in the East End of London in the 1950's and is a graphic portrayal of the quite appalling conditions that the East Enders endured. Some of the stories told by the author are so distressing that I have lost sleep over them and I find myself longing to know what ultimately became of Mary, the young Irish girl imprisoned for stealing a baby (her own baby having been removed from her when the nuns caring for her were unable to place her in a job that would allow her to keep her child). What happened to Mary's daughter? By my reckoning she should be a woman in her 50's now - was she ever told that she was adopted, that she had been removed from her adoring mother without Mary's consent? I have had nightmares too about the two little boys sheltering behind a chair to escape the violence of their mother's partner; what became of them, did they go on to inflict the same brutality on their own children? As a graduate of Modern History (and student midwife), I thought I knew a good deal about recent British history. How very wrong I was. This book gave me much pause for thought: the heroism of the nursing order of nuns that Jennifer Worth worked with; the courage of Jennifer Worth and her colleagues in delivering babies in the most appalling conditions; the survival instinct of the East End women - it was a complete eye-opener. Oh, that those who pursue financial gains through our litigious culture could read this book - huge families living without the basics of sanitation or even roofs (tarpaulins providing their shelter), Conchita and her 25 pregnancies. I await Jennifer Worth's promised follow-up with great anticipation - my only observation being that she needs to let us know what became of her 'heroes' and 'heroines' - did Conchita live to a ripe old age, did Mary ever escape the clutches of prostitution once released from prison? Come on Jennfer, please tell us. And congratulations on an incredible book - this student midwife looks in awe upon your skills, your courage, your ability to deliver a baby in the most desperate circumstances. And I salute the women of the 1950s East End.
56 of 60 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Fascinating history of birth and East End,
This review is from: Call the Midwife (Paperback)
This is the only book of its knid I have even heard of, let alone read. It's a true account of birth and babies in the East End of London in the 50s. Poverty and squalor were common, and there was very little ante or post-natal care. Midwives supervised home births by arriving on bikes, somethimes throught thick smog. I loved this book, which reads like fiction but is true. Anyone who has ever had anything to do with a baby being born - particularly mothers - or anyone who fancies an interesting slant on history should read this. She writes in a chatty, informal style and I could not put it down.
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