Worth:Call The Midwife

Jennifer Worth's tales of being a midwife in 1950s London are now a major BBC TV series. Coming from a sheltered background, Jennifer became a midwife in the Docklands during this time. The conditions in which many women gave birth just half a century ago were horrifying, not only because of their grimly impoverished surroundings but also because of what they were expected to endure. While Jennifer witnessed brutality and tragedy, she also encountered amazing kindness and understanding, tempered by a great deal of Cockney humour. She earned the confidences of some whose lives were truly stranger, more poignant, and more terrifying than could ever be recounted in fiction. Attached to an order of nuns who had been working in the slums since the 1870s, Jennifer tells the story not only of the women she treated but also of the community of nuns, including one who was accused of stealing jewels from Hatton Garden, and the camaraderie of the midwives with whom she trained. Funny, disturbing, and incredibly moving, Jennifer's stories bring to life the colourful world of the East End in the 1950s.