Continuing the popular “Call the midwife” trilogy, this second book contains many more stories of hardship, resilience, heartbreak, strength and courage featuring memorable characters from Poplar tenements (in London) in the ‘50s. It was especially interesting to see the discussion on how much England's National Health Service changed health care for the people. Worth frequently comments that certain medical procedures had previously not been available or affordable to the lower classes. It is that innate ability flowing forth, to communicate with such graphic, vivid, convincing, and compelling reality; which has firmly grasped, held, and enraptured this grateful reader. Jennifer Worth’s (neé Lee) practical and strongly empathetic observations left me unsurprised to learn that from 1973 she had pursued a successful second career in music. By comparison, fiction as a genre rarely achieves the same realism: with, I feel, the notable exception of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Lord Of The Rings” – but then to achieve what he did, Tolkien had to create an entire fictional mythology; an absolutely stupendous amount of work!

In God's mercy, I met an allergy specialist, a man of eighty-four, who took pity on me and guided me through an elimination diet. Within three months the eczema had cleared. Worth died on 31 May 2011, having been diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus earlier in the year. I watched the BBC series Call the Midwife before I read this, and knew I would not be able to be objective about it. I already knew all the beautiful people in the book before I started. I wouldn't know where to start if I were to enumerate all of them. Some are nuns, some are young midwives, some are courageous mothers doing their best in impossible situations, some amazing fathers providing and caring for their family in horrendous circumstances, and some piteous brave children surviving the unendurable. I listened to this on audio, narrated by Nicola Barber, and it was excellent. She does fantastic voices and accents, and I plan to listen to her read the other two books in the series. Working side–by–side among the sisters, Worth soon learns that they, too, possess compelling histories. Sister Monica Joan is a mischievous and slightly dotty octogenarian when Worth meets her at Nonnatus House but in her youth, the sister defied her aristocratic family to become a nun and midwife, eventually delivering thousands of babies in London through the worst bombings of the Blitz. However, it is Sister Evangelina who most surprises Worth. After accompanying the abrupt and seemingly humorless nun on her rounds, Worth discovers that the sister is a war heroine who is beloved by her patients for her scatological tales and ability to emit a fart of Chaucerian proportions. Wise and saintly Sister Julienne is the stability of the convent, and clever Sister Bernadette is the perfect midwife.Jennifer Worth's third book about her years serving as a midwife in London's East End in the 1950s was much darker than the first two. It was well-written and the stories were all compelling, but it covered some serious stuff, including babies who died during delivery, botched abortions, children killed by tuberculosis, a father who prostituted his daughter on a ship, and the Contagious Diseases Acts. I now have a new respect for the Midwives and Nuns of the 1940-50's era.....they were an extremely knowledgeable and formidable breed with unbelieveably immeasurable responsibilities. The children in poor families were working to help support their families. From an early age, they worked in the home, helping their mothers who were dressmakers or laundresses. Ten year olds were taking care of all of the younger children for women who went out to work. Frequently ten year olds were working full time themselves in factories, or sewing, or cleaning. Christine writes: “While working with the nuns, she learned to respect the power of prayer and was drawn by the tranquillity that seemed to emanate from the sisters. In the end, though, the life of a nun was not for her. ‘I could do poverty and chastity, Chris, but never, ever obedience!’ she said.” Jennifer was working at a maternity home near Hampstead in the 1960s when she took in a lodger, Philip Worth. Lodger and landlady married in 1963 and a daughter was born the following year. She adds: “When Jennifer was alive, I wanted to cry out to her to talk to me. Perhaps she felt the same. Or perhaps she understood – as I do now – that it was what was unsaid, rather than any words that passed between us, that mattered the most. A deep and enduring love.”

The structure of the book is anecdotal, but even I who dislikes short stories, was in no way disappointed. The sisters of the convent become as members of a family, each with their own idiosyncrasies. Each child born is a wonder. And Jennifer, the author, is surprisingly honest about her own weaknesses and failings. Orphaned brother and sister Peggy and Frank lived in the workhouse until Frank got free and returned to rescue his sister. Bubbly Jane's spirit was broken by the cruelty of the workhouse master until she found kindness and romance years later at Nonnatus House. Mr. Collett, a Boer War veteran, lost his family in the two world wars and died in the workhouse. Jenny" Lee was hired as a staff nurse at the London Hospital in Whitechapel in the 1950s. With the Sisters of St John the Divine, an Anglican community of nuns, she worked to aid the poor. [2] She was then a ward sister at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in Bloomsbury. She left midwifery to work in palliative care at the Marie Curie Hospice in Hampstead. [4]

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She met her last illness with courage. Jennifer was determined to put into practice the ideas that she wrote about in her last book, In the Midst of Life (2010) – namely, the absolute dignity of the dying person, whose wish for a natural end should be respected. Jennifer had a very happy family life, the deep peace of a life well lived, and a death committed to God. This wasn't quite good as Call the Midwife… I still really liked it but it was missing some of the charm and honesty of the first book. The last section (Mr Collett's) though was absolutely wonderful in a deeply depressing sort of way. It did get a bit preachy and religious towards the very end, but I should have expected that since Jenny lived in a convent with a bunch of nuns. Jenny Lee, the lead character played by Jessica Raine in the first three seasons of the show, is based on Worth herself. (An older version of Lee, voiced by Vanessa Redgrave, also serves as the narrator for the entire series.) After receiving nursing and midwifery training, Worth became a nurse in London in the early 1950s, working in part with the Sisters of St. John the Divine—experiences she later detailed in her books. Despite everything, hope periodically shines through; both man and woman struggle (largely through maintaing their pride) to somehow make the best of the lot that birth has cast to them. Jennifer Worth rightly does not judge them; she achieves so very much more in her deft and honest telling of their, and her, experiences. In our present age, thanks to the National Heath Service (established 1948) and a comparatively extremely generous State Benefits system (largely set up between 1942 – 1948 and now expanding rapidly and unsustainably), such an absolute depth of brutal poverty as described by Jennifer Worth has thankfully become unknown.

Lee was hired as a staff nurse at the London Hospital in Whitechapel in the early 1950s. With the Sisters of St John the Divine, an Anglican community of nuns, she worked to aid the poor. She was then a ward sister at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in Bloomsbury, and later at the Marie Curie Hospital in Hampstead.Shadows of the Workhouse (Second book in the Midwife trilogy) Worth, Jennifer (2008). Shadows of the Workhouse. Weidenfeld & Nicolson. ISBN 978-0297853268. (2005) This isn't like Jennifer Worth's first two books in the series, The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times and Shadows of the Workhouse. They were sweet memoirs of how hard it was in times gone by, but there were rays of sunshine, love and jollity to enliven the days. The books were fairly faithfully filmed as a sugar-candy feelgood somewhat addictive series. She is survived by her beloved husband Philip, their daughters, and three grandchildren, Dan, Lydia and Eleanor. Victorian England was not the period of complacency and self-satisfaction that is so often portrayed in the media. It was also a time of growing awareness of the divide between the rich and the poor, and of a social conscience. Thousands of good and wealthy men and women…brought many evils to light and sought to remedy them.” Some of her patients include Mary and Pearl Winston. She has also nursed Joe Collet, Doris Aston, Monique Hyde and even her friend Jimmy when she was seconded. However the patient that shaped her the most was Lady Browne, Chummy's mother who inspired her to shift careers and work with the dying.

I am now looking forward to reading the last in Jennifer Worth's trilogy "Farewell to the East End" to complete the set. I'm writing this as I'm just about halfway through so I may revise this later. For now, oh man. I have some issues with this book. I started reading it after I watched all of the first season of Call the Midwife on Netflix. I loved the show and got excited to see they were based on actual books. My only criticism of the book would be that parts of it had a little bit too much detail, but then when I write myself I include lots of detail so I can understand the pleasure in recording minute details.The second section focuses on Sister Monica Joan. That was very well-written and much more immediate, dealing as it did with events that happened to and around Worth herself. It was also the part that was the least gripping for me - simply because I find the character of Sister Monica Joan far less interesting than any of the other nuns. Worth retired from nursing in 1973 to pursue her musical interests. In 1974, she received a licentiate of the London College of Music, where she taught piano and singing. She obtained a fellowship in 1984. She performed as a soloist and with choirs throughout Britain and Europe.