Call The Midwife: A True Story Of The East End In The 1950s

by Jennifer Worth

Twenty-five years later, a shy young girl called Lady Diana Spencer became engaged to marry Prince Charles, heir to the throne. I saw several film clips of her arriving at various engagements. Each time when the car stopped, the front nearside door would open, and her bodyguard would step out and open the rear door for Lady Diana. Then he would stand, jaw thrust forward, legs slightly apart, and look coolly around him at the crowds, a mature Jack, still practising the skills he had acquired in childhood, looking after his lady.

and had put a washing bowl beside it, with soap and a grubby towel. “Thought you’d need a nice, clean towel, eh ducky?” Everything is relative.

“I am just thankful that I knew her at all. If we had not met, or if we had met and just passed each other by, all the great literature of the world, all the poets, all the great love stories would have been meaningless to me. You cannot understand what you have not experienced.”

The pebbles of Brighton beach are nasty at the best of times, but if you happen to be wearing six-inch stiletto heels, they are murder.

My heart went out to those poor girls in their stiletto heels pushing all that way, but there was nothing I could do about it, so I simply enjoyed the ride.

he was the only man I have ever met who could roll a fag with one hand and feed a baby with the other.

Quite suddenly, with blinding insight, the secret of their blissful marriage was revealed to me. She couldn’t speak a word of English, and he couldn’t speak a word of Spanish.

“Your tongue slips a great deal too often, if you ask me, dear.” “No one was asking you, dear,” Sister Monica Joan addressed the wall,

“I think there’s thunder coming – oh no, it’s only you, dear. The weather is a little unsettled, isn’t it, dear?”

Circumstances bring people together, and take them apart. One cannot keep up with everyone in a lifetime.

“Where-ere you be, let your wind go free”, to which the reply was always chanted: “In Church and Chapel let it rattle”.

Sister Evangelina muttered, “You’re a tiresome old lady. We’ll see what this does.” Slowly she leaned over Mrs Jenkins and as she bent down she let out the most enormous fart. It rumbled on

was completely out of the joke, and had time to ponder many things, not least of which was how on earth Sister Evangelina had been able to produce such a spectacular fart at that precise moment. Could she command one at will?

“You stick a red hot poker up his arse, and I’ll stick one up yours, mate,” the farmer threatened, and continued pushing.

It took a long time for Sister Julienne to live down the opprobrium of having filled the chapel with the odour of pigshit, and I am sure that God forgave her long before her Sisters did.

“Well, I don’t reckon to know much about babies, but I can see as how this is the most beautiful in the world. What’s we going to call him, luv?”

“Therefore ... ‘Sing, my darlings, sing, Before your petals fade, To feed the flowers of another spring.’”

“All shall be well, and all will be well and all manner of things shall be well.”

“Hush, a young airman is dying in that room.” The words focused his mind, and he thought, “Die? Me? I’ll bloody well show you.” The rest is history.

In the 1950s we were less intrusive into family life, and parental responsibility was respected. I am forced to the conclusion that modern medicine does not know it all.

Whilst I was fascinated and captivated by Sister Monica Joan, I could not for the life of me decide if she really was verging on senility or not.

“Thank you, young man, that is very kind. But you need not trouble yourself. I am perfectly safe. The angels will take care of me.” She tossed her head and walked swiftly on.

Was it perhaps – and I nearly fell off my bike with shock – could it be the love of God?

and as I entered the room, an almost tangible feeling of peace and tranquillity surrounded me.

One of the sweetest things in life to see Is a calm, settled fly, Cleansing its fastidious face On my chosen reading place; He twines his legs around his arse And takes his time, As Beauty with her glass.

It’s OK to be tight on The seafront at Brighton But I say, by Jove Watch out if it’s Hove.

I sang to you In the day of my bliss And you were near I thought of you In my lover’s kiss And felt you there I turned to you When our love was too brief And found your strength. I needed you In the years of my grief And knew you, at length.

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty” – that is all Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know. “Do

Find out for yourself – we all have to in the end.

These three small words, “Go with God”, were for me the beginning of faith. That evening, I started to read the Gospels.