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Call The Midwife: A True Story Of The East End In The 1950s: A True Story of the East End in the 1950s | 
| Author: Jennifer Worth
Publisher: Phoenix
Category: Book
List Price: £6.99
Buy New: £4.34
You Save: £2.65 (38%)
New (22) Used (13) Collectible (1) from £2.25
Avg. Customer Rating:  40 reviews
Sales Rank: 804
Media: Paperback
Pages: 376
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 7.6 x 5 x 1.2
ISBN: 0753823837
EAN: 9780753823835
ASIN: 0753823837
Publication Date: March 6, 2008
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Usually dispatched within 24 hours
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| Customer Reviews: Read 35 more reviews...
East end life and people in the 1950s September 24, 2008
A truly enjoyable and inspiring read. Most reviewers have highlighted the ability of the writer to draw the reader in and provoke a mixture of emotions. It's an excellent social history too. I've now ordered Father Joe Williamson's autobiography and will be reading the next two instalments from Jennifer in the future. Read it and weep (and laugh)
 Jennifer Worth shares her experiences of catching babies and caring for mothers in the 1950's September 8, 2008
The writing by Ms Worth flows, it's funny at times and it's sad at times (which is all good!). The only complaint I have is that Ms Worth told the stories of certain characters too much, and did not focus on the midwifery side of things enough. This is not a bad book, if you expect a lovely story of the people and places surrounding Ms Worth during her time as a midwife, staying with some Nuns in London, and a few births scattered here and there.
However, I was not satisfied with the book as I would have liked to read more about Ms Worth's job and less about other people. I loved to hear about who she was caring for and their families, but I was not interested in the Nuns, or the random people who were not having babies.
Ms Worth describes births in detail, how different they were in the 1950's compared to the 21st Century. I loved that the women birthed at home, I loved that they would warm water in preparation for the new arrival, I loved that they would warm the towels by the fire and the midwife would cycle to the family's home on a bicycle. The story of Conchita was really heart-warming.
I am happy that I have read the book, and my next mission is to find a book about a midwife that is set in more modern settings.
This era should never be forgotten September 8, 2008
This book covers relatively recent history and shows how far maternity care has come. The families here live in extremely poor conditions, and their stories are harrowing . But we should never forget that, even in more prosperous homes, our mothers and grandmothers gave birth when there were few washing machines, many homes had outdoor toilets and heating often came from coal carried in from outdoors. Today we groan about poor maternity leave and forget that previous generations of women struggled with overcrowding when cleanliness was the measure of a woman.
Read this and feel lucky!Quick, Boil Some Water!: The Story of Childbirth in Our Grandmother's Day
Bittersweet memories August 27, 2008
This is a brilliant book that at times made me cry, and at others, laugh out loud. My own mother was a Cockney, born in the East End in 1920, and reading this book brought back bitter sweet memories of the way that she was, and the wonderful stories that she used to tell. It has helped me to appreciate her humour much more and understand where some of my own ways have come from. I particularly enjoyed the stories of Sister Evangelina and her escapades across the Thames, jumping from barge to barge and the obsession with bodily functions, and also Sister Monica Joan with her knitting needles. As for the ordinary women, what happened to Mary once she left prison, how did Mrs Jenkins' children die, and how many more children did Conchita have. One of my aunts had 22 of them, but 25?
Most of us cannot imagine the conditions that these women lived and worked in, and the daily struggle for survival. The modern existence is pampered in comparison. We complain about not having two bathrooms, while these women had one communal tap to each floor of the flats that they lived in and one shared toilet. Times may have been hard, and money tight, but they had more balls and more grit than anything you would see today, with no counsellors in sight!
Very good read! August 15, 2008
This is an excellent book! The way how Jennifer Worth describes life (hers) as a midwife in the 50's East End is just so real you can almost see it in front of your eyes! Great book!
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