Thursday 28 May 2015

Book Review: Jennifer Worth: Call The Midwife

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





Author: Jennifer Worth
Title: Call The Midwife
Genre: History, Cultural History, London, Biography, Historical, Social & Urban History, nonfiction, autobiography, memoir, biography memoir,

Where I Got This Book: I was given this book.

Book Dedication: This book is dedicated to Philip, my dear husband. The history of 'Mary' is also dedicated to the memory of father Joseph Williamson and Daphne Jones.

This book has 340 pages and 44 chapters in it.

I would tell people that you should step outside your comfort zone with books because it is good to add more authors and genres to your reading portfolio. Even if you do not read books like this,

I normally read books of this genre but l also stepped outside my comfort zone with authors and genres l am so glad l did because l have read so many great books and come across some great authors.

I highly recommend this book.

Synopsis: The brothels of cable street. The krays brothers and gang warfare, The meth drinkers in the bombsites – this was the world Jennifer worth entered when she become a midwife at the age of twenty-two. Babies were born in slum conditions often with no running water. Jennifer worth describes the romantic and beauty of the great port of London, The bug-infested tenements. The spectre of disease. The sense of community and the incredible of women who bore more then ten children. Funny, disturbing and moving. Call the midwife brings to life a world that has now changed beyond measure. Nonnatus house was situated in the heart of the London  dock-lands. The practice covered stepney, lime house, mill wall, the isle of dogs, cubit town, poplar, bow, mile end and whitechapel. The area was densely populated and most families had lived there for generations, often not moving more than a street or two away from their birthplace. Family life was lived at close quarters and children were brought up be a widely extended family of aunts, grandparents, cousins and older siblings, all living within a few houses, or at the most, streets of each other. Children would run in and out of each other's homes all the time and when l lived and worked there, l can not remember a door being locked, except at night. Children were everywhere, and the streets were their play-grounds. In the 1950's there were no cars in the back streets, because no one had a car, so it was perfectly safe to play there. There was heavy industrial traffic on the main roads, particularly those leading to and from the dorks, but the little streets were traffic-free. The bomb sites were the adventure playgrounds. They were numerous, a terrible reminder of the war and the intense bombing of the docklands only ten years before. Great chunks had been cut out the terraces, each encompassing perhaps two or three streets. The area would be roughly boarded off, partly hiding wasteland of rubble with bits of building half standing, half fallen. Perhaps notice stating danger – keep out would be nailed up somewhere, but this was like a red rag to a bull to any lively lad over the age of about six of seven, and every bomb site had a secret entries where the boarding was carefully removed, allowing a small body to squeeze through. Officially no on was allowed in, but everyone, including the police, seemed to turn a blind eye. It was undoubtedly a rough area. Knifing was common, Street fight was common and if a young girl did become pregnant the pressure on the young man to marry her was so great that few resisted.

Review: I found this book really easy to get In to and hard to put down once l started to read it. I was hooked on this book after reading the first page l can not wait to read the other books in this series. I am glad this book was made in to a TV series and I have watched the series over and over again and l could happily read this book again and again. I loved reading this book and reading about how it was in the 1950's and how the people survived in them days and who helped women bring their babies in to the world some women bore about ten or more babies because there was no birthcontrol in them days and if you aborted a baby you could end up in prison. The midwives also helped when people was injured or they had bedsores or they had preeclampsia and eclampsia and they catch it too late and the mother and baby sadly passed away and the nuns sometimes attend births and deaths to help the midwife. I am hoping they put call the midwife on at christmas again. I am glad l got all the call the midwife books l am glad l can read all the books one after another. I love reading about olden days and how things have changed over the years. I am sad that when a baby passes away they share coffins with adults who have passed away if the families can not afford a coffin of their own. It was so hard to read that mother and their children would go in to the workhouse when their husband left them or passed away and sometimes none of the children made it out alive and the workhouse inmates was buried all together in unmarked graves.


About The Author: Worth, born Jennifer lee while her parents were on holiday in clacton-on-sea, Essex, was raised in amersham, buckinghamshire. After leaving school at the age of 14, she learned shorthand and typing and became the secretary to the head of Dr Challoner's grammar school. She then trained as a nurse at the royal Berkshire hospital, reading, and moved to London to receive training to become a midwife. Lee was hired as a staff nurse at the London hospital in whitechapel in the early 1950's. With the sisters of st 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 worth reflects on her later experiences caring for the terminally ill. Worth was highly critical of mike Leigh's   2004 film Vera drake, for depicting the consequences of illegal abortions unrealistically. She argued that the method shown in the movie, far from being fairly quick and painless, was in fact almost invariably fatal to the mother. Worth died on 31 may 2011, having been diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus earlier in the year. Jennifer worth is a great writer l have her other books and sadly she has passed away now which l was sad to read.

About the book: l Like that the cover is really nice and not too bright and l love the font.

Star Rating: 5 Out Of 5 Stars

I wish l could rate this book more than five stars because it is worth more then the five stars l rated it.



  




















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