Review -- The Midwife by Jennifer Worth
A Memoir of Birth, Joy & Hard Times in London's East End
Mar 27, 2009
A few years back, Jennifer Worth read an article that suggested the midwife was an occupation that has been virtually non-existent in literature. As a former midwife for many years herself, familiar with the drama that attends each and every birth, Worth, now in her seventies, says she “accepted the challenge, and took up my pen.”
London’s East End Docklands Setting For Memoir
The setting for The Midwife is London’s traditionally poor East End, in the early 1950’s. The densely overcrowded industrial docklands, still pockmarked with dangerous, garbage-filled and rat-infested WWII bombsites in which the children play, is the area served by the nuns of Nonnatus House (a pseudonym), whose main job is to deliver the endless stream of postwar babies.
The author, then called “Jenny Lee”, is not a sister herself (in fact she has her reservations about religion and prayer), but a young nurse who –after a bad relationship—decides to come live with the nuns and learn midwifery. While the book certainly delivers on its promise of the details of the profession, The Midwife is just as much a memoir of place and of characters.
In terms of place, this portion of London’s East End (called the Isle of Dogs) as described by Worth is as heartbreaking an area imaginable. Above the dangerous bombsites sit the crumbling tenements, many condemned, jammed full of poor families, sometimes a dozen to a room. A single outdoor privy may have been shared by as many as twenty or thirty of these families.
Variety of Characters Bring The Midwife to Life
As prostitutes, hoodlums and beggars roam the streets, the nurses and midwives pedaling their bicycles to and from their "home visits" are perhaps the only safe ones. “So deep is the respect,” Worth writes, “even reverence, of the roughest, toughest docker for the district midwives that we can go anywhere, day or night, without fear.”
Amidst it all are the characters, the colorful Cockney inhabitants of the area. Sometimes crude, often funny, always proud, these are the people that midwife Jenny deals with daily, and it is her portrayal of them, as well as the sisters of Nonnatus house, that brings this memoir to life.
Beginning with Sister Monica Joan, the elderly eccentric poet nun, Worth paints portraits of several of her “sisters” as the genuine women they are. Particularly memorable is sister Evangelina, a seemingly dour old maid who’s seen it all, and with a “special talent” that would make a sailor blush.
Unforgettable Nuns and Pregnant Mums
If the nuns in this book are well-characterized, many of pregnant mothers (wives, lovers, prostitutes) are truly unforgettable. This is the real testament to the mark being a midwife left on Jennifer Worth. She clearly cared deeply about her job and the women (and babies) with whom she dealt.
Conchita is the charming mother of 24 kids, whose anti-modern medicine instincts save the life of her 25th at birth. Mrs. Jenkins is the neighborhood oddball, an annoyance to everyone until the heart of her madness is discovered.
In particular, the story of Mary, a 14-year-old Irish runaway, innocent and too-easily drawn into the world of prostitution will not only anger, but remain with the reader for some time.
Author Balances the Heartbreaking With the Humorous
While The Midwife is anecdotal in its structure, the author ties the different stories together nicely, balancing those more heartbreaking with lighter, often humorous memories. In other words, it is a well-rounded memoir. Worth also achieves a degree of personal, spiritual growth through her experiences, although this aspect is not overdone or thrown in the reader’s face.
The Midwife is not without its very detailed descriptions of the process of delivering a baby into this world. This is only fair warning to those readers among us who might think those things would be glossed over. They are not.
The details, however, serve to stress not only the distance we’ve come in half a century, but the absolute necessity, professionalism, and dedication of midwives up until (and perhaps including) today. With this wonderful memoir, it seems Jennifer Worth has finally given midwives their literary due.
Worth, Jennifer. The Midwife, 2008, Penguin Books, 340 pages. (ISBN:978-0-14-311623-3)
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