Name: Call the Midwife
Rating: 4.275 (40 reviews)
ISBN: 9781407209173

Jennifer Worth

Terri Coates

Life in London's East End in the 1950s was tough. The brothels of Cable Street, the Kray brothers and gang warfare, the meths drinkers in the bombsites - this was the world Jennifer Worth entered when she became a midwife at the age of twenty-two.

A True Story of the East End in the 1950s

Call the Midwife

a memoir of birth, joy, and hard times

The midwife

Jonathan Tysick

Informative, well-written stories with charming characters. Heartwarming and occasionally heartbreaking, this was a fascinating look into family life in the East End of London in the 1950's.

Sarah Ryan

I thoroughly enjoyed this book and plan to read the rest of the trilogy. I found it especially interesting as my own grandmother was in London during the 1950s and had my uncle there, so it lent an extra 'personal interest' to my reading. Would definitely recommend.

The highest-rated drama in BBC history, Call the Midwife will delight fans of Downton Abbey Viewers everywhere have fallen in love with this candid look at post-war London. In the 1950s, twenty-two-year-old Jenny Lee leaves her comfortable home to move into a convent and become a midwife in London's East End slums. While delivering babies all over the city, Jenny encounters a colorful cast of women—from the plucky, warm-hearted nuns with whom she lives, to the woman with twenty-four children who can't speak English, to the prostitutes of the city's seedier side. An unfortgettable story of motherhood, the bravery of a community, and the strength of remarkable and inspiring women, Call the Midwife is the true story behind the beloved PBS series, which will soon return for its sixth season.

A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times

Sterling Newman

Jennifer Worth came from a sheltered background when she became a midwife in the Docklands in the 1950s. The conditions in which many women gave birth just half a century ago were horrifying, not only because of their grimly impoverished surroundings, but also because of what they were expected to endure. But while Jennifer witnessed brutality and tragedy, she also met with amazing kindness and understanding, tempered by a great deal of Cockney humour. She also earned the confidences of some whose lives were truly stranger, more poignant and more terrifying than could ever be recounted in fiction. Attached to an order of nuns who had been working in the slums since the 1870s, Jennifer tells the story not only of the women she treated, but also of the community of nuns (including one who was accused of stealing jewels from Hatton Garden) and the camaraderie of the midwives with whom she trained. Funny, disturbing and incredibly moving, Jennifer's stories bring to life the colourful world of the East End in the 1950s.

Isabel 

A fascinating slice of social history - Jennifer Worth's tales of being a midwife in 1950s London.

Pierke Bosschieter

Life in London's docklands in the 1950s was tough. The brothels of Cable Street, the Kray brothers and gang warfare, the meths drinkers in the bombsites-this was the world that Jennifer Worth entered when she became a midwife at the age of twenty-two. Babies were born in slum conditions, often with no running water. Jennifer Worth describes the romance and beauty of the great port of London, the bug-infested tenements, the spectre of disease, the sense of community and the incredible resilience of women who bore more than ten children. Funny, disturbing and moving, Call the Midwife brings to life a world that has now changed beyond measure.

Call the Midwife A True Story of the East End in the 1950s

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