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Farewell to the Midwives
Jennifer Worth, now a senior citizen, was bold and kind enough to write a series of pseudo-autobiographical books about her young years as a convent midwife in post World War II East London; a devastated, most vulnerable area. The first book in the series is “Call the Midwife”, and the last one, “Farewell to the East End”, in which Worth describes the closure of the convent. But how was this brought about?
Nonnatus House (a pseudonym) was nun-run and housed novices and other girls that volunteered for midwifery. These hardworking women had pledged their lives to God and the helpless, by offering various forms of healthcare, though their specialty was midwifery; pre-and post- natal care, and carrying out deliveries. Their skills were renowned and the rich solicited their services also, for a fee (on which the convent depended to aid the poor for free). The midwives were continuously on the run, riding their bicycles all around East End, safe even in the darkest areas, protected by the respect they had earned.
The generation that Nonnatus House served had been mostly raised by parents afraid, or at least wary of anything concerning hospital institutions, and had therefore successfully passed on the fear to their children, who rejected almost all kinds of professional help: doctors, drugs, vaccines, or hospitalisation, even when a complicated delivery required them. Thus the midwives' presence during these years was crucial in the East End.
However, hospitals improved exponentially over the years and won, together with the NHS, a reputation of efficiency and reliability, causing not only Eastenders, but all Brits to flock to the hospitals as a first resource. Consequently, calls at Nonnatus House spaced considerably in the span of a couple years: the amount of calls decreased from a staggering hundred a month to a meager five a month.
The logical conclusion was for Nonnatus House to shut up shop, and so it did – yet the nuns were not left without a job! As mentioned in the second paragraph, the nuns had pledged their lives to God and the poor. Worth records at the very end of the very last book, that thanks to the former, these women could continue to help the latter, through education, drug rehab programmes and soup kitchens, wherever they were needed to be – until it was time to say farewell again.