Jennifer Worth - Call The Midwife - A True Story Of The East End In The 1950S

I asked Molly to loosen her clothes and lie down. As she did so, I noticed a great black bruise on her chest. I enquired how it had happened. She snarled and tossed her head. ”’Im,” she said, and spat on the floor. She offered no other information, and lay down. Perhaps my unexpected arrival has saved her from another blow, I thought.

I examined her. The baby’s head was well down, the position seemed to be normal, and I could feel movement. I listened for the foetal heart, which was a steady 126 per minute. She and the baby seemed quite normal and healthy, in spite of everything.

It was only then that I noticed the children. I heard something in the corner of the dark bedroom, and nearly jumped out of my skin. I thought it was a rat. I focused my eyes in that direction, and saw two little faces peering round from behind a chair. Molly heard my gasp, and said, “It’s all right. Tom, come ’ere.”

But, of course, there must be young children around, I thought. This was her third pregnancy, and she was only nineteen, so they would be under school age. Why hadn’t I noticed them before?

Two little boys of about two or three years old came out from behind the chair. They were absolutely silent. Boys of that age usually rush around, making no end of noise, but not these two. Their silence was unnatural. They had big eyes, full of fear, and they took a step or two forward, then clung to each other as though for mutual protection and retreated behind the chair again.

“That’s all right, kids, it’s only the nurse. She won’t hurt you. Come ’ere.”

They came out again, two dirty little boys, with snot and tear marks staining their faces. They were wearing only jumpers, a practice I had seen a lot in Poplar, and for some reason I found it particularly repellent. A toddler was dressed only at the top, and left naked from the waist down. It seemed to be especially prevalent among little boys. I was told that the women saved on washing this way. The child, before he was toilet trained, could then just urinate anywhere, and there would be no nappies or clothes to wash. Children would run around the tenement balconies and courtyards all day like this.

Tom and his little brother crept out from the corner, and ran to their mother. They seemed to be losing their fear. She put out an arm affectionately and they cuddled up to her. Well at least she’s got some mothering instincts, I thought. I wondered how much time those little children spent behind the chair when their father was at home.

But I was not a health visitor, nor a social worker, and there was no point in speculating on that sort of thing. I resolved to report my observations to the Sisters, and told Molly that we would come back later that week, to ascertain that everything was available for a home delivery.

I still had Muriel to visit, and it was with great relief that I left the foul atmosphere of that flat.

The bright cold air outside and the cycle ride down to the Isle of Dogs refreshed my spirits, and I sped along.

“Hello, luvvy, how’s yourself?” was the greeting shouted at me by several women, known and unknown to me. This was always the greeting called out from the pavement. “Lovely, thanks, ah’s yerself?” I always replied. It was difficult not to slip into the cockney lingo.

I don’t believe it, I said to myself, as I turned into Muriel’s street, she can’t be here already. Sure enough, Mrs Jenkins was there with her stick and her string bag, her head scarf over her curlers, and the same old long mildew-encrusted coat that she wore summer and winter. She was talking to a woman in the street, hanging intently on to to every word. She saw me slow down and came up to me and grabbed my sleeve with her filthy, long nailed hands.

“How is she, and the little one?” she rasped.

I was impatient, and pulled my arm away. Mrs Jenkins turned up at every delivery. No matter how far the distance, how bad the weather, how early or late in the day, Mrs Jenkins would always be seen hanging around the street. No one knew where she lived, or how she got her information, or how she managed to walk, sometimes three or four miles, to a house where a baby had been born. But she always did.

I was irritated and passed her without speaking. I regarded her as a nosy old busybody. I was young, too young to understand. Too young to see the pain in her eyes, or to hear the tortured urgency in her voice.

“’Ow is she? An’ ve li’l one. ‘Ow’s ve li’l one?”

I went directly into the house without even knocking, and Muriel’s mother immediately came forward, busy and smiling. These older generation mothers knew that they were absolutely indispensable at times like these, and it gave them a great sense of fulfilment, an ongoing purpose in life. She was all bustle and information. “She’s been asleep since you left. She’s been to the toilet and passed water. She’s had some tea and now I’m getting her a nice bit of fish. Baby’s been to the breast, I’ve seen to that, but she aint got no milk yet.”

I thanked her and went up to the room. It looked clean, fresh and bright, with flowers on the chest of drawers. Compared to the filth and squalor of Molly’s flat, it looked like paradise.

Muriel was awake but sleepy. Her first words to me were, “I don’t want no fish. Can’t you tell mum that? I don’t feel like it, but she won’t listen to me. She might listen to you.”

Clearly there was a difference of opinion between mother and daughter. I did not want to be involved. I checked her pulse and blood pressure - normal. Her vaginal discharge was not excessive; the uterus felt normal too. I checked her breasts. A little colostrum was coming out but no milk, as her mother had said. I wanted to try to get the baby to feed, in fact that was the main purpose of my visit.

In the cot the baby was sleeping soundly. Gone was the puckered appearance, the discoloration of the skin from the stress and trauma of birth, the cries of alarm and fear at entering this world. He was relaxed and warm and peaceful. Nearly everyone will say that seeing a newborn baby has an effect on them, ranging from awe to astonishment. The helplessness of the newborn human infant has always made an impression on me. All other mammals have a certain amount of autonomy at birth. Many animals, within an hour or two of birth, are up on their feet and running. Others, at the very least, can find the nipple and suck. But the human baby can’t even do that. If the nipple or teat is not actually placed in the baby’s mouth and sucking encouraged, the baby would die of starvation. I have a theory that all human babies are born prematurely. Given the human life span - three score years and ten - to be comparable with other animals of similar longevity, human gestation should be about two years. But the human head is so big by the age of two that no woman could deliver it. So our babies are born prematurely, in a state of utter helplessness.

I lifted the tiny creature from his cot and brought him to Muriel. She knew what to do, and had started squeezing a little colostrum from the nipple. We tried brushing a little of this over the baby’s lips. He was not interested, only squirmed and turned his head away. We tried again, with the same reaction. It took at least a quarter of an hour of patiently trying to encourage the baby, but eventually, we persuaded him to open his mouth sufficiently to insert the nipple. He took about three sucks, and went off to sleep again. Sound asleep, as though exhausted from all his efforts. Muriel and I laughed.

“You would think he’d been doing all the hard work,” she said, “not you and me, eh, nurse?”

We agreed to leave it for the time being. I would be back again in the evening, and she could try again during the afternoon, if she wanted to.