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

Chickens led to quails, which he supplied to West End restaurants. Quails are delicate birds, requiring warmth, so he kept them in the house. Being small, they do not need much space, so he bred and reared them in boxes which he kept under the bed. He slaughtered and plucked them in the kitchen.

Chummy, always eager, said, “You know, I think that’s frightfully clever, actually. But wouldn’t it be a bit whiffy, what?”

Trixi cut her short. “Oh, shut up. We’re having our breakfast,” and reached for the cornflakes.

Fred’s enthusiasm for drains was enough to put anyone off their breakfast. Cleaning out drains was obviously a passion, and his north-east eye gleamed as he poured out the effluvial details. Trixie said, “I’ll stuff you down a drain, if you don’t watch it,” and made for the door, toast in hand. But Fred, a poet with rod and suction, was not to be discouraged. “The best job I ever had was up in Hampstead, see? One of them posh houses. Lady’s real la-di-da, toffee-nosed. I lifts up the man’ole cover an’ there it is, like, fillin’ the whole chamber: a frenchy - a rubber, you know - caught at the inflow end, an’ blown up with muck an’ water. Huge, it was, huge.”

His eyes rolled expressively at their different angles as he expanded his arms. Chummy shared his enthusiasm, but not his meaning.

“You never seen nuffink like it, a yard long, an’ a foot wide, strike me dead. Ve lady, ever so posh like, looks at it an’ says ‘oh dear, whatever can it be?’ an’ I says ‘well if you don’t know, lady, you musta bin asleep’ an’ she says ‘don’t you be saucy, my good fellow’. Well, I gets the thing out, an’ charges her double, an’ she pays up like a lamb.”

He grinned impishly, rubbed his hands together, and sucked his tooth.

“Oh, jolly well done, Fred, good for you. It was frightfully clever getting double the fee, actually.”

Fred’s best line, with the highest profit margin, had been fireworks. His unit of the Pioneer Corps had been attached to the Royal Engineers in North Africa for a time. Explosives had been in daily use. Anyone, however humble, working with the REs, is bound to learn something about explosives and Fred had picked up enough to give him confidence to embark on fireworks manufacture in the kitchen of his little house after the war.

“S’easy. You just need a load of the right kind of fertiliser, an’ a touch of this an mix it wiv a bi’ of that an’ bingo, you’ve got yer bang.”

Chummy said, wide-eyed with apprehension: “But isn’t it frightfully dangerous, actually, Fred?”

“Nah, nah, not if you knows what you is a-doin’, like what I does. Sold like nobody’s business, they did, all over Poplar. Everyone was wantin’ ’em. I could’ve made a fortune if they’d left me alone, the bleeders, beggin’ yer pardon, miss.”

“Who? What happened?”

“Rozzers, police, got ’old of some of me fireworks an’ tested ’em, an’ sez they was dangerous, an’ I was endangering ’uman life. I asks you - I asks you. Would I do anyfing like that, now? Would I?” He looked up from his position on the floor, and spread out his ash-covered hands in innocent appeal.

“Of course not Fred,” we all chorused. “What happened?”

“Well, they charged me, din’t they, but the magistrate, he lets me off wiv a fine, like, because I ’ad three kids. He was a good bloke, he was, the magistrate, but he says I would go to prison if I does it again, kids or no kids. So I never done it no more.”

His most recent economic adventure had been in toffee apples, and very successful it was, too. Dolly made the toffee mixture in the little kitchen, while Fred purchased crates of cheap apples from Covent Garden. All that was needed was a stick to put the apple on, dip it in the toffee, and in no time at all rows of toffee apples were lined up on the draining board. Fred couldn’t imagine why he hadn’t thought of it before. It was a winner. One-hundred per cent profit margin and assured sales with the large number of children around. He foresaw a rosy future with unlimited sales and profits.

A week or two later, it was clear that something had gone wrong from the silence of the small figure crouched down by the stove, manipulating the flue. No cheerful greeting, no chat, no tuneless whistle - just a heavy silence. He wouldn’t even respond to our questions.

Eventually Chummy left the table and went over to him.

“Come on, Fred. What’s up? Perhaps we can help. And even if we can’t, you will feel better if you tell us.” She touched his shoulder with her huge hand.

Fred turned and looked up. His north-east eye drooped, and a little moisture glinted in the south-west. His voice was husky as he spoke.

“Fevvers. Quail’s fevvers. Tha’s wha’s up. Someone complained fevvers was stuck to me toffee apples. So food safety boffins come an’ examined ’em an’ said fevvers an’ bits of fevvers was stuck to all me toffee apples, an’ I was endangerin’ public ’ealth.”

Apparently the health inspector had asked at once to see where the toffee apples were made, and when shown the kitchen, in which the quails were regularly slaughtered and plucked, had immediately ordered that both occupations be discontinued, on pain of prosecution. So great was the disaster to Fred’s economy that it seemed nothing could be said to comfort him. Chummy was so kind, and assured him that something else would turn up, something better, but he was not reassured, and it was a glum breakfast that morning. He had lost face, and it hurt.

But Fred’s triumph was yet to come.

Betty Smith’s baby was due in early February. As she dashed happily around all December, preparing Christmas for her husband and six children, her parents and in-laws, grandparents on both sides, brothers, sisters and their children, uncles and aunts, and a very ancient great-grandmother, none of the family dreamed that the baby would be born on Christmas Day.

Dave was a wharf manager in the West India Docks. He was in his thirties, clever, competent and he knew his job inside out. He was greatly valued by the Port of London Authority, and he earned a good wage. In consequence, the family was able to live in one of the large Victorian houses just off Commercial Road. Betty never ceased to thank her lucky stars that she had married Dave just after the war, and was able to leave the tenements, with the cramped living conditions and minimal sanitation. She loved her big, roomy house, and that is why she had always been glad to have the family descend on her for Christmas. The children loved it. With about twenty-five little cousins coming from all over Poplar, Stepney, Bow, and Canning Town, they were going to have a high old time.

Uncle Alf was Father Christmas. The house was at the bottom of an incline, and Uncle Alf had a home-made sleigh on wheels. This was taken to the top of the street, loaded with a sack of presents, and at a given signal, pushed off. The children did not know how it was done. All that they saw was Father Christmas trundling gently towards them, with no apparent means of propulsion, and stopping at their house. They were in an ecstasy of delight.

But this year, things were to be rather different. Instead of Father Christmas on a sleigh, a midwife arrived on a bicycle. Instead of a sack full of presents, a baby came, naked and crying.

My Christmas was also very different. For the first time in my life I began to understand that Christmas is a religious festival, and not just an occasion for overeating and drinking. It had all begun in late November with something that I was told was Advent. This meant nothing to me, but for the nuns it meant a time of preparation. Most people prepare for Christmas as Betty had done, buying food, drinks, presents and treats. The nuns prepared rather differently, with prayer and meditation.