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

The bundle of clothes in the chair didn’t move. Sister leaned forward to feel her pulse. The arm was pulled away. I was delighted. “Let’s see how Sister Know-all copes,” I thought.

“It’s cold in here. Haven’t you got a fire?”

No reply.

“It’s dark, too. What about a light for us?”

No reply.

“When did you first feel bad?”

No reply.

“Do you feel a bit better now?”

Again, total silence. I was feeling very smug; Sister Evangelina appeared as incapable of examining the patient as I had been. What would happen next?

What in fact did happen next was so utterly unexpected that, to this day, more than fifty years later, I blush to remember it.

Sister Evangelina muttered, “You’re a tiresome old lady. We’ll see what this does.”

Slowly she leaned over Mrs Jenkins and as she bent down she let out the most enormous fart. It rumbled on and on and just as I thought it had stopped it started all over again, in a higher key. I had never been so shocked in all my life.

Mrs Jenkins sat upright in her chair. Sister Evangelina called out: “Which way did it go, nurse? Don’t let it get out. It’s over there by the door - catch it. Now it’s by the window - get hold of it, quick.”

A throaty chuckle came from the armchair.

“Cor, that’s better,” said Sister Evangelina happily; “Nothing like a good fart to clear the system. Makes you feel ten years younger, eh, Mother Jenkins?”

The bundle of clothes shook, and the throaty chuckle developed into a real belly laugh. Mrs Jenkins, who had never been heard to speak apart from obsessive questions about babies, laughed until the tears ran down her face.

“Quick! Under the chair. The cat’s go’ it. Ge’ it off him quick, e’ll be sick.”

Sister Evangelina sat down beside her, and the two old ladies (Sister Evie was no spring chicken) rocked with laughter about farts and bums and turds and stinks and messes, swapping stories, true or false, I couldn’t tell. I was deeply shocked. I knew that Sister Evie could be crude, but I had no idea that she possessed such an extensive and varied repertoire of stories.

I retreated to a corner and watched them. They looked like two old hags from a Bruegel painting, one in rags, one in a monastic habit, sharing lewd laughter with the happiness of children. I was completely out of the joke, and had time to ponder many things, not least of which was how on earth Sister Evangelina had been able to produce such a spectacular fart at that precise moment. Could she command one at will? I had heard of a performer at the Comedie-Francaise, immortalised by Toulouse-Lautrec, who would entertain the Parisian audiences of the 1880s with a rich variety of sounds emitting from his backside, but I had never heard of, still less encountered, anyone who could actually do it. Was Sister Evangelina gifted, or had she acquired the skill through hours of practice? My mind dwelled with pleasure on the possibility. Was it her party piece? I wondered how it would go down at the convent on festive occasions, such as Christmas and Easter. Would the Reverend Mother and her Sisters in Christ be amused by such a singular talent?

The two old girls were so innocently happy that my initial reaction of disapproval seemed to be churlish and mean-spirited. What was wrong with it, anyway? All children laugh endlessly about bottoms and farts. The works of Chaucer, Rabelais, Fielding, and many others are full of lavatorial humour.

There was no doubt about it. Sister Evangelina’s action had been brilliant. A masterstroke. To say that a fart cleared the air may seem a contradiction in terms, but life is full of contradictions. From that moment on, Mrs Jenkins lost her fear of us. We were able to examine her, to treat her, to communicate with her. And I was able to learn her tragic history.

“Rosie? Tha’ you, Rosie?”

The old lady lifted her head and called out as the front door banged. Footsteps were heard in the passage, but Rosie did not enter the room. Things were happening fast to improve Mrs Jenkins’ living conditions. The Social Services had been called, and some cleaning had been carried out. The old armchair had been removed because it was full of fleas, and another donated. A bed had also been provided, but had never been slept in. Mrs Jenkins was so accustomed to sleeping in an armchair that she could not be persuaded to try the bed, so the cats slept on it. Sister Evangelina commented wryly that the new government must have more money than sense to provide Social Services for cats.

The most remarkable change was the repair of the hole in the roof which Sister Evangelina achieved through single-handed combat with the landlord. I was with her when she mounted the rickety stairs to the second floor. I would not have been surprised if they had given way under her considerable weight and warned her accordingly, but she glared at me, and strode up them to put the fear of God into the landlord.

She banged hard on the door several times. It opened a crack, and I heard, “What you want?”

She demanded that he come out and speak with her.

“You go away.”

“I will not. If I go away, it will be to set the police on you. Now come out and talk to me.”

I heard words like “disgrace”, “prosecute”, “prison”, and whining pleas of poverty and ignorance, but the net result was that the hole in the roof was patched up with a heavy tarpaulin, weighted down with bricks. Mrs Jenkins was delighted, and grinned and giggled with Sister Evie as they shared a cup of strong sweet tea and a piece of Mrs B.’s homemade cake that Sister Evie invariably brought with her when she visited Mrs Jenkins.

A tarpaulin to mend a hole in the roof may seem inadequate, but there was no chance of getting anything better or more durable. The building was condemned for demolition, and the fact that it was still lived in at all was due to the acute housing shortage caused by the bombing of London in the war. People were glad to live anywhere they could find.

The coke stove was usable, but furred up, and Fred, boilerman extraordinaire of Nonnatus House, cleaned and serviced it. Sister Evangelina was determined that Mrs Jenkins should stay in her own home.

“If the Social Services had their way they would put her in an old people’s home tomorrow. I’m not having that. It would kill her.”

When we first examined Mrs Jenkins we had found her heart to be quite fair. Angina is common amongst the elderly, and with a quiet life, warmth, and rest, it can be kept under control. Her main problems were chronic malnutrition and her mental state. She was clearly a very strange old lady, but was she mad? Would she do any harm to herself or others? We wondered if she needed to see a psychiatrist but we could not tell without assessing her over a period of weeks.

The other problems were dirt, fleas and lice. It was my job to clean her up.

A tin bath was brought from Nonnatus House, and I boiled up water on the coke stove. Mrs Jenkins was dubious about all this, but I only had to mention that Sister Evangelina wanted her to have a bath, and she relaxed and chuckled, champing her jaws.

“She’s a good ’un, she is. I tells my Rosie an’ all. We ’as a good laugh, we ’as. Rose an’ me.”

I had quite a job persuading her to undress, and she was very apprehensive. Under the old coat she wore a rough wool skirt and jumper, but no vest or knickers. Her frail little body was pathetic to behold. There was no flesh on her, and all her bones stuck out at sharp angles. Her skin hung loose, and I could count every rib. The revulsion she had hitherto inspired in me turned to pity when I beheld her frail, skeletal body.

Pity is one thing, shock another. Shock was waiting for me when I took her boots off. I had noticed her huge man-sized boots before, and wondered why she wore them. With difficulty I untied the greasy knots and undid the laces. She wore no socks or stockings, and the boot would not budge. It seemed stuck to her skin. I eased a finger down the side, and she winced. “Leave it be. Leave it.”