Call the Midwife: A True Story of the East End in the 1950S

to the heartbeat. Bella must have read my thoughts. She pushed the stethoscope away.
     
    “Leave it alone. I wants it to die, can’t you see that?”
     
    “I must ring for the doctor,” I said. “Anything could happen, and I need help.”
     
    “Don’t you dare,” Flo snarled at me. “No one mus’ know - no doctors. I’ve got to get rid of it somehow.”
     
    “Don’t let’s start on that again,” I shouted. “I need a doctor, and I’m going to ring for one now.”
     
    Quick as a flash, Flo was in front of me. She grabbed my surgical scissors from the delivery tray, rushed into the other room, and cut the wire of the telephone. She glared at me in triumph.
     
    “There now. Yer can go down ve road an’ telephone ve doctor.”
     
    I didn’t dare do such a thing. The second stage was imminent. The baby might be born in my absence, and I might return to find it had been “got rid of”.
     
    There was another contraction. Bella seemed to be bearing down. She was still crying hysterically, but definitely giving a push. Flo started wailing.
     
    “Shut up,” I said in a cold, hard voice. “Shut up, and get out of this room.”
     
    She looked startled, but stopped her noise.
     
    “Now, leave this room at once. I have a baby to deliver, and I cannot do it with you present. Go.”
     
    She gasped, and opened her mouth to say something, but thought better of it and left, shutting the door quietly behind her.
     
    I turned to Bella. “Now roll over on to your left side, and do exactly as I tell you. This baby will be born within the next few minutes. I don’t want you to have a tear or a haemorrhage, so just do as I say.”
     
    She was quiet and cooperative. It was a perfect delivery.
     
     
    The baby was pure white and looked just like Tom. She was the apple of her father’s eye, and was doted upon by her proud grandfather. Her wise grandmother kept the secrets of the delivery room to herself.
     
    I was the only person outside the family to know, and until this moment, I have never told a soul.
     

OF MIXED DESCENT II
     
     
     
    The Smiths were an average, respectable East End family, with a rub-along sort of marriage. Cyril was a skilled pilot in the docks, and Doris worked in a hairdressers, as her five children were now of school age. They were not hard up, but took their holidays in the hop-picking fields of Kent. Both Cyril and Doris had enjoyed such holidays all through their childhood. Their own children enjoyed the healthy country air, the camaraderie of the other children, the open spaces to run around in, and the chance to earn some pocket money if they filled their baskets with hops. The family met the same people, year after year, who came from other areas of London, and friendships were formed and renewed every year.
     
    Each family had to take their own bedding, primus stove, and cooking equipment. They were allocated a space considered sufficient for the size of each family in sheds or barns, where they dwelt for a fortnight. Food was bought from the farm shop. Some took tents and camped. The adults worked all day in the fields, picking the hops for which they were paid, and most of the children joined in. In the 1950s, poverty was not as extreme as it had been for earlier generations, so the necessity to earn the pittance which was euphemistically called a wage had largely passed. In days gone by, children had had to work from morning to dusk to earn a few pennies which, added to their parents’ money, would help the family through the winter. The hop-picking holidays had also been lifesavers for many East End children, because they were exposed to the sunshine, which prevented rickets.
     
    By the 1950s, the children were mostly free to play, and to join in the picking only if they wanted to. Many farms had a stream or river running through them, which was the centre of childhood fun. The evenings were a great time for the whole temporary community, as they would light fires in the open air, sing songs, flirt and tell stories, and generally make believe that they were country folk and not city-dwellers at all.
     
    Before the war the annual hop-pickers consisted almost exclusively of East Enders, Romany gypsies, and tramps. After the war, with increased mobility of population worldwide, a more varied group of people turned up at the farms each year. (Mechanisation of hop-picking put an end to this annual activity for so many people.)
     
    Doris and Cyril settled with