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

as though she were a child, and carried her all the way back to Nonnatus House. A crowd of curious children followed.
     
    We alerted Mrs B., who was full of concern.
     
    “Oh, the poor lamb. Get her up to bed. She mus’ be froze, poor dear. She’ll catch ’er death o’ cold. I’ll get a couple of ’ot water bottles, and make her some porridge, an’ some ’ot chocolate. I knows as wha’ she likes.”
     
    We got her to bed and left her in Mrs B.’s capable hands. We both had a morning’s work to attend to, and had to go.
     
    I attended my morning visits as though in a dream. Now and then in life, love catches you unawares, illuminating the dark corners of your mind, and filling them with radiance. Once in a while you are faced with a beauty and a joy that takes your soul, all unprepared, by assault. As I cycled around that morning, I knew that I loved not only Sister Monica Joan, but all that she represented: her religion, her vocation, her monastic profession, the bells, the constant prayers within the convent, the quietness, and the selfless work in the service of God. Was it perhaps - and I nearly fell off my bike with shock - could it be the love of God?
     

IN THE BEGINNING
     
     
     
    Sister Monica Joan developed pneumonia. She fell deeply asleep when Chummy, Mrs B. and I placed her into bed that cold morning, and remained apparently unconscious for the whole day. Her temperature was high, her pulse full and throbbing, and her breathing laboured. Nonnatus House was sad and subdued. The chapel bell, calling the Office of the day, sounded like the portent of a funeral bell. We all thought that she would die. However, we had not taken into account two significant factors: antibiotics, and her own phenomenal stamina.
     
    Today, antibiotics are as common as a cup of coffee. In the 1950s they were relatively new. Today, over-use has reduced their efficacy but in the 1950s they really were a miracle drug. Sister Monica Joan had never had penicillin before, and responded immediately. Within a couple of shots her temperature dropped, her pulse returned to normal, the murmur in her chest vanished, and she opened her eyes. She looked around. “I really don’t know why you are all standing there doing nothing. Haven’t you got any work to do? I suppose you think I am going to die. Well, you are wrong. I’m not. You can tell Mrs B. that I will have a boiled egg for breakfast.”
     
    Her stamina and physical strength became apparent during the next few weeks. Had she led a life of luxury and idleness, as her aristocratic birth would have allowed, I am quite sure that she would have died, in spite of the penicillin. However, a life of intense hard work had rendered her as tough as old boots. A mere touch of pneumonia could not kill her. She recovered quickly, and became very peevish about being kept in bed, which the doctor insisted upon. She thought she had a slight cold, and had no memory of the incident that had brought her to bed in the first place. She did not actually call the doctor a fool, but she looked at him in such a way that left no doubt in his, or anyone else’s mind.
     
    “I do not pretend to understand your superior wisdom, doctor, but we will go with God in all things. Am I to understand that I can have visitors?”
     
    Yes indeed, Sister Monica Joan could have visitors (as long as they did not tire her), whatever she wanted to read (provided it did not strain her eyes), and whatever she wanted to eat (provided it did not upset her digestion).
     
    Sister Monica Joan settled back on her pillows, contented. Books were provided and Mrs B. was instructed to attend to her every wish.
     
    A nun’s bedroom is properly called a cell and is small, bare, and plain, without comfort. However, since her retirement from active midwifery, Sister Monica Joan had managed to wangle things so that her cell was comparatively large, comfortably furnished, and pretty: an elegant bedsitting-room would be the more appropriate description. Lay people are not normally admitted to a nun’s cell, but Sister Monica Joan had just extracted the doctor’s assurance that she could have visitors, and thus began a very happy period of my life.
     
    Every day I visited her, and as I entered the room, an almost tangible feeling of peace and tranquillity surrounded me. She was always sitting up in bed, with no outward signs of illness or fatigue, her veil perfectly adjusted, her white nightie high in the neck, her