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

station to find the constable she had injured. She took with her a box of chocolates and a bottle of whisky.
     

MOLLY
     
     
     
    When I called at the Canada Buildings to reassess Molly for a home confinement, she was out. It took three calls before I found her in. On the second attempt, I thought I heard movement in the flat, and knocked several times. There certainly was someone inside, but the door was locked, and no one came to open it.
     
    On the third visit, Molly answered the door. She looked dreadful. She was only nineteen, but she looked pale and haggard. Lank greasy hair hung down her dirty face, and the two filthy little boys clung to her skirt. A week had passed since the first visit when I had interrupted a fight and a glance around the room told me that the domestic situation was worse, not better. I told her that we were reassessing her flat for a home confinement, and that perhaps it would be better if she went into hospital for the delivery. She shrugged, seeming indifferent. I pointed out that she had been to no antenatal clinics, and that this could be dangerous. She shrugged again. I was getting nowhere.
     
    I said, “How is it that four months ago, the Midwives assessed your place as satisfactory for a home confinement, and now it is not?”.
     
    She said, “Well, me mum come in, and cleaned up, din’t she?”
     
    At last some communication. There was a mother on the scene. I asked for her mother’s address. It was in the next block. Good.
     
    A hospital confinement had to be booked in advance by the expectant mother concerned through her doctor. I was not at all sure that Molly would do this; she seemed too slovenly and apathetic to bother about anything. If she won’t go to antenatal clinic, she won’t bother to change the arrangements for delivery, I thought, and I could imagine a midnight call to Nonnatus House in two or three weeks’ time to which we would have to respond. I resolved to see her mother, and report to her doctor.
     
    The Canada Buildings, named Ontario, Baffin, Hudson, Ottawa and so on, were six blocks of densely populated tenements lying between Blackwall Tunnel and Blackwall Stairs. They were about six storeys high, and very primitive, with a tap and a lavatory at the end of each balcony. It was beyond me how anyone could live there, and maintain cleanliness or self-respect. It was said that there five thousand people living in the Canada Buildings.
     
    I found her mother Marjorie’s address in the Ontario Buildings, and knocked. A cheery voice called “Come on in luvvy”. The usual invitation of an East Ender, whoever you were. The door was unlocked, so I stepped straight into the main room. Marjorie turned round as I entered with a bright smile. The smile vanished as soon as she saw me and her hands dropped to her sides.
     
    “Oh no. No. Not again. You’ve come about our Moll, ’aven’t you?” She sat down on a chair, buried her face in her hands, and sobbed.
     
    I was embarrassed. I didn’t know what to do or say. Some people are good at dealing with the problems of others, but not me. In fact, the more emotional people get, the less I am able to cope. I put my bag on a chair and sat down beside her, saying nothing. It gave me the chance to look around the room.
     
    Having seen Molly’s squalor, I had expected to see her mother’s place in the same sort of condition, but nothing could have been more dissimilar. The room was clean and tidy, and smelt nice. Pretty curtains hung at clean windows. The mats were clean, well brushed and shaken. A kettle was bubbling on the gas stove. Marjorie was wearing a clean dress and pinafore, her hair was brushed and looked nice.
     
    The kettle gave me an idea, and as the sobs lessened I said, “How about making a nice cup of tea for us both? I’m parched.”
     
    She brightened up and said, with typical cockney courtesy, “Sorry nurse. Don’t mind me. I gets that worked up about Moll, I do.”
     
    She got up and made the tea. The activity helped her, and she sniffed away the tears. Over the next twenty minutes, it all came out, her hopes and her heartache.
     
    Molly was the last of five children. She had never known her father, who had been killed at Arnhem during the war. The whole family had been evacuated to Gloucestershire.
     
    Marjorie said, “I don’t know if that upset her, or what, but the others turned out all right, they did.”
     
    The family returned to London, and settled in Ontario