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

about twenty little ones filed silently in, with big, round, awestruck eyes. It was a good thing the bedroom was large. They stood around me, sat on the bed, stood on chairs, on the windowsill, anywhere, in order to see. I looked around me with delight, for I like children, and this was an enchanting experience. Ivy told them that the baby’s name was Carol.
     
    The baby was lying on a towel on my knee, still wrapped in a flannel sheet. I took a damp swab and wiped her face, her ears, her eyes. She wriggled and licked her lips. A little voice said, “Oo, she’s got a li’l tongue, look.”
     
    The baby’s head was messy with blood and mucus, so I said, “I’m going to wash her hair, now.”
     
    A little boy on the windowsill said: “I don’t like gettin’ my hair washed.”
     
    “Shut up, you!” said a little girl bossily.
     
    “Shan’t. Shut up yourself, bossy-bum!”
     
    “Oo, I aint. You wait … ”
     
    “Now then,” said Ivy with menace in her voice, “one more word from either of you and you’ll both go out.”
     
    Dead silence!
     
    I said, “Well, I’m not going to use any soap, and it’s the soap in your eyes that is nasty.”
     
    I held the baby face upwards in my left hand, with her head over the rim of the bath, gently splashed the water over her head, and wiped it with a swab. The main purpose was to get the blood off, and really only to make the baby look more presentable. Most of the vernix or mucus is best left on the skin as a protective covering. I dried her with the towel, and said to the boy on the windowsill, “Now, that wasn’t nasty, was it?”
     
    He didn’t speak. He just looked at me solemnly, and shook his head.
     
    I loosened the flannel sheet, and the baby lay naked on my knee. There was a united gasp, and several voices cried, “What’s that?”
     
    “That is part of the cord,” I explained. “When Carol was in her mother’s tummy, she had a cord linking her to her mother. Now that she is born, we have cut it off, because she doesn’t need it any more. You all used to have a cord where your tummy button is.”
     
    Several skirts were pulled up, or trousers down, and several tummy buttons were proudly shown to me.
     
    I took the baby in my left hand, with her head resting on my forearm, and immersed her whole body in the water. She wriggled her tiny limbs, and kicked and splashed. All the children laughed, and wanted to join in.
     
    Ivy said firmly, “Now mind what I says. No noise. You don’t want to frighten the baby.”
     
    There was instant silence.
     
    I patted the baby dry with a towel, and said, “Now we must put her clothes on.”
     
    All the little girls wanted to help, of course. It was just like dressing a doll. But Ivy restrained them, saying they could dress Carol later, when she was a bit bigger. Suddenly, at that moment, there was a piercing scream from a little girl. “It’s Percy! It’s Percy! He’s come to see the baby. He knows, and he wants to say hello.”
     
    There were shrieks from the children, and Ivy’s discipline ruled no more. They were all pointing in one direction, clamouring round something on the floor.
     
    I followed their gaze and, to my astonishment saw, progressing slowly and in a stately manner from under the bed, an exceedingly large tortoise. He looked one hundred years old or more.
     
    Dave roared with laughter. “Of course he wants to see the baby. He knows all about it. He’s a clever one, our Perce.” He picked the tortoise up, and the children tickled its wrinkled old skin, and felt its hard toenails.
     
    “Perhaps he wants his Christmas dinner an’ all. We’ll get ’im some, shall us?” Dave said.
     
    Most of the children were now more interested in the tortoise than in the baby, and Ivy wisely said, “Off you go, downstairs, an’ see about Percy’s Christmas dinner.”
     
    The children left and I was told the reason for this apparition. Percy was kept in a cardboard box under the bed to hibernate for the winter. The bedroom was usually cold. The warmth from the fire, and, perhaps, the movements for several hours, must have woken him up, and, thinking it was spring, he had made his appearance. In theatrical terms, his timing was perfect.
     
    It was seven o’ clock by the time I had packed up and was ready to leave. But Dave wouldn’t let me go. “Come on, nurse. It’s Christmas day. You’ve got to wet the baby’s head.”
     
    He pulled me towards the back room