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

busy,” she commented. “You had better go and get a hot bath and a good breakfast. We don’t want you down with a cold. You can start your morning’s round at eleven o’clock, and sleep this afternoon. I like the sound of your Jimmy, by the way.”
     
     
    A year later Jimmy got a girl into trouble and married her. He could not support a wife and child on his apprentice pay, so he left his training in the fourth year and took a job as a draughtsman with a suburban county council.
     
    About thirty years later, quite by accident, I bumped into Jimmy in a Tesco’s car park. He was staggering under the weight of a huge box, walking beside a large, cross-looking woman carrying a potted plant. She was talking incessantly in a rasping voice that assailed my ears before I even noticed them. He had always been slight, but now he looked painfully thin. His shoulders were stooped, and a few grey hairs were brushed across his bald head.
     
    “Jimmy!” I said as we came face to face. His pale blue eyes looked into mine, and a thousand memories of the fun of a carefree youth instantly sparked between us. His eyes lit up, and he smiled.
     
    “Jenny Lee!” he said, “After all these years!”
     
    The woman poked him heavily in the chest with her thumb, and said, “You come along with me, and don’t hang about. You know the Turners are coming round tonight.”
     
    His pale eyes seemed to lose all their colour. He looked at me despairingly and said, “Yes, dear.”
     
    As they left, I heard her say, suspiciously: “Who is that woman, anyway?”
     
    “Oh, just a girl I used to know in the old days. There was nothing between us, dear.”
     
    He shuffled off, the epitome of the hen-pecked husband.
     

LEN AND CONCHITA WARREN
     
     
     
    Large families may be the norm, but this is ridiculous, I mused as I ran through my day list. The twenty-fourth baby! There must be some mistake. The first digit is wrong. Not like Sister Julienne to make a mistake. My suspicions were confirmed when I got out the surgery notes. Only forty-two years old. It was impossible. I’m glad someone else can make mistakes as well as me, I thought.
     
    I had to make an antenatal visit to assess the mother and the viability of the house for a home delivery. I never liked doing this. It seemed such an impertinence to ask to see people’s bedrooms, the lavatory, the kitchen, the arrangements for providing hot water, the cot and the linen for the baby, but it had to be done. Things could be pretty slummy, and we were used to managing in fairly primitive conditions, but if the domestic arrangements were really quite unviable, we reserved the right to refuse a home delivery, and the mother would have to go to hospital.
     
    Mrs Conchita Warren is an unusual name, I thought as I cycled towards Limehouse. Most local women were Doris, Winnie, Ethel (pronounced Eff ) or Gertie. But Conchita! The name breathed “a beaker full of the warm South … with beaded bubbles winking at the brim”. 3 What was a Conchita doing in the grey streets of Limehouse, with its pall of grey smoke and the grey sky beyond?
     
    I turned off the main road into the little streets and, with the help of the indispensable map, located the house. It was one of the better, larger houses - on three floors and with a basement. That would mean two rooms on each floor, and one basement room, leading into a garden - seven rooms in all. Promising. I knocked on the door, but no one came. This was usual, but no one called out “Come in, luvvy”. There seemed to be a good deal of noise inside, so I knocked again, harder. No reply. Nothing for it but to turn the handle and walk in.
     
    The narrow hallway was almost, but not quite, impassable. Two ladders and three large coach prams lined the wall. In one, a baby of about seven or eight months slept serenely. The second was full of what looked like washing. The third contained coal. Prams were very large in those days, with huge wheels and high protective sides and I had to turn sideways to squeeze myself past. Washing flapped overhead, and I pushed it aside. The stairway to the first floor was straight ahead and was also festooned with washing. The sickly smell of soap, dank washing, baby’s excreta, milk, all combined with cooking smells was nauseating to me. The sooner I get out of this place the better, I thought.
     
    The noise was coming from the basement, yet I could see no steps down. I entered the first room off the