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

as I took it, her grasp was firm and warm. Our eyes met, with sadness and, I think, mutual respect.
     
    I returned to the sitting room. Mary leapt from the sofa as I entered, her face alight with expectancy. But she read my features in an instant and, with a cry of despair, she fell back on to the sofa and buried her head in the cushions again. I sat beside her, trying to console her, but consolation was impossible. I told her the baby would go to a good home, where she would be well looked after. I tried to tell her how impossible it would be for her to work, and live, and support a growing child. I don’t think she heard or understood anything I said. Her face remained hidden in the cushions. I told her I had to leave soon, but she did not respond at all. I tried to stroke her hair, but she pushed my hand away angrily. I crept out of the room, and shut the door quietly, too sad even to say goodbye.
     
    I did not see Mary again. I wrote to her once, but received no reply. A month later, I wrote to Reverend Mother, enquiring, and was informed that Mary had accepted a residential post as a ward maid in a hospital in Birmingham. I wrote to her there but again, no reply.
     
    Circumstances bring people together, and take them apart. One cannot keep up with everyone in a lifetime. In any event, was there any true friendship between myself and Mary? Probably not. It was mainly a friendship of dependence on her part, with pity and (I’m almost ashamed to confess it) curiosity, on my part. I was intrigued to find out more about the hidden world of prostitution. That is no basis for a meeting of minds, and true affection, so I let the contact drop.
     
     
    Some years later - by which time I was very happily married with two children - front page headlines in all the papers carried the story that a baby had been snatched from a pram in a suburb of Manchester. Desperate and tearful parents were interviewed on television, begging for the return of their baby. A nationwide police hunt was launched, and sightings of the possible kidnapper were reported from all over the country. All of them proved to be red herrings. Twelve days passed, and the story receded from public attention.
     
    On the fourteenth day, I read that a woman had been apprehended in Liverpool, boarding a boat for Ireland. She was carrying a six-week-old baby, and was being held for questioning. A few days later, a larger report carried the story that the woman questioned had been charged with the unlawful abduction of a baby two weeks earlier. The photograph was of Mary.
     
    She was held in custody for five months awaiting trial. During all that time, I wondered if I should go to see her, but did not do so. Part of my hesitation was because I wondered what on earth we would talk about, but also, with two children under three, a home to care for, and a part-time night sister’s post, a trip to Liverpool and back - to what end? - was an intimidating prospect.
     
    I followed the trial in the newspapers. Mitigating circumstances of the loss of her own baby were raised. Her counsel emphasised the fact that the baby had been well cared for, and stressed that no harm was intended. But the prosecution dwelt upon the suffering of the parents and the vagrant, unstable life that Mary had always led. Twenty-six other offences of soliciting and petty larceny were taken into consideration.
     
    The jury found Mary guilty, with a plea for mercy. Nonetheless, the judge sent her down for three years, with a recommendation that psychiatric treatment should be given whilst the prisoner was in Her Majesty’s custody.
     
    Mary commenced her sentence in Manchester Prison for Women in her twenty-first year.
     

SISTER EVANGELINA
     
     
     
    Due to a broken shoulder I was unable to take the final midwifery exam, and had to wait several months for the next sitting. Sister Julienne suggested I might join the General District practice for added experience. Thus, I had the privilege of working with old people who had been born in the nineteenth century.
     
    Sister Evangelina was in charge of General District nursing. Whilst I was eager to undertake the nursing, I was not at all keen to work with Sister Evangelina, whom I found ponderous and humourless. Also, she gave me to understand, subtly but unmistakably, that she did not at all approve of me. She was constantly finding fault: a door banged; a window left open; untidiness; day-dreaming (“wool-gathering” she called