Farewell To The East End

was quite dead.
    ‘Why did you leave it like that?’ she demanded hysterically.
    ‘We didn’t know what to do.’
    ‘But you’ve had other babies? You must surely know that a baby cannot be left head down in a chamber pot.’
    ‘No one told us what ter do. How was we to know?’
    ‘Why didn’t you call us earlier?’
    ‘It was all so quick. There was no time.’
    ‘Well why didn’t you pick the baby up?’
    Neither one answered. The woman continued to stare at the ceiling, while the man blew smoke at the window as he gazed out into the street.
    ‘I must go and get the senior midwife. I don’t know what to do.’
    She left the room and ran downstairs, stumbling and nearly falling. Out in the street she had to lean against the wall for several minutes to control herself. It was only a few hundred yards round the corner, but her steps were unsteady.
    The senior midwife called the police, then went to the house. Mr and Mrs Harding repeated their story to the police. The baby’s body was taken for post-mortem examination.
    The report stated that a normal baby at full term of gestation had been born. All internal organs – heart, brain, lungs, liver, kidneys, intestines, venous system – were well developed and normal, with full potential to support life. The lungs had expanded at birth, and the baby had taken several breaths, but the lungs were full of blood and amniotic fluid. The conclusion was that the baby had drowned in the fluids inhaled into the lungs.
    A coroner’s inquest was held a few weeks later, at which Ena was required to give evidence. She told them everything she knew. Mr and Mrs Harding were questioned. Hilda said that she was booked to go into the Salvation Army Maternity Hospital to have the baby. She said she had felt a few labour pains and had asked Mrs Hatterton opposite to get her husband and to look after her two youngest. Bill came back and was just getting ready to take her to hospital when she felt a bit wet, and wanted to go to the toilet. So she had sat down on the chamber pot, and it all just came away from her.
    The senior midwife confirmed that this was perfectly plausible, and that occasionally a multigravid woman could feel little more than slight abdominal discomfort, and a bearing-down sensation, just as Mrs Harding had described, in which case, labour need take no more than about fifteen minutes from the start of contractions to delivery of the baby.
    When the coroner asked the Hardings what they did next, both of them repeated their story that they didn’t know what to do and no one was there to tell them. Mr Harding said that he’d thought the best thing would be to go round the corner to get one of the district midwives, which is what he did. By the time they got back, the baby was dead.
    The coroner said that he found it very difficult to know what judgement to record. He found it hard to believe the story that the Hardings did not know what to do. On the other hand, he supposed that in the absence of a trained midwife or a doctor, two ignorant and unlettered people might really be at a loss to know how to act, especially if they were in a state of shock at the unexpected and rapid birth of a baby. Mr Harding had taken the course of action that seemed to them to be appropriate – he had gone to call a midwife. But it was too late.
    In the event the coroner recorded an open verdict, which meant that the case was not closed, and that, if any further evidence came to light, it could be reopened and re-examined. But no further evidence was forthcoming.

THE CAPTAIN’S DAUGHTER

    It was well that Chummy was on first call. Who else would have had the grit, the stamina and the sheer physical strength and courage to do what she did in the Docks that night?
    Camilla Fortescue-Cholmeley-Browne came from a long line of ‘Builders of the Empire’. District Commissioners and Colonels were her forebears. All the women seemed to be Lady This, That or the Other, and could not only run a garden party or a county ball for thousands but could also live in torrid isolation, maintaining the Hill Stations for their husbands the District Commissioners, who single-handedly governed areas the size of Wales. Whatever one may say about the British Empire, it certainly bred self reliance and courage in its administrators.
    Chummy was typical of her family in this respect. In other ways, though, she was a misfit, because she was gauche, awkward and shy. Roedean and expensive finishing