Farewell To The East End

schools had been a failure. Chummy possessed no social graces whatsoever – a fact of which she was quite unaware – and she was always surprised and hurt when her mother let her know that she was an embarrassment to the family. The fact that she was over six feet in height and that she could not seem to control her long limbs did not help. She was always falling over or bumping into things, and after several disasters in public places her parents decided they could not take her anywhere. Many genteel and ladylike occupations were proposed, but after a fair trial, it had to be admitted that she was no good at any of them. ‘Whatever are we to do with Camilla?’ her mother would ask despairingly. ‘She can’t do anything, and no one is going to want to marry her.’
    Demoralised and bewildered, Chummy accepted her role as the family failure. But the ways of man and the ways of God are not the same thing. Quite suddenly she found her vocation. Chummy was going to be a missionary. For this purpose she trained as a nurse and was an instant and brilliant success. Then she trained as a midwife, which is how we came to meet at Nonnatus House.
    And, as I said, it was well that Chummy was on first call that night.
    The telephone rang at 11.30 p.m., getting her out of bed.
    ‘Port-of-London-West-India-Docks-nightwatchman speaking. We needs a nurse, or a doctor.’
    ‘What’s the matter? An accident at the docks?’ asked Chummy.
    ‘No. Woman ill, or somefink.’
    ‘A woman? Are you sure?’
    ‘’Course I’m sure. Think I can’t tell the difference?’
    ‘No, no. I didn’t mean that. No offence, old chap. But women are not allowed in the Docks.’
    ‘Well, this one’s ’ere all right. Captain’s wife or somefink, the mate says. Least, that’s what I think he’s tryin’ ’a say, because he can’t speak no English. Just rolls his eyes and groans and rubs ‘is tummy – vat’s why I called ve midwives.’
    ‘I’ll come. Where do I go to?’
    ‘Main gate. West India.’
    ‘I’ll be there in ten minutes.’
    Chummy dressed in haste and went out into the night. It was windy. Not cold or raining, but a strong head wind made cycling slow, and it took Chummy nearly twenty minutes to reach West India Dock. The nightwatchman was sitting by the burning brazier next to the gate, which he unlocked.
    ‘You bin a long time. Bloody wind, I s’ppose. Don’t like ve wind.’
    Chummy had never been inside the Dock gates before, and the place seemed eerie and alien in the darkness. The stretch of water in the basin looked vast, as she gazed down it, and the hulks of huge cargo boats loomed over the oily water. On the skyline numerous cranes criss-crossed each other. Some of the boats were dimly lit, but others were completely dark. The night watchman’s coke fire glowed on the quay. The wind caused the water to splash and the rigging to tremble, making hollow moaning sounds.
    ‘Swedish timber carrier on South Quay. Woman got a belly ache or somefink. Shouldn’t be there, I told the mate, but I reckons as ’ow he never understood.’
    Reluctantly he hauled himself up, left his comfortable little hut and tipped some more coke onto the fire.
    ‘This way,’ he sighed mournfully. ‘Bloody women. Shouldn’t be ’ere, I says. I’ve go’ enough ’a do, wivout all vis.’
    They made their way to the South Quay.
    ‘’ere we are. The Katrina . Yer rope ladder’s there and yer guiders.’
    He grabbed a rope, pulled it and shouted. A faint sound was heard about forty feet up. The watchman was thinking of his fire, and his cosy hut, and the sausages and fried bread he was going to cook. ‘Bloody women,’ he muttered, ‘no offence to you, nurse.’
    A head appeared over the side of the boat.
    ‘Ya?’
    ‘The nurse.’
    ‘Bra. Valkommen. Tack.’
    ‘Yer’ll ’ave to climb ve rope-ladder. It’s leeward o’ the wind, an’ won’t rock too much. You can climb this, can’t yer?’
    Most women would have taken one look at the bulk of the ship towering above, at the slender rope ladder swinging dizzily in the wind, and said ‘No’. But not Chummy.
    ‘Right,’ she said, ‘Jolly-ho. But I think they will have to haul my bag up separately. I’m not sure I could carry it, and climb the ladder one handed.’
    The watchman groaned, but tied the handle of the bag to a rope and shouted to the men above to start hauling. Somehow they understood him, and Chummy watched it swinging upwards.
    ‘Now for it,’