Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End by Jennifer Worth

Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End by Jennifer Worth --- 321 pages

This is the final installment of the real life story, published in 2009, that inspired the BBC/PBS series "Call the Midwife."

Jennifer Lee was hired as a staff nurse at the London Hospital in Whitechapel, in London's East End, in the early 1950s. With the Sisters of St. John the Divine, an Anglican community of nuns, she worked among the poor of London's docklands during the social upheavals of the post war years.

In the final volume of her memoirs, Worth focuses on the last years of the old East End, as the government finally began, with agonizing slowness, to raze the old tenements and commercial buildings destroyed or damaged during the Blitz. While the clearance and redevelopment was necessary, it was carried out in a bureaucratic manner that resulted in the massive dislocation of thousands of families and the obliteration of entire communities.  The old Docklands had been the hub of cargo shipping into and out of London for centuries and the primary source of jobs for the unskilled laborers of the East End. But machines replaced manpower on the docks, while perishables and lightweight cargo switched to air transport, and the jobs disappeared.

Worth ends her memoir with the closure of "Nonnatus House" after 99 years of service to the people of the East End. The sisters exchanged midwifery for new missions, caring for drug addicts, opening homeless shelters, helping immigrant women, and nursing AIDS patients. She satisfies our need to know "what happened after" for each of the sisters and nurses, from the charming but erratic Sister Monica Joan to gentle Cynthia.

Worth has a wonderful knack for bringing people to life and revealing the immense vitality of the Cockney community and a way of life now vanished. Her first book, Call the Midwife, was published in 2002,  followed by Shadows of the Workhouse in 2005, and Farewell to the East End in 2009. All three books became bestsellers in Great Britain. Jennifer Worth died after a brief illness in 2011. The BBC began broadcasting the series "Call the Midwife," based on her memoirs, in January 2012. The series was rebroadcast on PBS in America later that same year. Responding to popular and critical acclaim, a second series followed in 2013.       

Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse by Jennifer Worth

Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse by Jennifer Worth --- 294 pages

This is a continuation of the real life story, published in 2005, that inspired the BBC/PBS series "Call the Midwife."

Lee was hired as a staff nurse at the London Hospital in Whitechapel, in London's East End, in the early 1950s. With the Sisters of St. John the Divine, an Anglican community of nuns, she worked among the poor of London's docklands during the social upheavals of the post war years.

In this volume of her memoirs, Worth focuses on stories of people she met whose lives were affected (some for better but most for worst) by the infamous British institution of the workhouse. The workhouse system was established by the Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834 as a means of providing for the needs of the destitute. It was the first attempt at an organized system of social welfare in Britain, at a time when the Industrial Revolution was upending the economy and the population was exploding. Millions of unemployed and dispossessed agricultural workers descended on the cities, desperate for work and ruthlessly exploited by the new order.  Anyone judged to be unfit or unable to fend for themselves was rounded up by local officers and sent to the workhouse. Once committed, few ever emerged, and those that did were often traumatized for life by the brutality of the system.

The workhouses were officially closed by an Act of Parliament in 1930, but there were thousands of inmates who had been institutionalized for so long they could not function on their own in the outside world. So the former workhouses were "re-branded" as "public assistance institutions;" and continued --- with a few cosmetic changes but basically run in the same manner --- as mental hospitals, nursing homes, orphanages, infirmaries and such, well past the midpoint of the 20th century. The stigma of the workhouse continued to be associated with these institutions, and in areas like the East End, people were still terrified of ending up in them.

Worth has a wonderful knack for bringing people to life and revealing the immense vitality of the Cockney community and a way of life now vanished. Her first book, Call the Midwife, was published in 2002, followed by Shadows of the Workhouse in 2005, and Farewell to the East End in 2009. All three books became best sellers in Great Britain. The BBC began broadcasting the series "Call the Midwife," based on her memoirs, in January 2012. The series was rebroadcast on PBS in America later that same year. Responding to popular and critical acclaim, a second series followed in 2013.

The Midwife by Jennifer Worth

The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times by Jennifer Worth --- 340 pages

This is the real life story, published in 2002, that inspired the BBC/PBS series "Call the Midwife." 

Jennifer Lee was born in Essex in 1935 and raised in Amersham, Buckinghamshire.  She left school in 1949, took a course in shorthand and typing, and got her first job as a secretary in a grammar school. She then trained as a nurse at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, and moved to London to train as a midwife.

Lee was hired as a staff nurse at the London Hospital in Whitechapel in London's East End in the early 1950s. With the Sisters of St John the Divine, an Anglican community of nuns, she worked among the poor during the social upheavals on the postwar years. She was then a nurse at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in Bloomsbury, and later at the Marie Curie Hospital in Hampstead.

In 1963 she married Philip Worth, an artist. She had two daughters, and continued to work as a nurse until 1973. In 1974, she began teaching piano and singing at the London College of Music. She obtained a college fellowship in 1984. She performed as a soloist and with choirs throughout Britain and Europe. She retained her interest, however, in her former profession of midwifery.  In 1998 an article by Terri Coates, lamenting the general lack of knowledge about the history and practice of midwifery, was published in the Midwives Journal. Inspired and challenged by Coates' article, Worth decided to write about her own experiences.

Her first book, Call the Midwife, was published in 2002, followed by Shadows of the Workhouse in 2005, and Farewell to the East End in 2009.  All three books became best sellers in Great Britain. Worth published a fourth volume of memoirs, In the Midst of Life, recalling her later experiences as a nurse caring for terminally ill patients, in 2010.

Worth lived in Hertfordshire until her death from cancer in 2011. She is survived by her husband, daughters, and two granddaughters. The BBC began broadcasting the series, "Call the Midwife," based on her memoirs, in January 2012. The series was rebroadcast on PBS in America later that same year. Responding to popular and critical acclaim, a second series followed in 2013. 

Author Jennifer Worth