Biography Group Read - Call the Midwife - Book Discussion Thread

This is the discussion thread for Call the Midwife. This thread may include spoilers. I will try to lead a discussion in this thread in March, but feel free to post earlier if you have something to say.

For general chit chat about joining the group read and how you are getting on reading the book please use http://www.librarything.com/topic/184819.

I finished Call the Midwife today and rated it 4 stars.

I thought it was an interesting, somewhat compelling, occasionally humorous memoir of a professional midwife serving in the dockside slums of London circa 1950. It was well-written in a very personal style. I would have liked an epilogue that summarized the rest of her life.

Worth's Author page has a link to her Wikipedia page that has such a summary.

I'll be starting tonight,

>3 MarthaJeanne: Thank you. I didn't realize that she covered her later experiences in other books. I may have to put them on my TBR list.

Way back when ... mid 1960's, still in high school I decided, that I was going to go to university to become a nurse and then I was going to go to England and become a mid-wife. There were no good training programs here in Canada at that time. I did become a nurse but I gave up the midwifery dream, followed another dream instead , and got married in my last year at university.

I am loving this book, 61 pages in, listening to the book narrated by Nicola Barber. At first I was having trouble understanding what she was saying because of the English accent but I caught on quickly. I usually listen to my audio books on double speed but had to slow it down initially. I am now back up to double speed and it works.

Anyone else started?

>6 ccookie: I'm also listening to and loving the audio version. I've finished the first four tracks. I don't know what the equivalent is in pages.

>7 cbl_tn: The only reason I know the pages is because I also have the library book checked out. The paper book came in before the audio. Am about to start the chapter "Antenatal Clinic"

>8 ccookie: I'm a bit ahead of you then. I'm in the middle of the chapter "Jimmy".

I'm reading also, I wasn't sure if my library hold would come through in time I'm on the chapter "Chummy".

Could we please keep this sort of chat on the other thread please. http://www.librarything.com/topic/184819

This thread is for discussion of the book itself, not for how far we have read.

I finished the book tonight. I've seen at least some of the television series, and that, of course, influenced the way I see the characters. I also recognized several incidents, but I think I got a lot out of reading the book. Sometimes because not everything made the series, but also there is a lot more explanation of some aspects of her work that don't come over on the screen.

I just finished the book. Does anyone know how they weighed the babies? I wasn't sure if they could take a scale with them in their bag on their bicycles as I imagine the scales they would have then would have been large and heavy. During some Googling I was doing, I did come across a picture of a midwife holding a baby up wrapped in a blanket. She was probably weighing the baby sling-style with something similar to the sling scales that fishermen use to weigh their fish. Perhaps the midwives had those. I was hoping it would have been described in the book. Does anyone know more about this than me? I haven't seen the PBS series but hope to once I read the whole series.

I loved the book and will post more of my thoughts after I have time to assimilate them.

I've been assuming some sort of hanging scale (she mentions weighing the premature baby in a handkerchief). I haven't seen the series - perhaps someone knows what they've shown there?

>14 Dejah_Thoris: Yes that's what I was trying to describe--a hanging scale. I don't know what they are officially called.

I've finished up Call the Midwife and I really enjoyed it. I found the picture of life at the time fascinating and it was a surprisingly easy read. I haven't seen any of the TV series so I was completely without preconceptions.

My book group read Call the Midwife and most of us enjoyed it. One member complained that the author used "too many quotation marks" and did not think that she wrote well, but she was in the minority. I liked the informal style, there was no pretense that this was great literature. These were working class people, not very well educated, yet most were wise to their own world and they were up against a tough environment. I loved the telephone. There seemed to be just one for most of the people, and when a midwife was needed whoever was talking on it gave it up readily.

If you are old enough you know that you lived a very different life fifty or sixty years ago, but theirs was different from any I have known.

My midwife used a hanging scale to weigh my babies, even though she didn't have to carry her bag around to her patients on a bike.

I believe that fishermen use a very small, compact, low-tech scale for weighing fish, so it seems possible that midwives could use something similar.

I'm reading the second volume now, and it is very different. The first part really matches the title Shadows of the Workhouse.

"I am but a spark in the divine fire."

I love Sister Monica Joan! I wasn't sure about her at first, but after reading the individual chapters Worth included for some of the nuns, Sister Monica Joan and Sister Evangelina, I understood and appreciated them more.

Len and Conchita Warren were ridiculous but I didn't abhor them for having so many children surprisingly. I just abhorred the fact that they did have so many. I sincerely hope the 25th child was their last. I ended up really liking Conchita by the end. She must have been a strong woman for taking care of so many kids and living in a place where she doesn't even speak the language. She didn't even know where she came from or who her family was. I respected her. I found it hilarious that Len and Conchita couldn't even communicate with one another! Whatever works I guess.

I loved reading the Appendix with the guide to the Cockney dialect. I thought that was interesting and informative.

I got really engrossed in some of the chapters so that I felt uncomfortable and anxious during "A Breech Delivery." I got a bad taste in my mouth when reading about the foul odors and piles of refuse the people lived in in the East End.

So many things in this book surprised me as well. I couldn't believe the story about Sister Evangelina farting in Mrs. Jenkins' face and all the toilet humor caught me off guard. None of that disgusted me the way the chapters about Molly in the middle of the book did though. I was captivated by Molly's story but the graphic detail about prostitution was completely unnecessary and marred that part of the book in my mind. I was also surprised that Worth even wrote about that to such a level of detail and felt it needed to be included.

Overall it was an amazing book, and I have added the first season of the Call the Midwife series to my Netflix queue. I just didn't appreciate the graphic detail in Molly's story and being a non-religious person I could have done without the ending which felt preachy to me.

If you like Sister Monica Joan, be sure to read the second book. The section about her is the light-hearted part of Shadows of the workhouse. And even that is mostly in hindsight. It's a good book, but depressing.

>22 MarthaJeanne: I'm struggling with Shadows of the Workhouse because it is so very dark. I'm not certain I'm up for depressing right now.

Once you are past the first part the depressing is balanced with lighter elements. If you have already read a few chapters, you might as well keep going.

I think the part about Sister Monica Joan gives a good picture of her, and there are amusing sides to it. The final section is is both heart-warming and -breaking.

Jennifer Worth hasn't really given us a sequel. This isn't just more amusing incidents, but rather loving portraits of some of the people she got to know and learned to love.

Finished, listened to audio. Enjoyed it. A good memoir but also could be considered Medical Sociology.

I'm now reading the third volume Farewell to the East End. I'm finding it sort of a cross between the other two. There are both short episodes, and also longer ones. Sometimes she puts in more information about a subject that comes up, for example a chapter of information about TB. This is a lot more upbeat than 'Shadows'. At least so far.

I have a library copy of v.3 that I'll start next week.

Finished now. Yes. This is a good ending to the series.

Thanks, All. I didn't even know that there were sequels. Are these being continued on PBS, does anyone know?

I think someone said something about the next set of episodes starting in the US soon, but I can't find it. I have DVDs of 2 series, and recognized some of the material at least in the second book. I'm not sure I've watched all I own.

I finished a couple of weeks ago and then forgot to come make any comments.

I enjoyed the book very much. I'll echo some of the earlier comments about the people in book being uneducated and hard-working and hard-living, but yet wise about many things.

However, in contrast to one person's objection to the bathroom humor that was described and the experiences of the prostitutes, I appreciated having both those sections in the book. The time and place being presented were not what most of us are accustomed to. In fact, much of it wasn't what Worth herself was accustomed to. She openly admitted being curious about the lives of the prostitutes and that she befriended the young Irish girl in part to learn more about that segment of the population. Since she was so interested, I think it absolutely belongs in her memoir, distasteful as it was. And I believe the toilet talk was instrumental to the readers understanding the prickly Sister Evangelina. I don't think she would have included it otherwise.

I appreciated that she described people and situations that many of us (certainly me) would react to with aversion and a judgmental heart, and yet she was able to remain open and compassionate and caring and focus on her job/calling to safe deliver healthy babies to healthy mothers. What a blessing she must have been to those women.

I read all the books a while ago, but I agree that scenes which some readers may find distasteful are an important part of the book. We get a portrait of the nuns as human beings, not just nuns. And prostitution was part of the society they worked in.

Shadows of the Workhouse is very sad in places, but I think the stories are really important. I'm quite interested that Jennifer Worth's books and the dramatisations of them are becoming popular outside the UK, and particularly in the US where the healthcare system is so different. Shadows of the Workhouse tells some of the stories of what life was like before the creation of the NHS just after WWII, and the development of the welfare state rather the very punitive workhouse system. I think Jennifer Worth's work shows us how valuable the NHS and social security are. On the other hand, the nuns offer a service which is very different in some quite special ways from the institutional hospital based care which is still more common for women and their babies here.

>31 sjmccreary:. My thoughts on the bathroom talk, it was appropriate and needed. It shows that as a nurse (and nun) she needed to meet the people where they are in order to make a difference and help bring health and change.

The remarks refered to in the last few posts are in >21 Tara1Reads:.

I think that in general the British accept bathroom and sexual talk (and imagery) more than Americans. In fact, I would be interested in knowing whether PBS cut some of the birth scenes. My husband came down to see what the noise was, and beat a fast retreat, in spite of having been at the births of all three of our sons. I was fascinated, as I have only vague recollections of strenuous effort and pain.