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Average Customer Rating:

Aren`t we lucky?

Customer Rating:

This book really made me think how materialistic we are these days. I was born in the 60s - was it really just ten or so years before, that all this was happening? My own mum could have been on those pages, having my older sister. We are very fortunate, in the UK at least,to have the NHS, warts and all. Sadly there are places in the world where women still suffer, just for being female. Thank the lucky stars for those sisters of mercy and the angels, the nurses, who joined them to see the babies into the world. This book has touched me in a way no other has. I feel humbled and decidedly less inclined to grumble over trivialities. Superb book. Reads like a novel too. More from the Worth(y) one!!!!

East end life and people in the 1950s	Customer Rating:
A truly enjoyable and inspiring read. Most reviewers have highlighted the ability of the writer to draw the reader in and provoke a mixture of emotions. It's an excellent social history too. I've now ordered Father Joe Williamson's autobiography and will be reading the next two instalments from Jennifer in the future. Read it and weep (and laugh)

Jennifer Worth shares her experiences of catching babies and caring for mothers in the 1950's

Customer Rating:

The writing by Ms Worth flows, it's funny at times and it's sad at times (which is all good!). The only complaint I have is that Ms Worth told the stories of certain characters too much, and did not focus on the midwifery side of things enough. This is not a bad book, if you expect a lovely story of the people and places surrounding Ms Worth during her time as a midwife, staying with some Nuns in London, and a few births scattered here and there. However, I was not satisfied with the book as I would have liked to read more about Ms Worth's job and less about other people. I loved to hear about who she was caring for and their families, but I was not interested in the Nuns, or the random people who were not having babies. Ms Worth describes births in detail, how different they were in the 1950's compared to the 21st Century. I loved that the women birthed at home, I loved that they would warm water in preparation for the new arrival, I loved that they would warm the towels by the fire and the midwife would cycle to the family's home on a bicycle. The story of Conchita was really heart-warming. I am happy that I have read the book, and my next mission is to find a book about a midwife that is set in more modern settings.

This era should never be forgotten

Customer Rating:

This book covers relatively recent history and shows how far maternity care has come. The families here live in extremely poor conditions, and their stories are harrowing . But we should never forget that, even in more prosperous homes, our mothers and grandmothers gave birth when there were few washing machines, many homes had outdoor toilets and heating often came from coal carried in from outdoors. Today we groan about poor maternity leave and forget that previous generations of women struggled with overcrowding when cleanliness was the measure of a woman. Read this and feel lucky!Quick, Boil Some Water!: The Story of Childbirth in Our Grandmother's Day

Bittersweet memories

Customer Rating:

This is a brilliant book that at times made me cry, and at others, laugh out loud. My own mother was a Cockney, born in the East End in 1920, and reading this book brought back bitter sweet memories of the way that she was, and the wonderful stories that she used to tell. It has helped me to appreciate her humour much more and understand where some of my own ways have come from. I particularly enjoyed the stories of Sister Evangelina and her escapades across the Thames, jumping from barge to barge and the obsession with bodily functions, and also Sister Monica Joan with her knitting needles. As for the ordinary women, what happened to Mary once she left prison, how did Mrs Jenkins' children die, and how many more children did Conchita have. One of my aunts had 22 of them, but 25? Most of us cannot imagine the conditions that these women lived and worked in, and the daily struggle for survival. The modern existence is pampered in comparison. We complain about not having two bathrooms, while these women had one communal tap to each floor of the flats that they lived in and one shared toilet. Times may have been hard, and money tight, but they had more balls and more grit than anything you would see today, with no counsellors in sight!