Farewell to the East End (9 page)
Read Farewell to the East End Online
Authors: Jennifer Worth
‘You do look funny, you two. If only you could see yourselves ... oh no, not again ... aaah ...’
Another contraction came within seconds of the last.
‘This is it,’ she gasped, holding her breath.
‘Yes it is. Now you have to turn over quickly.’ Cynthia beckoned to the grandmother. ‘Bring me those clean towels. Can we get this dirty maternity pad out of the way and put the towels under her, so that there is a clean surface for the baby to be born onto?’
They changed the linen, but it was not so easy to contain the soot. Their hands were filthy, and touching anything made matters worse. Cynthia turned the pillow over, so that there was a clean surface on which Janet could lay her head, but even that soon got dirty as her hair streaked across it. Her grandmother tried washing Janet’s forehead in cold water, which helped a little.
The delivery was not complicated, but childbirth is sometimes a gory business and blood and amniotic fluid can get everywhere. Mixed with soot, the mess was quite indescribable. The baby, a little girl, wet and sticky, was covered in black slime, and clumps of soot. With swabs and clean water Cynthia washed it away and held the baby upside down in order to drain mucus from her throat (this procedure was thought to be helpful in those days, and we were taught to do it). The baby screamed lustily. Cynthia looked at her sterile delivery tray in despair. At this stage she would normally have cut the cord, but the scissors, clamps, swabs and sterile water were filthy.
At that moment she heard heavy footsteps on the stairs and the sound of Sister Evangelina’s voice grumbling.
‘What is all this about needing a new delivery bag? Calling me out to bring one! I’ve had to cycle half a mile to bring it. The impertinence! I suppose the nurse messed up the first one. These young midwives! Can’t be trusted to do anything properly.’
The door opened. Sister Evangelina entered, stared at the scene in disbelief, and exclaimed ‘What the devil have you been up to?’ Then she laughed. She laughed so much it shook the house. She fell against the door frame holding her stomach, then sat down on a chair and threw her head back, knocking her wimple askew.
Sister Evangelina was a large and impressive lady. She was what is usually described as a ‘rough diamond’. Born into a large family in the slums of Reading at the turn of the last century, she had grown up in desperate poverty. The First World War offered her the chance of escape from the treadmill of inherited penury. She had left school at twelve to work in a biscuit factory and at the age of fifteen had gone to work in a munitions factory. Later she had moved to a military hospital, where she trained as a nurse, and where the one romance of her life had occurred, though she never spoke of it. She joined the Sisters of St Raymund Nonnatus, becoming fully professed as a nursing nun, and had worked in Poplar for thirty years, including during the Blitz. She was a great favourite of the people of Poplar, largely because of her down-to-earth, no-nonsense approach to their ailments, her rough-and-ready ways and her crude language. Of course, she had a completely different vocabulary and use of language within the convent. In fact, with us she could be extremely dour and grumpy, and not easily given to laughter. Yet on this occasion she could not stop. Her face, which was red and mottled at the best of times, turned a deep crimson, and her nose shone like a beacon. She slapped her hand on the mantelshelf to steady herself and took out a giant-sized handkerchief with which to wipe her streaming eyes and nose. ‘Ooh, I’m peeing me drawers. You don’t know what you look like, you three – you’ve made me pee me drawers, you have.’ And off she went into paroxysms of laughter again.
Sister Evangelina also enjoyed earthy vulgarity. In fact basic bodily functions were an endless source of amusement to her. This predilection for lavatorial humour was something she shared only with her Cockney patients. Within the convent she was very prim and proper, and I doubt her Sisters in God ever saw the crude side of Sister Evangelina.
She slapped her ample thighs and leaned forwards, nearly choking. In alarm Cynthia thumped her back. When she could speak, Sister gasped, ‘Talk about the Black and White Minstrel Show – this is the Black and White Midwives’ Show!’
Sister Evangelina did not possess a subtle wit, and her jokes were heavy, but she was delighted with her pun, and kept repeating ‘Black and White Midwives – have you got it? Black and White ... Oh dear, now I’m doing it again – I’ll have to have one of your sanitary towels before I can get home.’
By now, the children had come running upstairs to see what all the laughter was about. They had been alarmed when their granny had appeared, all black, demanding clean water and soap and clean sheets. They had heard rapid conversation which they did not understand, and then seen their father rushing down the road to make a telephone call. When a very large and cross-looking nun had entered the little front room, stamping and grumbling, they had hidden behind the sofa. It was all very intimidating. But then they heard guffaws of female laughter descending the stairs and brightened considerably, rushing upstairs before anyone could stop them.
The children burst in through the door, and stood stock-still for a second or two whilst they took in the scene, scarcely able to believe that grown-ups could get into such a state. Everyone was black. Everyone was laughing. The big nun, her white veil streaked with soot, was rocking backwards and forwards with her face so red she looked as though she might burst. Somewhere in the mess a baby was screaming. The children positively let rip. They jumped up and down and bounced on their mother’s bed, to the alarm of Cynthia, because the baby was still attached to its mother. They rolled on the floor, getting as much soot on themselves as they could and smearing it on each other’s faces. Their grandmother tried to establish order and keep control, but she didn’t stand a chance.
The big red nun laughed so much she was wheezing and coughing. ‘Oh dear oh dear, this is going to finish me. Pass me that towel. I can’t contain myself.’ She stuffed the towel up her skirts and wiped it around her legs. The children couldn’t believe their luck, and crowded around, lying on the floor trying to get a look at a nun’s knickers.
Meanwhile, all the laughter must have been good for labour, because the third stage was progressing rapidly. The third stage of labour can be an anxious time for a midwife, and requires a great deal of knowledge, experience and care to enable the placenta to be delivered complete. But Cynthia hardly had to do anything. Janet couldn’t stop laughing and the placenta just slid out in one piece. It was a revolting sight, bloody and slimy and covered in soot, but at least it was out. Placenta and baby, of course, were still attached!
‘Sister, I shall need clean scissors and clamps and swabs,’ said Cynthia quietly.
Sister Evangelina was not just a comedy act for the children’s entertainment. She was a professional nurse and midwife, and her mood changed instantly.
‘We will have to take the baby into another room and scrub up thoroughly. We cannot cut the cord in these conditions. As it is, the soot is not going to harm the baby. But I am not sure what would happen if it got into the bloodstream.’
Disappointed children were shooed away and taken downstairs. The baby, with the placenta still attached, was carried into another bedroom, and with sterile equipment the cord was cut.
The job of cleaning up fell to the grandmother. It took her about four days, and she needed a holiday to recover.
NANCY
The harlot’s curse from street to street Shall weave old England’s winding sheet.
William Blake (1757-1827)
William Blake (1757-1827)
Sister Monica Joan had fascinated me from the first time I met her on a cold November evening in Nonnatus House, when we had devoured an entire cake between us, and she had rambled on about poles diverging and saucers flying and etheric ethers converging and goodness knows what else. She has continued to fascinate me over the years, and I have never been able to resolve the enigma that was she. How could a young woman of beauty, talent, intellect and wealth reject the privileges of the Victorian upper class to work in squalor amongst the poorest of the poor at the end of the nineteenth century? How could she reject offers of love and marriage and children to become a nun? I was never able to answer these questions. A religious-minded woman who has nothing to lose by embracing the monastic life, I could understand. But Sister Monica Joan had everything to lose. Yet she gave it all up. In fact, she had given up her position in society ten years before entering the convent, by becoming a nurse – a lowly and almost despised occupation in the 1890s. She was not, however, a saint! She was wilful, haughty, sarcastic; she could be cruel and unfeeling, arrogant and demanding. All these faults I was aware of – and loved her still.
I liked nothing better than to go to her room when work permitted and listen to her talking. Sometimes her mind wandered through a muddle of various religions – Christian, pagan, oriental philosophies, occultism, theosophy, astrology; she embraced them all with uncritical enthusiasm, whilst still observing the strict monastic disciplines of her order.
One day I asked Sister why she had given up her life of wealth and privilege for the humble life of a nurse, a midwife and a nun.
She winked at me.
‘So you think our life “humble”, do you? Nonsense. Fiddlesticks. Ours is a life of adventure, of daring, of high romance.’
‘I agree with you there,’ I said. ‘Almost every day comes as a surprise. But I started nursing when I was eighteen, because there was no other choice. But why did you? You had plenty of choices.’
‘You are wrong, my dear. The choice of which pretty dresses to wear? Pooh! The choice to spend each afternoon “visiting”, and talking about nothing? Pooh! Pooh! The choice to spend hours embroidering or making lace? Oh, I couldn’t stand it – when nine-tenths of the women of Britain were toiling with their half-starved, stunted broods of children. I could not leave my father’s house and start nursing, or lead any sort of useful life until I was over thirty.’
She was in good form. I was on to a streak of luck, because it was always a lottery talking with Sister Monica Joan. At any moment she might say no more. I said nothing, but waited.
‘When Nancy died, I had an almighty row with my father, who wanted to control me. I hated the shallow, empty life I was leading, and wanted to throw myself into the struggle. I left home to become a nurse. It was the least I could do in her memory.’
‘Who was Nancy?’
‘My maid. She had been surgically raped.’
‘What! Surgically raped? What on earth does that mean?’
‘Exactly what it says. Josephine Butler had rescued the child and she asked me if I could take her on as my lady’s maid. I was eighteen at the time, and my mother permitted me to have a lady’s maid of my choice. Nancy was thirteen.’
‘Who was Josephine Butler?’
‘An unknown saint. You are ignorant, child! I cannot waste my time with such ignorance. Go, fetch my tea, if your mind cannot rise to higher thoughts.’
Sister Monica Joan closed her fine, hooded eyes, and haughtily turned her head on her long neck, to signify that she was offended, and that the conversation was over.
Humiliated by her cruel tongue and furious with her (not for the first or last time), I retreated to the kitchen. But that same evening I asked Sister Julienne about Josephine Butler.
Josephine Butler, born in 1828, was the daughter of a wealthy landowner in Northumberland.
10
The whole family of seven children were highly educated and brought up to think deeply about class inequality and the conditions of the poor. In those days, this was considered to be radical, unconventional and dangerous. Her grandfather had worked with Wilberforce for the abolition of the slave trade, and Josephine had listened to adult discussions about slavery, child labour, factory work and related subjects throughout her childhood. In later life she said, ‘From an early age I mourned about the condition of the oppressed.’ She was particularly drawn to the condition of women whose abject poverty drove them into prostitution, through which they would frequently become pregnant, and then both the woman and child would be destitute.
10
The whole family of seven children were highly educated and brought up to think deeply about class inequality and the conditions of the poor. In those days, this was considered to be radical, unconventional and dangerous. Her grandfather had worked with Wilberforce for the abolition of the slave trade, and Josephine had listened to adult discussions about slavery, child labour, factory work and related subjects throughout her childhood. In later life she said, ‘From an early age I mourned about the condition of the oppressed.’ She was particularly drawn to the condition of women whose abject poverty drove them into prostitution, through which they would frequently become pregnant, and then both the woman and child would be destitute.
In 1852, at the age of twenty-four, Josephine married George Butler, an academic and professor at Oxford University. He was ten years older than her and was a reformer and radical thinker, just as her father had been. It proved to be a perfect meeting of minds. After the marriage Josephine moved with her husband to Liverpool. It was not difficult to find poverty in Liverpool in the 1850s. The workhouse alone housed 5,000 souls. She visited and worked in the oakum sheds: ‘vast underground cellars, unfurnished, with damp floors and oozing walls, where women sat on the floor all day picking their allotted portion of oakum. Yet they came voluntarily, driven by hunger and destitution, begging for a few nights’ shelter and a piece of bread.’
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