I read this book when I was working in the area, walking around Limehouse, West Ferry, West India Quay, Canary Wharf, All Saints. There is very little left of the world of those books. That whole area has been razed as the big business area of Docklands, and although one of the families I worked with were traditional Limehouse residents, they were in post war flats in the area.
St Anne's Church, Limehouse still exists, as does a more recent Catholic church, the Mission exists, now luxury flats, standing alone on the corner of some very busy roads, the A13 and the A1261, more or less opposite St Anne's Church. There are some remaining shops along the main road, the A13, warehouses and what looks like a sail loft near the canal leading to the basin in that area.
All that's left of the original Chinatown in that area is a post with this amazing dragon on top to mark the spot, in amongst the modern housing in that area. (Chinatown now is behind Leicester Square). What's left of the buildings scattered around look a bit like this or this for a different view of the same building.
as others have remarked, I've known more than a few elderly relatives in my life, and elderly acquaintances who were actively scared of the workhouse. One in particular died in her bed (in extreme pain) because she wouldn't go into the hospital because it had been the workhouse. We're only going back to the early 1990s here, and a woman born in perhaps 1905.
The book is a memoir, based on the memories of the author and told from her point of view. We cannot be sure it is entirely historically accurate or that Worth has remembered or recorded everything exactly as it happened. What are the benefits and drawbacks of learning about the past through memoir as compared to a well-researched history book?
I assumed that like most life writing Worth had smoothed out the edges of her story and that some of the incidents mentioned are actually a merger of several stories. I felt the sense of time and place was strong, though I also had the feeling I might not have liked Mrs Worth if I had actually met her, but that might be that I'm probably more a Sister Evangelina than a Chummy and I felt Worth was more comfortable with the more middle class sisters and nurses. I thought the book made an interesting contrast with Alan Johnson's memoirs. I felt far more immersed in the working class poor of the 1950s in his memoir than in this one.
I like history, but I find it is the small stories, such as the diary the @North East Quine mentioned that really bring it to life.
What did you think of the role of Christian faith of the nuns and Worth herself in the book? Did you find this to be a central aspect of their lives, or peripheral to their nursing work?
I found it interesting that Worth ended the book with the sentence That evening I started to read the Gospels The references to faith had been consistent but muted, but with that final sentence, Worth suggests that her growing faith was the most important thing to come from her work with the nuns.
What did you think of the role of Christian faith of the nuns and Worth herself in the book? Did you find this to be a central aspect of their lives, or peripheral to their nursing work?
I found it interesting that Worth ended the book with the sentence That evening I started to read the Gospels The references to faith had been consistent but muted, but with that final sentence, Worth suggests that her growing faith was the most important thing to come from her work with the nuns.
Yes, I'd agree with that.
I think that the faith of the nuns imbued their midwifery and nursing and I liked that. They also had an interesting range of personal characteristics, foibles even, that were simply accepted for what they were, even if they made other nuns edgy.
Given the time, could Mary have been helped in a way that led to a happier outcome for her?
I've left the hardest question till last. I know someone who voluntarily went into a church-run Mother and Baby home in the 1950s, to have her baby put up for adoption. The mental scars remain to this day.
It was impossible for her, a respectable woman with qualifications and a steady job, to envisage how she could support a child as a single mother. The Mother and Baby Home was cruel - the women were locked into their rooms overnight, were expected to do heavy physical housework in late pregnancy, all mail in and out was censored, the women were not allowed to chat to each other, and there was no pain relief in labour. And yet women were going there voluntarily because they could see no alternative.
She also believed that she had to produce a perfect baby in order to be allowed to stay; a woman who had a baby with a club foot, deemed not good enough to be offered for adoption, was turned out. The terror of going through all that and still ending up as a single mother with a disabled child hung over them all.
For Mary to have been helped in a way that led to a happier outcome would have meant either one kind person taking her under her wing and providing for her and the baby, whilst perhaps training her up as a domestic servant, or a wholesale overturning of the patriarchal society of the 1950s. As Mary had travelled from Ireland, and knew no-one, her chances of finding that one kind person were diminished.
I've got the follow-up, Shadows of the Workhouse, and the title is a clue as to just how cosy Worth's work is. IE it's not at all. I've not got a copy, and am unlikely to find time, but I will be very interested in the discussion. I wonder if @North East Quine would be interested, I know here interest is social history?
I'm reading Shadows of the Workhouse now. More insights of the times of that society, though quite a lot of the background to the characters is what others have told her.
Thanks for all the great responses so far. I also have 'In the Shadow of the Workhouse', but it is in storage until I move to a new place next year. Here are my answers to my own questions:
1. The book is a memoir, based on the memories of the author and told from her point of view. We cannot be sure it is entirely historically accurate or that Worth has remembered or recorded everything exactly as it happened. What are the benefits and drawbacks of learning about the past through memoir as compared to a well-researched history book?
I really enjoy learning more about history from memoirs, but I sometimes double check facts online or go down internet rabbit holes reading more factual accounts of topics of interest. There is definitely a place for them, even if stories have become less factual in the author's memory when they are finally written down or are given a bit more colour for interest's sake. I love historical diaries too.
2. Worth has positive views towards the registration and formal training of midwives. Others have argued that the loss of traditional midwifery has medicalised birth and disempowered mothers (and others) during the birth process. What are your views of the positives and negatives of increased regulation of midwives?
I think there is a balance required in childbirth. Modern medicine has greatly increased survival rates for mothers and babies, but when birth becomes too medicalised, women/birthing parents can feel disempowered or even traumatised.
3. Did you have a favourite person or story from the book?
I liked the wide variety of people the book encompassed. Even among the nuns there was such a range of personalities. I watched the T.V. series before I read the book and am a big fan of Miranda Hart, so I have a soft spot for chummy. Sister Monica Joan is also a fascinating character, if not always kind and unselfish.
I liked Conchetta's story. I can't imagine having so many children or siblings!
4. What did you think of the role of Christian faith of the nuns and Worth herself in the book? Did you find this to be a central aspect of their lives, or peripheral to their nursing work?
Sometimes the faith aspects of the book seemed on the periphery, but they are woven throughout the book and integral to the lives of the nuns and later faith becomes important for Worth too.
5. Did you learn anything interesting about the time and place the book is set that you did not know before?
I learnt a lot about midwifery of the time and was initially surprised that home births were still so common in the 1950s. Although I knew quite a lot about WW2 and the blitz I had never really thought about how long it took to rebuild London and get rid of the bomb sites. Rationing did not seem to be a problem anymore, though I read a book of diary entries from the early 1950s where the writers often referenced how they couldn't get certain foods yet.
6. Given the time, could Mary have been helped in a way that led to a happier outcome for her?
It seemed Mary fared fairly well for the time when babies were considered best adopted by a married couple, rather than the idea that single mothers should be provided support to raise their own babies. Given her age and the abuse she had suffered, she may not have coped as a mother. The best case scenarios in those times seemed to be where the maternal grandparents took on care of the grandchild, and Mary did not have parents who could have helped with that adequately.
7. Some of the stories explore class among the nuns and nurses and the residents they care for. What did you think of working-class background Sister Evangelina’s approach to her patients as compared to Jennifer Worth and the other medical staff from middle class and upper-class backgrounds?
I loved how Sister Evangelina used fart jokes and toilet humour with her patients, particularly to win the confidence of Mrs. Jenkins. I'm sure Sister Monica Joan would have been horrified! However the community seemed to respect both types of nurses, but relate more to Sister Evangelina.
8. In the book we meet Mrs. Jenkins, who spent many years in a workhouse. I was shocked by how recently workhouses continued to operate for in the U.K. Does anyone have any personal experience of knowing people who spent time in a workhouse?
I always thought as workhouses as being something from the 19th century. They never existed in quite the same form in Australia, though there were other institutions such as orphanages and asylums and missions and reservations for Indigenous Australians, that could be quite harsh and often abusive. However if somebody was white and capable of working they were not kept in them indefinitely unless seen to have an incurable mental illness or intellectual disability. I have met people who spent years in institutions for the disabled and had to adjust to living in society once they were moved to community based homes. I have also seen and read many stories from Indigenous Australians who lived on missions where their lives were very controlled or were taken from their families and raised in abusive orphanages. Also the stories of white Australian and British born children who were taken from single parents or difficult homes and raised in terrible children's homes. Even in fairly caring institutions people become institutionalised and can struggle when joining or rejoining mainstream society.
I learnt a lot about midwifery of the time and was initially surprised that home births were still so common in the 1950s. Although I knew quite a lot about WW2 and the blitz I had never really thought about how long it took to rebuild London and get rid of the bomb sites.
I played on rubble strewn bomb sites in London in the 1980s, never mind the 1950s! The last I can remember being built on was in central Birmingham at the back end of the 1990s - the shops either side were held up with iron girders that had been put up in the war, and there was a great gap in between them.
My local shopping street in Harrow was Kenton Lane. There was a line of shops between Ivanhoe Drive and Hartford Avenue that was broken for about a quarter of its length by what was referred to as the bomb site, not knowing that it had literally been bombed. It was on my way to primary school in the 50s, and as children we played among the uneven surface and loose bricks that must have been left after removal of the buildings. I was led to understand that it must have been from planes emptying their bomb load on their way back, as the site was near nothing of strategic importance. When my family left the district in 1970 the bomb site was still there. When I visited the area in 1993 it had all been rebuilt.
There was a bomb site - gap in a row of houses - that was part of my route to primary school. Doubtless left from the Blitz of 1941 which demolished or damaged thousands of houses in the back streets of Belfast. I remember my mother telling me about going out the morning after one of the raids to find her brother and sister-in-law and seeing every house in their street flattened - except theirs.
My local shopping street in Harrow was Kenton Lane. There was a line of shops between Ivanhoe Drive and Hartford Avenue that was broken for about a quarter of its length by what was referred to as the bomb site, not knowing that it had literally been bombed. It was on my way to primary school in the 50s, and as children we played among the uneven surface and loose bricks that must have been left after removal of the buildings. I was led to understand that it must have been from planes emptying their bomb load on their way back, as the site was near nothing of strategic importance. When my family left the district in 1970 the bomb site was still there. When I visited the area in 1993 it had all been rebuilt.
It's a row of maisonettes now LKK, and in the 1980s it was rebuilt and my great aunt lived in one of them!
My local shopping street in Harrow was Kenton Lane. There was a line of shops between Ivanhoe Drive and Hartford Avenue that was broken for about a quarter of its length by what was referred to as the bomb site, not knowing that it had literally been bombed. It was on my way to primary school in the 50s, and as children we played among the uneven surface and loose bricks that must have been left after removal of the buildings. I was led to understand that it must have been from planes emptying their bomb load on their way back, as the site was near nothing of strategic importance. When my family left the district in 1970 the bomb site was still there. When I visited the area in 1993 it had all been rebuilt.
It's a row of maisonettes now LKK, and in the 1980s it was rebuilt and my great aunt lived in one of them!
Thanks.
My mother was living in Sevenoaks in 1993 when she died and after her funeral I drove to Stanmore to see my old haunts and the people she would have known. I remember that the bomb site had been rebuilt but did not take much notice of what had been built. Closer to Belmont Circle there had been a dairy farm which had electric floats that delivered our milk and dairy products. That had gone.
My local shopping street in Harrow was Kenton Lane. There was a line of shops between Ivanhoe Drive and Hartford Avenue that was broken for about a quarter of its length by what was referred to as the bomb site, not knowing that it had literally been bombed. It was on my way to primary school in the 50s, and as children we played among the uneven surface and loose bricks that must have been left after removal of the buildings. I was led to understand that it must have been from planes emptying their bomb load on their way back, as the site was near nothing of strategic importance. When my family left the district in 1970 the bomb site was still there. When I visited the area in 1993 it had all been rebuilt.
It's a row of maisonettes now LKK, and in the 1980s it was rebuilt and my great aunt lived in one of them!
Thanks.
My mother was living in Sevenoaks in 1993 when she died and after her funeral I drove to Stanmore to see my old haunts and the people she would have known. I remember that the bomb site had been rebuilt but did not take much notice of what had been built. Closer to Belmont Circle there had been a dairy farm which had electric floats that delivered our milk and dairy products. That had gone.
Hull still has a WW2 bombsite (the unkind might say that Hull *is* a bombsite).
Folkestone has an apparent WW1 bombsite, with a plaque describing it as being from a Zeppelin raid, but IIRC the replacement building was destroyed in the 1980s by a dim arsonist who didn't ensure they had a way out planned...
Comments
St Anne's Church, Limehouse still exists, as does a more recent Catholic church, the Mission exists, now luxury flats, standing alone on the corner of some very busy roads, the A13 and the A1261, more or less opposite St Anne's Church. There are some remaining shops along the main road, the A13, warehouses and what looks like a sail loft near the canal leading to the basin in that area.
All that's left of the original Chinatown in that area is a post with this amazing dragon on top to mark the spot, in amongst the modern housing in that area. (Chinatown now is behind Leicester Square). What's left of the buildings scattered around look a bit like this or this for a different view of the same building.
I assumed that like most life writing Worth had smoothed out the edges of her story and that some of the incidents mentioned are actually a merger of several stories. I felt the sense of time and place was strong, though I also had the feeling I might not have liked Mrs Worth if I had actually met her, but that might be that I'm probably more a Sister Evangelina than a Chummy and I felt Worth was more comfortable with the more middle class sisters and nurses. I thought the book made an interesting contrast with Alan Johnson's memoirs. I felt far more immersed in the working class poor of the 1950s in his memoir than in this one.
I like history, but I find it is the small stories, such as the diary the @North East Quine mentioned that really bring it to life.
I found it interesting that Worth ended the book with the sentence That evening I started to read the Gospels The references to faith had been consistent but muted, but with that final sentence, Worth suggests that her growing faith was the most important thing to come from her work with the nuns.
Yes, I'd agree with that.
I think that the faith of the nuns imbued their midwifery and nursing and I liked that. They also had an interesting range of personal characteristics, foibles even, that were simply accepted for what they were, even if they made other nuns edgy.
I've left the hardest question till last. I know someone who voluntarily went into a church-run Mother and Baby home in the 1950s, to have her baby put up for adoption. The mental scars remain to this day.
It was impossible for her, a respectable woman with qualifications and a steady job, to envisage how she could support a child as a single mother. The Mother and Baby Home was cruel - the women were locked into their rooms overnight, were expected to do heavy physical housework in late pregnancy, all mail in and out was censored, the women were not allowed to chat to each other, and there was no pain relief in labour. And yet women were going there voluntarily because they could see no alternative.
She also believed that she had to produce a perfect baby in order to be allowed to stay; a woman who had a baby with a club foot, deemed not good enough to be offered for adoption, was turned out. The terror of going through all that and still ending up as a single mother with a disabled child hung over them all.
For Mary to have been helped in a way that led to a happier outcome would have meant either one kind person taking her under her wing and providing for her and the baby, whilst perhaps training her up as a domestic servant, or a wholesale overturning of the patriarchal society of the 1950s. As Mary had travelled from Ireland, and knew no-one, her chances of finding that one kind person were diminished.
I'm reading Shadows of the Workhouse now. More insights of the times of that society, though quite a lot of the background to the characters is what others have told her.
1. The book is a memoir, based on the memories of the author and told from her point of view. We cannot be sure it is entirely historically accurate or that Worth has remembered or recorded everything exactly as it happened. What are the benefits and drawbacks of learning about the past through memoir as compared to a well-researched history book?
I really enjoy learning more about history from memoirs, but I sometimes double check facts online or go down internet rabbit holes reading more factual accounts of topics of interest. There is definitely a place for them, even if stories have become less factual in the author's memory when they are finally written down or are given a bit more colour for interest's sake. I love historical diaries too.
2. Worth has positive views towards the registration and formal training of midwives. Others have argued that the loss of traditional midwifery has medicalised birth and disempowered mothers (and others) during the birth process. What are your views of the positives and negatives of increased regulation of midwives?
I think there is a balance required in childbirth. Modern medicine has greatly increased survival rates for mothers and babies, but when birth becomes too medicalised, women/birthing parents can feel disempowered or even traumatised.
3. Did you have a favourite person or story from the book?
I liked the wide variety of people the book encompassed. Even among the nuns there was such a range of personalities. I watched the T.V. series before I read the book and am a big fan of Miranda Hart, so I have a soft spot for chummy. Sister Monica Joan is also a fascinating character, if not always kind and unselfish.
I liked Conchetta's story. I can't imagine having so many children or siblings!
4. What did you think of the role of Christian faith of the nuns and Worth herself in the book? Did you find this to be a central aspect of their lives, or peripheral to their nursing work?
Sometimes the faith aspects of the book seemed on the periphery, but they are woven throughout the book and integral to the lives of the nuns and later faith becomes important for Worth too.
5. Did you learn anything interesting about the time and place the book is set that you did not know before?
I learnt a lot about midwifery of the time and was initially surprised that home births were still so common in the 1950s. Although I knew quite a lot about WW2 and the blitz I had never really thought about how long it took to rebuild London and get rid of the bomb sites. Rationing did not seem to be a problem anymore, though I read a book of diary entries from the early 1950s where the writers often referenced how they couldn't get certain foods yet.
6. Given the time, could Mary have been helped in a way that led to a happier outcome for her?
It seemed Mary fared fairly well for the time when babies were considered best adopted by a married couple, rather than the idea that single mothers should be provided support to raise their own babies. Given her age and the abuse she had suffered, she may not have coped as a mother. The best case scenarios in those times seemed to be where the maternal grandparents took on care of the grandchild, and Mary did not have parents who could have helped with that adequately.
7. Some of the stories explore class among the nuns and nurses and the residents they care for. What did you think of working-class background Sister Evangelina’s approach to her patients as compared to Jennifer Worth and the other medical staff from middle class and upper-class backgrounds?
I loved how Sister Evangelina used fart jokes and toilet humour with her patients, particularly to win the confidence of Mrs. Jenkins. I'm sure Sister Monica Joan would have been horrified! However the community seemed to respect both types of nurses, but relate more to Sister Evangelina.
8. In the book we meet Mrs. Jenkins, who spent many years in a workhouse. I was shocked by how recently workhouses continued to operate for in the U.K. Does anyone have any personal experience of knowing people who spent time in a workhouse?
I always thought as workhouses as being something from the 19th century. They never existed in quite the same form in Australia, though there were other institutions such as orphanages and asylums and missions and reservations for Indigenous Australians, that could be quite harsh and often abusive. However if somebody was white and capable of working they were not kept in them indefinitely unless seen to have an incurable mental illness or intellectual disability. I have met people who spent years in institutions for the disabled and had to adjust to living in society once they were moved to community based homes. I have also seen and read many stories from Indigenous Australians who lived on missions where their lives were very controlled or were taken from their families and raised in abusive orphanages. Also the stories of white Australian and British born children who were taken from single parents or difficult homes and raised in terrible children's homes. Even in fairly caring institutions people become institutionalised and can struggle when joining or rejoining mainstream society.
I played on rubble strewn bomb sites in London in the 1980s, never mind the 1950s! The last I can remember being built on was in central Birmingham at the back end of the 1990s - the shops either side were held up with iron girders that had been put up in the war, and there was a great gap in between them.
It's a row of maisonettes now LKK, and in the 1980s it was rebuilt and my great aunt lived in one of them!
Thanks.
My mother was living in Sevenoaks in 1993 when she died and after her funeral I drove to Stanmore to see my old haunts and the people she would have known. I remember that the bomb site had been rebuilt but did not take much notice of what had been built. Closer to Belmont Circle there had been a dairy farm which had electric floats that delivered our milk and dairy products. That had gone.
The Duck in the Pond is still there!
Folkestone has an apparent WW1 bombsite, with a plaque describing it as being from a Zeppelin raid, but IIRC the replacement building was destroyed in the 1980s by a dim arsonist who didn't ensure they had a way out planned...
More on Hull - I'm impressed the Germans knew which film was being shown!
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-humber-51908153