Customer Reviews
Aren`t we lucky? - By: miss lj, 01 Nov 2008 
This book reallly made me think how materialistic we are these days. I was born in the 60s - was it reallly just ten or so years before, that alll 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 & alll. Sadly there are places in the world where women still suffer, just for being female. Thank the lucky stars for those sisters of mercy & 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 & 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 - By: J. Williamson, 24 Sep 2008 A truly enjoyable & inspiring read. Most reviewers have highlighted the ability of the writer to draw the reader in & provoke a mixture of emotions. It's an excellent social history too. I've now ordered Father Joe Williamson's autobiography & will be reading the next two instalments from Jennifer in the future. Read it & weep (and laugh)
Jennifer Worth shares her experiences of catching babies and caring for mothers in the 1950's - By: Ms. H. McLennan, 08 Sep 2008 
The writing by Ms Worth flows, it's funny at times & it's sad at times (which is alll good!). The only complaint I have is that Ms Worth told the stories of certain characters too much, & 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 & places surrounding Ms Worth during her time as a midwife, staying with some Nuns in London, & a few births scattered here & there.
However, I was not satisfied with the book as I would have liked to read more about Ms Worth's job & less about other people. I loved to hear about who she was caring for & 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 & the midwife would cycle to the family's home on a bicycle. The story of Conchita was reallly heart-warming.
I am happy that I have read the book, & my next mission is to find a book about a midwife that is set in more modern settings.
This era should never be forgotten - By: Yvonne Barlow, 08 Sep 2008 This book covers relatively recent history & shows how far maternity care has come. The families here live in extremely poor conditions, & their stories are harrowing . But we should never forget that, even in more prosperous homes, our mothers & grandmothers gave birth when there were few washing machines, many homes had outdoor toilets & heating often came from coal carried in from outdoors. Today we groan about poor maternity leave & forget that previous generations of women struggled with overcrowding when cleanliness was the measure of a woman.
Read this & feel lucky!Quick, Boil Some Water!: The Story of Childbirth in Our Grandmother's Day
Bittersweet memories - By: Ms. J. M. Austin, 27 Aug 2008 This is a brilliant book that at times made me cry, & at others, laugh out loud. My own mother was a Cockney, born in the East End in 1920, & reading this book brought back bitter sweet memories of the way that she was, & the wonderful stories that she used to tell. It has helped me to appreciate her humour much more & understand where some of my own ways have come from. I particularly enjoyed the stories of Sister Evangelina & her escapades across the Thames, jumping from barge to barge & the obsession with bodily functions, & 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, & 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 & worked in, & 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 & one shared toilet. Times may have been hard, & money tight, but they had more ballls & more grit than anything you would see today, with no counsellors in sight!
