Jennifer Worth

I loved reading the books, but here in this omnibus edition of the audio books are Stephanie Cole and Anna Reid bringing to life Jennifer Worth's three books - Call the Midwife, Shadows of the Workhouse and Farewell to the East End.

Hearing Barbara Flynn reading Jennifer Worth's words brought back a picture of when I saw after the interview I did with her. She was sitting in the bay window in her back room with the sun light streaming on her while she signed her first book 'Call the Midwife' - Barbara whilst not sounding like Jennifer certainly evoked what she was - a caring no nonsense person who wrote with a great deal of common sense.

This is a most profound and informative book about how we as a society care about our terminally ill people and how they die. It is also a book about our cultural fear of death.

With this being the 3rd and final instalment of Jennifer Worth's trilogy about working with the nuns of Nonnatus House I wondered how it would all end. Jennifer has made it yet again a spectacular story full of wonderful characters such as Megan'mave, two sisters sharing a husband! Or what happened to all the nuns.

I felt sad that this book is the final story of Jennifer Worth's brilliant trilogy set in the East End of London where she worked as a midwife under the auspices of the nuns at Nonnatus House. However she has packed in so much of life that you wonder how she coped!

The one story that stands out to me is the surgical rape of Nancy a 13 year old girl - it truly made the hairs stand up on the back of my beck it was so horrific. Jennifer does not spare us from the detail on whoever she is talking about.

Shadows of the Workhouse read by Anne Reid I have to say took me quite a while to get into, but only because I had enjoyed Stephanie Coles reading of Call the Midwife. Anne Reid's rendition is a lot more sombre but I think that this is because the story she has to tell is a lot more serious, and that is the effects of the workhouse on the children who were forced to go there. She does however do the various accents of the people i.e. Peggy and Frank, Jane, and Jo Cotter extremely well.

Call the Midwife is the first in Jennifer Worth's trilogy about life in the East End and her experiences as a midwife. I have to say this brought back a lot of happy memories of my own experiences of midwifery in my own local are in the late '60s and early '70s.

Jennifer's experiences are very colourful and atmospheric especially when she's describing the ship, massive in her field of vision as she walks down the road in the Docklands to attend a delivery of which everyone was involved with; from boiling the kettle to giving advice!

Shadows of the Workhouse is the brilliant follow up to Call the Midwife with Jennifer Worth following a new set of people - Jane, Peggy and Frank, Mr Collett, Mrs Warren and her 24 children and last but not least Sister Monica Joan who was very 'naughty' to say the least!

This book by Jennifer Worth SRN, SCM is about her battle with Eczema.

It tells of the problems when she started with just two small dry places on her legs which itched like mad and then spread to her whole body. The pictures in the book show how bad her body became and how frightfully painful it was.