My friend Jeni recommended this series (on BBC) to me when I was pregnant. I watched a few episodes, but I am too tender to pregnancy/childbirth/even nursing things to have watched too much. It was SO fascinating though... I may start watching it again.
As in the episodes that I watched, when reading these stories I was struck by how hard the lives of these people must have been. There were some stories in here that were very sad. Issues of prostitution, domestic violence, living in squalor, venereal diseases, and the inadequate healthcare that was around in the 50's. Of course, none of those things are exactly gone (besides the healthcare, mostly), but it is still amazing to think of what might have been if we had been born in a just slightly different time and a different country. We could have been the people living in the old tenements that were supposed to be torn down, with 25 children (that was one of her stories). Fortunately (for my heart's sake) there was only one story of the baby dying, and that was due to eclampsia that came on very suddenly. There was also a story of a baby who was given up for adoption without the mother's consent, because the mother had been working as a prostitute and had nowhere else to go. About 6 years later, she was arrested for kidnapping someone else's baby and went to jail for it. But I have to say the saddest story was about the local "mad" woman, who was always around when a baby was born. She was filthy and always lurking. They found out that a long time ago, she had 6 kids and a husband, but then the husband died of what sounded like tuberculosis. She wasn't able to support her family, and the baby ultimately died. She then took the other 5 children to a workhouse, which basically sounds like prison. All of her children's heads were shaved, and she was separated from them and never saw them again. They all died and were buried without her knowledge. It just tore me apart to think of that happening, and the fact that it just happened not that long ago is awful. Again, it just made me so grateful to have lived in the time that I do.
Jennifer was a 23 year old nurse who accidentally agreed to work with a convent full of nuns. She had no idea that was her job description, as she was not religious. But she got to know the nuns and loved them, especially Monica Joan. She was a 90 year old woman who was borderline senile, with flashes of mischievous and often brutal clarity. She drove many of the other nuns crazy, and even the nurses who worked there. But Jennifer realized that she loved all of them, with their funny quirks and all.
I love this style of book, which has many short stories in it. That makes it that much faster to read, and really enjoyable. I just can't imagine what life was like back then, it breaks my heart. Recently our cousins Tanner and Alyse had a baby that required surgery for colonic atresia, where she could not pass meconium due to her bowels not forming correctly in one spot. If she had been born back then, she would have ultimately died. It makes you SO grateful for the wonderful medicine we have nowadays, and for the wonderful doctors and medical staff at hospitals and medical centers everywhere!
