The Free Spirit

The Midwife - 1954 - 1957

"Wouldn't anybody care to meet a sweet old-fashioned girl?"

Before I go on about my job at the London and where I went from there, I shall mention what my husband was up to across the pond before he was my husband. The same stuff, still doing the radio show with his family, going through high school, developing and embracing his reputation of being 'quick with the ladies', and even writing a song that was recorded by country singer Kitty Wells called 'Thou Shalt Not Steal' in 1954, thanks to the help of his mentor, Chet Atkins. In 1956, he and his brother recorded a couple of singles with the Columbia record company called 'Keep a-Lovin' Me' and 'The Sun Keeps Shining', which unfortunately flopped and resulted in them later signing with Cadence Records. In February of 1957, they released their most popular song yet, 'Bye Bye Love', and it became a hit - number one on three different charts! When the song came out, even I bought a copy of it and played it for my mother, who loved it. Neither Mum nor I had any idea that in just a few short months, in July of 1957, the young man singing lead on that song would become my husband.

Back to my story, I'm certain that my readers see that I was sixteen and already a nurse and think, 'Well, that's impossible!' Sixteen-year-old Americans are still seen as children, while sixteen-year-old Brits are seen as adults.

I applied for a job at the London Hospital in 1954, first working in the prenatal ward and assisting in deliveries before being trusted with delivering babies on my own. Many didn't trust my abilities, despite passing all my exams, because to them, I was still just a kid. I gained their trust by being given an overnight shift and assisting a young woman that came in, frightened out of her mind, with her waters having already gone and her cervix ten centimetres dilated. I had little to no time to make a decision nor could I call for a doctor and had to deliver her baby in the corridor, but her baby did pose another challenge; it presented breeched, and the mother had a placenta previa. With the odds that night, I feared that she also had a cord prolapse, but she was very fortunate to not have a triple threat. I had to sit this poor woman on a chair and deliver her baby feet first, carefully, and then the head carefully, and called for a doctor as soon as the baby was delivered and the cord was clamped and cut. After that evening, I was able to deliver babies instead of assist in deliveries. About a year and a half after I applied at the London, I decided to apply for an open position at Nonnatus House in Poplar, preferring to work in district nursing and midwifery as opposed to hospital care.

Two weeks later, I received a letter asking for me to come in for an interview, and I was very surprised to see Sister Julienne as administrator of Nonnatus House. She did recognise me and complimented me on my fluent English, of which she had watched improve as she came to deliver my brothers, and she offered me the job on the spot. I was thrilled and excited to finally have the job that I had dreamed of ever since 1946. I was the first nurse that wasn't a nun to work at Nonnatus House since the war and the young mothers took to me very kindly. Some of the mothers in Stepney knew me from school or knew my family, while the mothers in Poplar were happy to have someone a bit more like them tending to their births and deliveries. I was on my own in Nonnatus House with the nuns - Sisters Julienne, Evangelina, Bernadette and Monica Joan - for about a year, keeping up with Sister Evangelina's snarky remarks, enjoying the charming company of the rather shy Sister Bernadette and adapting to Sister Monica Joan's eccentricity, when I was joined by another midwife in the summer of 1956 by the name of Beatrix Franklin, called Trixie. I met her as she stood at the door of Nonnatus House after I had just come back from delivering a baby. "Hello, there! Are you the new nurse?" I said to her as I climbed the stairs, dressed in my cornflower blue nurse's uniform and scarlet red sweater; upon my head was a red nurse's cap that I had stuffed my thick dark Romani hair underneath, and in my hand was my brown medical bag.