Dancing had just begun when the telephone rang. I was first on call.
“Yes . . . yes . . . This is Nonnatus House. Mrs Smith . . . What address, please? How frequent are the contractions? Have the waters broken? Keep her in bed, please. I’ll come straight away.”
Part II
THE TRIAL OF SISTER MONICA JOAN
SISTER MONICA JOAN
Sister Monica Joan did not die. She developed severe pneumonia after wandering down the East India Dock Road wearing only her nightie one cold November morning, but she did not die. In fact, the incident seemed to rejuvenate her. Perhaps she enjoyed all the extra pampering and cosseting supplied by her Sisters and Mrs B, the cook. No doubt she enjoyed being the centre of attention. Perhaps penicillin, the new wonder drug, had pumped fire into her old heart. Whatever the reason, Sister Monica Joan, at the age of ninety, enjoyed a new lease of life, and was soon to be seen trotting all over Poplar, to the great rejoicing of everyone who knew her.
The Sisters of St Raymund Nonnatus was an Anglican order of fully professed nuns. The Sisters were all trained nurses and midwives, and their vocation was to work amongst the poorest of the poor. They had maintained a house in the London Docklands since the 1870s, when their work was revolutionary. Poor women in those days had no medical care during pregnancy and childbirth, and the death rate was high.
Midwifery as a profession did not exist. In each community local women, in a tradition passed on from mother to daughter, went around delivering babies. Such a woman was called ‘the handy woman’ and her practice usually consisted of ‘lying-in and laying-out’ (i.e. lying-in after childbirth and laying-out of the dead). Some of these women were good at their trade, and were caring and conscientious, but they were untrained and unregistered.
Against relentless parliamentary ridicule and opposition, many inspired women, including the Sisters of St Raymund Nonnatus, fought to have midwifery recognised as a profession, and for midwives to be trained and registered. Eventually, after a series of bills were defeated in the House, the women won, and the first Midwives Act became law in 1902. The Royal College of Midwives was born, and from that moment maternal and infant deaths began to fall.
The Sisters were true heroines. They had entered slum areas of the London Docks at a time when no one else would go near them, except perhaps the police. They had worked through epidemics of cholera, typhoid, tuberculosis, scarlet fever and smallpox, careless of being infected themselves. They had worked through two world wars and endured the intensive bombing of the Blitz. They were inspired and sustained by their dual vocation: service to God and service to mankind.
But do not imagine for one moment that the Sisters were trapped by their bells and their rosaries, and that life had passed them by. The nuns, collectively and individually, had experienced more of the world and its ways, more of heroism and degradation, of sin and salvation, than most people will experience in a lifetime. No indeed, the nuns were not remote goody-goodies. They were a bunch of feisty women who had seen it all, lived and loved and suffered throughout, and remained true to their vocation.
Nonnatus House was situated just off the East India Dock Road, near Poplar High Street and the Blackwall Tunnel. It was a large Victorian building and sat next to a bomb site. A third of all Dockland dwellings had been destroyed by the Blitz, and most of the derelict buildings and rubble had not been cleared away. Bomb sites became children’s playgrounds during the day and dormitories for meths-drinkers overnight.
Overcrowding had always been chronic in Poplar, and it was said that Poplar housed 50,000 people per square mile. After the Second World War the situation was even worse, because houses and flats had been destroyed and rebuilding had not yet commenced, so people just moved in with each other. It was not unusual to find three or four generations of one family living in a small house, or fifteen people living in two or three small rooms in the tenements – the Canada Buildings or the Peabody Buildings or the notorious Blackwall Tenements. These were Victorian buildings constructed on four sides around a central courtyard, with inward-facing balconies which were the arteries of the tenement. There was no privacy. Everyone knew everyone else’s business, and terrible fights would occur when the tensions of overcrowded family life erupted into violence. The tenements were bug-infested and insanitary. Some of the better ones had an indoor lavatory and running water, but most of the buildings had neither and infections spread like wildfire.
Most of the men worked in the docks. Thousands poured through the gates when they opened each day. Hours were long, the work was heavy, and life was hard, but the Cockney men knew nothing else, and they were tough. The Thames was the backdrop of Poplar, and the boats, the cranes, the sound of the sirens, the whisper of the water all formed part of the tapestry that had been woven into its cloth for generations. The river had been the people’s constant companion, their friend and enemy, their employer, their playground and frequently, for the destitute, their grave.
Cockney life, for all its poverty and deprivation, was rich – rich in humanity and humour, rich in drama and melodrama, rich in pathos and, unhappily, rich in tragedy. The Sisters of St Raymund Nonnatus had served the people of Poplar for several generations. The Cockneys did not forget, and the nuns were loved, respected, even revered by the whole community.
During the time of which I write, an incident occurred that shook the very foundations of Nonnatus House. In fact, it shook the whole of Poplar, because everyone got to hear about it and for a time the local people could talk of little else.
Sister Monica Joan was accused of shoplifting.
My first intimation that something was wrong occurred when I returned from my evening visits, wet and hungry, and wondering why anyone was ever fool enough to be a district midwife. What about a cushy little office job? I thought to myself as I pulled the bag from the carrier of my bike, knowing it would take me an hour to clean and sterilise all my instruments and repack the bag ready for use the following morning. Yes, that’s it, I thought for the umpteenth time, a soft, cosy office job, with regular hours and central heating, sitting behind a nice smooth, desk, tapping at my Olivetti, and thinking about my date that evening; a job in which the maximum responsibility would be to find the minutes of the last meeting, and the biggest disaster a broken fingernail.
I entered the front door of Nonnatus House, and the first thing I saw was a great number of wet dirty footprints all over the fine Victorian tiles of the hallway. Large footprints in a convent? They were certainly very big, far too big to be those of a nun. Could it be that a group of men, had recently entered? It seemed unlikely at seven o’clock in the evening. And if the rector or any of the curates had called they were unlikely to leave dirty footmarks. If any tradesman had called in the morning and left such an unseemly visiting card, the mess would have been cleared up before lunch. But there they were – large dirty footprints all over the hall. It was inexplicable.
Then I heard Sister Julienne’s voice coming from the direction of her office. Sister’s voice was usually quiet and well modulated, but now it had a slight edge to it, either through anxiety or nervousness, it was hard to tell. This was followed by men’s voices. It all seemed very strange, but I didn’t want to linger, knowing that I had my bag to prepare before I could get anything to eat, so I made my way to the clinical room, where I found Cynthia and Trixie and Chummy deep in conversation.