This is a true story of a young midwife working in London’s East End in the 1950s. Back then, midwifery was still a relatively new discipline and of course, it was still unusual for women to work, even though the second world war had helped the cause a lot.

The book is an account of her experience, interlacing general observations about the living conditions in the East End with details of specific families and births. Jennifer Worth is very good at giving a sense of the times, mixing up descriptions with dialogue, narration with action.

However, she goes all religious on the last few pages, implying that the midwives only did such great work because of their religious fervour, as if unreligious people have no ethics and sense of working for the community. While I can't obviously blame her for expressing her opinion on the matter, there is an inherent bigotry in the last few pages which wasn't apparent in the rest of the book and which undermines the whole historical stance of the book.

But with this in mind, this is still a good book and if like me, you're fed up with religious people denying the fact you can be both atheist and a good person, I suggest you read it but skip the last few pages.

Link to this post: http://www.cogitas.net/bookworm/search.php?p=8