Farewell to the East End

Leaving a middle-class childhood to become a midwife in London’s poor East End, Jennifer Worth not only delivered babies, she touched numerous lives and recounted with depth the heartrending story of a neighborhood in transition. Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End is the last book in Worth’s memoir trilogy, which the Times Literary Supplement described as “powerful stories with sweet charm and controlled outrage” in the face of dire circumstances.

Here, at last, is the full story of Chummy’s delightful courtship and wedding. We also meet Megan’mave, identical twins who share a browbeaten husband, and return to Sister Monica Joan, who is in top eccentric form. As in Worth’s first two books, Call the Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times and Call the Midwife: Shadows of the Workhouse, the vividly portrayed denizens of a postwar East End contend with the trials of extreme poverty—unsanitary conditions, hunger, and disease—and find surprising ways to thrive in their tightly knit community.