The Wartime Midwives Read online

  Daisy Styles

  * * *

  THE WARTIME MIDWIVES

  Contents

  1. Mary Vale

  2. The Prettiest Nippy in Manchester!

  3. Crow Thorn Grange

  4. Edinburgh

  5. Shirley

  6. The Plan

  7. A Visitor

  8. Rumbles of War

  9. Windermere

  10. Convent Business

  11. Arrangements are Made

  12. Prospective Residents

  13. Room-mate

  14. A Good Catch

  15. Shared Confidences

  16. War

  17. Fear

  18. Lady Daphne

  19. The New Boy

  20. Births

  21. Farewells

  22. Bertie

  23. Dark Plots

  24. Shirley

  25. Life Goes On

  26. Midwinter

  27. The Marsh

  28. Heather

  29. God

  30. Latin Lessons

  31. Jingle Bells

  32. The Cottage Hospital

  33. Christmas Eve

  34. Sanctuary

  35. Christmas Day

  36. Hamps Fell

  37. The Local Constabulary

  38. New Year

  39. The Visit

  40. Tears and Joy

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Daisy Styles grew up in Lancashire surrounded by a family and community of strong women. She loved to listen to their stories of life in the cotton mill, in the home, at the pub, on the dance floor, in the local church, or just what happened to them on the bus going into town. It was from these women, particularly her vibrant mother and Irish grandmother, that Daisy learnt the art of storytelling.

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  The Wartime Midwives

  Readers rate Daisy Styles

  ★★★★★

  ‘Daisy Styles’s writing always has me believing that I am there with the characters. She is a very vivid storyteller’

  ‘You will adore each character and really feel as if you’re there in the story’

  ‘This book has it all: friendships, love, laughter and heartbreak’

  ‘Loved, loved, loved this book. It had so many ups and downs … I just couldn’t put it down!’

  ‘Full of warmth and humour, but very touching. A super read’

  ‘A brilliant book filled with love, sadness and happiness. I was gripped from page to page’

  ‘Daisy Styles has created strong characters that are warm, loving and perfect for the era the story is set in’

  ‘It felt like coming home. I could not wait to find out where the characters are now’

  ‘Daisy Styles’s books are ideal for readers who enjoy a bit of nostalgia’

  ‘The storyline, the writing style, everything about this book was just great!’

  ‘Each character has their own story to tell, and the individual strands are melded together as only an expert writer can do’

  By the same author

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  For my son, Gabriel

  1. Mary Vale

  On a blustery May morning, with the wind rattling the windows of the nurses’ boarding house of Mary Vale Hall, Ada Dale struggled as always to confine her long golden-auburn curls under her starched white cap. Knowing she’d get a ticking off from Matron if she didn’t present herself without a hair out of place, she stopped in the hall to check her appearance in an unsatisfactory small mirror. Throwing her navy-blue cape around her shoulders, Ada hurried along the long, echoing corridor that connected Mary Vale Mother and Baby Home to the convent of the Sisters of the Holy Mother, where she boarded in the wing specifically set aside for staff accommodation. Passing the beautiful golden-and-blue statue of Our Lady of the Sea, Ada automatically crossed herself. Though brought up a Protestant in her home town of Sheffield, Ada had grown to respect the customs and practices of the Catholic Church during her stay at Mary Vale; if you spent as much time with nuns as Ada did, one inevitably picked up certain customs, and this was just one of them.

  Ada checked her fob watch and saw that she had a few minutes to spare, and, having always been drawn to the outdoors, she pushed open the heavy front door and walked out into the large garden that wrapped itself around the big old, multi-gabled, redbrick house. Mary Vale had originally been built by the parish as a place for the destitute and insane but was now used as a refuge for unmarried pregnant women and their babies.

  Standing in the garden, Ada’s roving gaze landed on Mary Vale’s attic windows; she always spared a thought for the poor, sad souls who’d been confined to those high, dark rooms so long ago – locked away after conceiving a child out of wedlock. She’d read in Mary Vale’s old records of rejected spouses, women who’d been committed to the asylum, condemned on some trumped-up charge to a brutal and unjust internment so that their husbands could claim their inheritance. Thinking of the women presently occupying the Home, Ada was sure that Mary Vale was a far happier place these days.

  ‘Though,’ she thought as she breathed in and filled her lungs with fresh air, ‘the place regularly echoes with the cries of heartbroken mothers unable to keep their babies.’

  Ada again checked the time and quickly followed the garden path that led across a railway track and on to the beach. Standing buffeted by the stiff spring breeze, she admired the breath-taking, sweeping view of Morecambe Bay before her, while behind her ranged the soft, swelling hills that steadily rose to meet the lower fells of the Lake District. Ada marvelled that the view was never the same, though the landscape remained constant: the ever-changing light and shifting tides coloured it differently every day. On one such as this, a passionate fell-walker like Ada itched to stride out and ascend to the mountaintops.

  ‘Wait until you’re next off-duty,’ she firmly told herself.

  Clutching on to her nurse’s cap, which was in serious danger of being blown into the Irish Sea, she retraced her steps into Mary Vale.

  As she hurried through the maternity ward, Ada passed several girls who were busy about their morning chores. When she’d arrived at the Home, just over a year ago, Ada had been shocked to see heavily pregnant women mopping, scrubbing, polishing and lugging heavy buckets of coal and laundry. She’d been brave – or foolish – enough to query this with Matron, who had coldly pointed out that the expectant mothers were obliged to help with the upkeep of the Home. Matron had added that cleanliness was of the utmost priority in an environment where infection could quickly result in death. But Ada sensed it was more a case of Matron wanting to see these ‘fallen women’ atone for their sins.

  Passing a sweating girl straining to clean the high windows that ran the length of the maternity ward, Ada called out, ‘Be careful! Shall I fetch you a ladder before you do yourself a serious injury?’

  ‘No, thanks, Sister Ada – I can’t stand heights,’ the grinning girl called back.

  Ada shook her head; she didn’t know who was the more stubborn: Matron or the girls themselves. Ada washed her hands, then knotted a long apron around her waist and entered the delivery room, where she heard a young girl’s screams; she knew these would alarm the other girls nervously awaiting the birth of their own babies, so she closed the door firmly behind her to reduce the noise. Ada turned to the midwife in charge.

  ‘Morning, Sister Ann,’ she said with a warm smile, eager to do what she could to help.

  Sister Ann, Ada’s closest friend and colleague, smiled warmly back before quickly s
aying, ‘Good to see you, Ada – could you open the window? I think Shirley here would appreciate some fresh air.’

  Ada opened the window as wide as it would go, grateful for the salty sea breeze that replaced the hot, foetid air in the room. Sister Ann continued bathing her patient’s clammy forehead as she prepared her for her next contraction.

  The small, skinny girl lying on the bed looked more like twelve than her actual age of fifteen. Her dull, brown, shoulder-length hair was presently matted with sweat and her brown eyes, large in her thin, pinched face, were full of fear and dread. Panicking, she cried out, ‘Sister Ann, help me, there’s another one coming!’

  ‘Relax, Shirley, dear, you’re doing fine,’ Sister Ann said gently. ‘Let’s remember all those breathing exercises we did in the fitness classes.’

  ‘I can’t remember owt!’ the frightened girl shouted. ‘It hurts too bloody much.’

  Seeing the girl’s tender, pale belly rising and tightening, the nun gripped her sweaty hand. ‘Let me talk you through it,’ Sister Ann said patiently. ‘Come on, Shirley, breathe with it …’

  ‘It ’urts, Sister!’ the grunting girl shouted again. ‘It ’urts like ’ell!’

  ‘I know,’ Sister Ann soothed. ‘Try not to tense, lovie, breathe in.’ Eased by the softness of the nun’s voice and trusting in her implicitly, Shirley calmed her breathing and exhaled slowly and steadily. ‘Good girl!’ Sister Ann exclaimed. ‘That’s much better – now relax and get ready for the next one,’ she advised.

  Confident there was no better midwife in the whole of the North-West than Sister Ann, Ada busied herself replenishing the water jug so Sister Ann could offer Shirley regular small sips of water. As her colleague continued to help Shirley with her breathing, Ada checked the baby’s foetal heart with her stethoscope; then she quickly monitored the girl’s blood pressure and heart rate, both of which had risen alarmingly, she noted, as she examined the patient’s chart clipped to the end of the bed.

  ‘Her blood pressure’s a bit raised, which can’t be good for baby,’ Ada whispered to Sister Ann.

  Sister Ann nodded in agreement before she whispered back, ‘I was holding off on the gas and air.’

  ‘Are you sure?’ Ada muttered. ‘It looks like she needs it.’

  Sister Ann relented, and the two women did their best to relieve Shirley’s pain, which was lessened by the gas and air, but it was nevertheless a long, gruelling morning for both patient and staff.

  ‘Poor lamb,’ Sister Ann murmured to Ada as Shirley moaned and writhed on the bed.

  ‘She’s barely more than a child herself,’ Ada murmured back, as again she checked the foetal heartbeat. ‘The baby’s fine, thank God.’

  ‘I only wish I could say the same for Shirley,’ Sister Ann said as she reapplied a cold, damp flannel to her patient’s forehead.

  ‘There, there, it’ll soon be over with,’ Ada soothed as Shirley flinched and another contraction started.

  It turned out to be a tough delivery for the nervous fifteen-year-old, who ripped badly during the birth and lost a lot of blood too. Groggy from the drug she’d inhaled, the new mother hardly seemed aware of the scrawny little girl she’d at long last brought into the world. After gently cleaning the baby and wrapping her in a warm shawl, Sister Ann handed her to Shirley.

  ‘She’s perfect,’ the nun assured her.

  Shirley drowsily managed to summon the energy to touch her daughter’s tiny pink fingers. ‘She looks like a little dolly,’ she murmured.

  Ada, who was sterilizing instruments in order to stitch Shirley’s wound, added softly, ‘She’s lovely.’

  She couldn’t fail to notice the lack of response from the fretful patient, who suddenly thrust the child back at Sister Ann.

  ‘I don’t want her, Sister!’ she wailed, her face racked with distress. ‘I told you before – I don’t want her!’

  Aware that Shirley had opted for an adoption – after all, what choice did she really have? – Ada and Sister Ann didn’t push the matter. Instead the nun gently settled the child in a small bassinet while Ada got on with stitching Shirley, who made things ten times worse for herself by screaming and wriggling throughout the procedure. Ada, who wished the relaxing effects of gas and air hadn’t worn off quite so quickly, looked at the girl and frowned.

  ‘Shirley, dear, it would be far less painful if you could just lie still till I’ve finished – only two more stitches to go,’ she added reassuringly.

  ‘TWO!’ Shirley loudly protested.

  Afraid that she might have to spend the next half-hour inserting two stitches, Ada spoke firmly. ‘Grip the bedhead tightly and slowly count to twenty.’

  Mercifully, the touch of cold metal and the steady, rhythmic chanting of numbers had a calming effect on Shirley; though she continued to scream the place down, she nevertheless lay still enough for Ada to finish her task.

  ‘Well done, sweetheart,’ Ada said, as she laid the stainless-steel kidney bowl on the bedside table. ‘Now how about a nice hot cup of tea?’ she asked briskly, and turned to her patient, who, exhausted by her ordeal, was already slumped against her pillows fast asleep.

  In the nursery Sister Ann introduced the new arrival to the girls on the bottle-feeding rota.

  ‘Shirley’s daughter,’ she announced as she laid the sleeping child in a small, empty, white canvas cot at the end of a long row of cots all containing mewling infants awaiting their turn to be fed.

  ‘Heavens above, she’s tiny!’ a girl changing a howling baby’s nappy exclaimed.

  ‘She can’t weigh more than two bags of sugar!’ another gasped. ‘How’s Shirley?’ she quickly added.

  Not wishing to go into graphic detail, Sister Ann simply said, ‘Exhausted, and relieved it’s all over with.’

  ‘Poor kid,’ one of the girls murmured sympathetically.

  Leaving Shirley peacefully sleeping with screens around her, Ada got on with the job of tidying up the delivery room. After sterilizing all the instruments, she swabbed down the delivery table with a mixture of hot water and disinfectant, then loaded the stained and bloody sheets into a laundry bag. As she worked, Ada wondered (for possibly the hundredth time) how many of the girls who arrived at Mary Vale didn’t even know how they’d got pregnant. It seemed ridiculous that in 1939 a young woman could be ignorant of the facts of life. What were the girls’ mothers thinking? It was their moral responsibility to educate their daughters. Judging from the stories she’d been told, most of the mothers shirked their duty because it was too embarrassing to go into the messy physical details.

  ‘At least when they leave Mary Vale, they know for sure where babies come from,’ Ada thought sadly.

  Poor little Shirley, who had been repeatedly raped by her stepfather, certainly knew the brutal facts of life. ‘What on earth would the poor kid do when she left the Hall?’ Ada fretted. She couldn’t go home and risk being raped again; she needed protecting, not abandoning. But where was the money to come from if Shirley stayed on longer than was usual?

  Ada was familiar with the workings of the Home and how it stayed financially afloat, providing privacy and shelter for rich and poor women alike. The richer girls with adequate funds to pay for their stay were charged according to their family’s income or savings, while the poorer girls, who made up the majority of the Home’s residents, were dependent on the convent’s charitable trust to provide the shortfall, offering them places at a reduced rate or, in exceptional circumstances, like poor Shirley’s, an entirely free place.

  In most cases the pregnant women arrived when they began to show, so their stay might begin approximately four to five months before their due date; however, there were exceptions. Nancy Wheelan, a recent arrival, was a case in point. Though her baby wasn’t due until the autumn, her outraged father, desperate to hide his sinful daughter away from decent, upright folk, had spent most of his savings on securing Nancy a place at Mary Vale until she’d given birth.

  Once their babies were born, the mother
s were expected to leave within a month to six weeks after their delivery. Some bolted as soon as they’d been signed off by the Home’s resident obstetrician, Dr Jones. But others clung on, dreading the moment when they would be forced to hand their child over for adoption. A few fortunate women left with their child in their arms; Shirley certainly wouldn’t be one of them, Ada thought, as she recalled how adamant Shirley had been about having her baby adopted, which everybody agreed was probably for the best for both mother and daughter.

  The days when mothers had to say a final goodbye to their babies were always difficult, but Sister Ann, a saint in many respects, had a gift from God when it came to comforting the babies who would remain at Mary Vale until they were adopted. Some of them may have known a brief spell of intense maternal love as they were nursed by their birth mother; others may not. In the end, they all shared the same loss: their mothers had gone. The girls working in the nursery (most of them awaiting their own delivery) tried everything in their power to comfort the babies they felt sorry for, but it was Sister Ann, walking up and down the ward, rocking the babies in her arms until they finally slept, who truly soothed them best.

  ‘Sleep heals and memories recede,’ the nun told Ada, whose bright eyes filled with tears.

  ‘How do you know that, Sister?’ she asked.

  ‘From their eyes,’ the nun replied. ‘Babies are no different from puppies,’ she explained with a smile. ‘They know when they’re loved.’

  Between them, Ward Sister Ada and Sister Ann handled the practical issues of caring for the babies in the nursery and their patients on the post- and ante-natal wards. One of the conditions of acceptance into Mary Vale was that all the women awaiting their delivery helped with the duty rotas, which went virtually around the clock and were drawn up every week by Sister Ann and Matron. The hospital was a permanent hub of activity and could function efficiently and hygienically only with the assistance of the residents. While a team of girls bottle-fed the babies in the nursery every four hours, another team in the prep room would be busy preparing the dried-milk mixture for the next feeds and sterilizing all the bottles and teats in boiling water. In the sluice room dirty terry-towelling nappies soaking in buckets of a bleach solution had to be hand-rinsed before they could be taken to the laundry.