BBC

So, when I went home during the holidays this past year, I found that everyone in the US (or it seems like everyone) was obsessed with a certain British drama, Downton Abbey.  I have to admit, when I was home, I fell under its spell. 

 But, not just Downton.  I found that BBC has produced some pretty amazing mini-series which made me wonder, “What have I been missing out on all these years?”

 Most people know my love for Jane Austen.  My penchant for anything that brings me to a place of romance and grace.  Something about Pride and Prejudice, Emma, Sense and Sensibility...there's something to Jane Eyre...something even about Anne of Green Gables (though notably the wrong continent).

 

In any case, I became a little BBC-obsessed.  Downton Abbey.  Cranford.  Sherlock (oh, I love that one!).  The Call of the Midwife.  I love them all.

 

After watching The Call of the Midwife series when I was home, my friend Katie (who is obsessed with all things British at the moment) told me that it was based on a series of books.  So, you know me...I love to read...and I got all three books in the series, ready to read the stories that were so brilliantly acted in the TV series.

 

The books are memoirs, written by a nurse who worked in the East End of London in the mid-1900's.  Jennifer Worth wrote beautiful stories of lessons learned, families she was able to be a part of, lives that she witnessed coming into the world...and she mixed them all with a little history about London...the workhouses, the wars, the ups and downs of the human condition when poverty strikes.

 

I read all three books as if I was there myself, reading the Cockney English and walking (or cycling) the streets of the East End with the nuns and nurses of Nonnatus House.  Sometimes, her words were almost too vivid, making me want to turn away from the darkness that sometimes comes with poverty.  But, in many ways, it brought me joy...remembering the beautiful births of my friend's children, Brylie and Nasiah.  Celebrating the medical advances that allowed little Isabella to be born happy and healthy (and then Corbin two years later).  The beauty of the whole process.  Welcoming new life.  It's scary and it's messy and it's painful...but it sure is beautiful.  And somehow, the stories in Call of the Midwife were just that little bit more charming because of the accent and the different history and the different way of life.

Maybe someday I will able to visit the places these stories all took place.  England, with it's charm and fog and it's old romance.  One day...