might have been diagnosed and averted. In almost every episode of Call the Midwife, we see the midwives boiling urine in test tubes over spirit lamps: it was to test for the presence of protein in the water. Along with high blood pressure and fluid retention, protein in the urine indicates pre-eclampsia. In the fifities, medical professionals believed that the condition could be held at bay with bed-rest, sedation and a special diet. Today, drugs are used to help control the blood pressure, and the baby’s condition is carefully monitored. The mother can survive, and her baby be safely delivered.
A 1959 government enquiry into maternity services carefully weighed up the pros and cons of home versus hospital deliveries, but was uncompromising in its admiration of one thing: midwives. It remarked, ‘The midwife’s three assets of time, skill and attitude of mind are of immense value to her patient,’ but was also forced to state, ‘Even if the financial resources were available to provide hospital beds for all confinements there would appear to be little prospect of finding enough midwives to staff them.’
More than sixty years on, it seems not much has changed. In July 2012, 25 midwifery students – dressed like Chummy and Jenny in blue dresses and red cardigans – rode vintage bikes to the Houses of Parliament. There, they served cake to MPs in a bid to persuade them to invest in training midwives. There are, insist the students, not enough to go around.
As they cycled through Westminster shouting, ‘Call for more midwives!’ I felt utterly humbled by their passion for their craft. For this is what midwives do – they live and breathe the beauty of their calling. It inspires and sustains them, just as they inspire and sustain the women they support.
The rewards of their vocation are life-long. Terri once said, ‘Birth amazes me. And if it ever stops amazing me then I will know it is time to give up and get out of the profession. I’m still awed by every birth I attend.’
The midwives would unpack and lay out essential items such as scissors, bowls and gloves, on a chest of drawers or bedside table, within arm’s reach.
(© We Are Laura)
Pam Ferris (Sister Evangelina) and Jessica Raine (Jenny) with Emma Noakes, who played Shirley Redmond in Episode Four.
Miranda Hart (Chummy Browne) and Tina O’Brien, who played Cathy Powell in Episode Six.
(Poster © Reproduced with permission from library and archive material from the collections of the Royal College of Midwives/The Royal College of Midwives)
(Photo © We Are Laura)
PROFILE
JENNY
Jennifer Worth expressed very little interest in who would eventually play her. When we used to play at putting an imaginary cast together, she would change the subject when it came to the character of Jenny. Apart from expressing an entirely natural desire that the girl we hired should be good looking, she claimed to have no opinion at all. She didn’t fictionalise ‘Jenny Lee’ in her Call the Midwife books – she used her own name, and set herself upon the page quite plainly. I often wondered if she regretted this.
What Jennifer was always very clear about, however, was that she would like the series to give young, unknown performers a chance to shine. Our casting director, Andy Pryor, is a tremendous spotter of new talent, and his first trawl of ‘Jennys’ was fantastic. Most of them were unknown to me and I knew this would please Jennifer. By this stage, she was acutely ill and, although I knew we couldn’t rush the process, I was desperate to cast the part before she died. For all she feigned indifference, I had a gut feeling that she actually DID want to know who was going to play the part.
Every girl who auditioned for the part had something brilliant to commend her, but a lot of them were just a bit too modern. But then I saw Jessica Raine’s audition tape and suddenly sat up straight. Here was someone with cut-glass pronunciation that didn’t sound like a parody, and an inner strength that didn’t seem too bold: Jessica Raine. She had come close to being overlooked, but was invited to the next round of auditions and Philippa Lowthorpe, the director, e-mailed me excitedly: ‘We got Jessica back – she was fantastic!!’ That was it – we offered her the job.
With the success of the first series, Jessica became a star overnight. But no success – especially in show business – is ever truly instant. Like many a performer, she worked long and hard to achieve her aims.
Jessica grew up on a farm in rural Herefordshire. Her heart was set on acting from childhood. ‘I knew I wanted to act but I didn’t say so for years, because it seemed unattainable as a career,’ she reveals.
‘I did A level Theatre Studies and had an incredibly inspirational teacher. That’s what makes teaching so vital. He touched a lot of people’s lives.’
Jessica went on to study drama at University of the West of England, then waitressed while seeking roles in local plays. It strikes me that Jennifer would have had every sympathy with Jessica’s early deliberations, for she too took time to find her feet professionally. Leaving school in her mid-teens, she learned shorthand and typing, working in a boys’ grammar school before applying to train as a nurse.
Jessica’s path to drama school in the capital was similarly vexed, but, like the woman she went on to immortalise on screen, she refused to be daunted. Despite being turned down by RADA, she moved to London and worked in a call centre while building up to having another go. Further rejections from other drama schools followed, but she persisted and applied to RADA once again. This time, she succeeded.
‘By this time I felt there was no possibility I was going to get in, but there was nothing to lose. And as soon as I relaxed and stopped trying to impress people, the real me came out. That was a lesson for life.’
After
