Jennifer Worth

Jennifer Worth RN RM
Worth as a nurse in the 1950s
Born	Jennifer Lee (1935-09-25)25 September 1935 Clacton-on-Sea, Essex
Died	31 May 2011(2011-05-31) (aged 75)
Cause of death	Oesophageal cancer
Occupation	Nurse, musician, author
Religion	Anglican
Spouse(s)	Philip Worth (Hemel Hempstead)
Children	Suzannah and Juliette

Jennifer Worth RN RM (25 September 1935 – 31 May 2011) was a British nurse and musician. She wrote a best-selling trilogy of memoirs about her work as a midwife practising in the poverty-stricken East End of London in the 1950s: Call the Midwife, Shadows of the Workhouse and Farewell to The East End. A television series, Call the Midwife, based on her books, began broadcasting on BBC One on 15 January 2012.^[1]

Biography

Worth, born Jennifer Lee in Clacton-on-Sea, Essex, was raised in Amersham, Buckinghamshire. After leaving school at the age of 15^[2] she learned shorthand and typing^[3] and became the secretary to the head of Dr Challoner's Grammar School. She then trained as a nurse at the Royal Berkshire Hospital, Reading, and moved to London to receive training to become a midwife.^[2]

Lee was hired as a staff nurse at the London Hospital in Whitechapel in the early 1950s. With the Sisters of St John the Divine, an Anglican community of nuns, she worked to aid the poor.^[2] She was then a ward sister at the Elizabeth Garrett Anderson Hospital in Bloomsbury, and later at the Marie Curie Hospital in Hampstead.^[4]

She married the artist Philip Worth in 1963, and they had two daughters.^[3] (Philip Worth appears as a character in the 2014 Christmas Special at the end of the third season of the TV series Call the Midwife, portrayed by Ronald Pickup).^[5] Worth retired from nursing in 1973 to pursue her musical interests.

In 1974, she was appointed a licentiate of the London College of Music, where she taught piano and singing. She obtained a fellowship in 1984. She performed as a soloist and with choirs throughout Britain and Europe. She later began writing, and her first volume of memoirs, Call the Midwife, was published in 2002. The book became a bestseller when it was reissued in 2007. Shadows of the Workhouse (2005; reissued 2008) and Farewell to the East End (2009) also became bestsellers.^[2] The trilogy sold almost a million copies in the UK alone.^[4] In a fourth volume of memoirs In the Midst of Life, published in 2010, Worth reflects on her later experiences caring for the terminally ill.^[6]

Activism

Worth was highly critical of Mike Leigh's 2004 film Vera Drake, for depicting the consequences of illegal abortions unrealistically. She argued that the method shown in the movie, far from being fairly quick and painless, was in fact almost invariably fatal to the mother.^[7]

Death

Worth died on 31 May 2011, having been diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus earlier in the year.^[8] The first episode of the television series Call the Midwife was dedicated to her.

Publications

• Eczema and Food Allergy: The Hidden Cause? ISBN 978-1872560182 (1997)
• Call the Midwife (First book in the Midwife trilogy) ISBN 978-0297868781 (2002)
• Shadows of the Workhouse (Second book in the Midwife trilogy) ISBN 978-0297853268 (2005)
• Farewell to the East End (Third book in the Midwife trilogy) ISBN 978-0753823064 (2009)
• In the Midst of Life ISBN 978-0297859581 (2010)

References