Call the Midwife: Farewell to the East End

Farewell to the East End is the last of the three books chronicling nurse Jenny Lee's time as an East End midwife in 1950s London. (It is also the basis for almost all of season two of the show Call the Midwife on BBC/PBS.) It follows the same structure as the first memoir, Call the Midwife, with each chapter detailing the story of a patient - usually, but not always, a woman in labor. Jenny Worth (nee Lee), the author, also does a commendable job of providing background chapters on some of the issues, both social and medical, that nurses faced in 1950s Poplar, such as tuberculosis and access - or lack thereof - to safe, legal abortions.

In many ways, Farewell to the East End reads like a continuation of the original book, making the placement of Shadows of the Workhouse, the second book of the series, seem awkward or ill-considered. In total, though, the trilogy is very well-written and informative, both humorous and heartrending, and well wroth the read for anyone with an interest in Cockney history or even British social policy from the Victorian age forward.