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sarah531:

sarah531:

So I picked up the memoir which Call The Midwife is based on recently. I figured, there’s no way it can be more harrowing than the series, right?

BOY WAS I WRONG

It’s… a really, really difficult read. Worst of all are the things that Jenny Worth herself doesn’t single
out as worthy (pun not intended, honestly) of further comment but make
my twenty-first century self go WHAT THE HELL? Like the man who marries a foreign woman when she’s aged twelve (or
at least, is implied to be in a relationship with her at that age)
never bothers to learn her language, and ends up having over twenty kids
with her?!!

(I know they featured in the TV series too, but I seem to remember that again, that aspect of HER BEING ESSENTIALLY A CHILD BRIDE was glossed over a bit)

And when I got to the description of Jane in the second book, my heart just broke, because she very obviously had
OCD and anxiety (Worth mentions an incident where she couldn’t stop
cutting potatoes into exact halves), and yet those descriptors hadn’t
even been invented yet, and everyone treats her as a nuisance or a
figure of fun. It’s so sad. God.

I feel like I need to bingewatch the later episodes of the show, possibly all in one night, to make me feel less unhappy about it all, because in the show at least some of those real-life people were given happier endings…

Okay, I know the whole story of Jane now and holy fuck, holy FUCK, that was one of the most horrible things I’ve ever read.

(I do wonder how Worth knew it all, though. Surely the real Jane wouldn’t have gone into such detail, even in letters? Are some of the details invented? Maybe it’s for the best that I don’t know.)

Considering her story, I’m suddenly not surprised that they changed Jane’s backstory for the TV series, and didn’t feature her that much. But the poor, poor woman. I was so damn relived that the real Jane got a real happy ending, even better than the rather vague one she got in the TV show, and married a man who adored her. But god, I don’t think I’ll forget the horrific scenes from her childhood, ever. (Knowing that the perpetrators were never punished, and life in the workhouse continued to be just as bad for many other girls just like her, is another thing I won’t forget. :( )