Sunday Book Review - In the Midst of Life

I have read all by one of Jennifer Worth’s books and have found her to be an excellent writer, drawing on her own experiences as a nurse and midwife in the early 50s.  Fascinating reading with wonderful stories of the people she has met and nursed during her nursing career.  Her love and enthusiasm of nursing and compassion for people comes through in her writing, definitely an author in my mind worth reading.  My Dad and I have similar tastes in reading and although her books are quite different to a lot we read, Dad agreed with my thoughts on the books and has enjoyed them as much as me.

In the Midst of Life, wasn’t what I was expecting and I’m not sure I would have read the book if I had initially known what it was about as I didn’t read the blurb, I just bought it (downloaded it onto my new  Kindle), knowing that Jennifer Worth writes so well.  I tend to avoid subjects about death like the plague and have always had a fear of it.  Even as a child I would refuse to go into a cemetery, and would even hide in the foot well of the car if we drove past one, or certainly look the other way when I was older.  As an adult I have overcome this fear somewhat and have been known to visit the odd cemetery now and again, and have taken an interest in the history of graves etc…  However, I still don’t like to talk of such things, so it was quite unusual to find me actually reading a book on death and finding it interesting and dare I say possibly enjoyable.  Not sure if enjoyable is the right word, but it is certainly worth a read.

Jennifer draws on her own experiences of nursing people in their final days, from pre-World Wars, the fifties and sixties and also from interviews, letters, friendships and research up until when the book was published in 2010.  It broaches all sorts of subjects and the way in which people died then and now.  She writes about how these people are treated, the changes in approach to death, medication and intervention and the implications of these.  There is a lot to think about and challenge the reader that is for sure.  Much is written on how nowadays with the medical profession being so scared of litigation, the sometimes what seems to be completely unnecessary and quite often disturbing intervention.  (My husband and I have first hand experience of this when his grandmother died a couple of years ago and how the emergency services ‘had to attempt resuscitation’ despite the fact that she well over 90, and had been dead for at least 20 minutes before they arrived!)  Combine this with the general populations fear of death and wanting to prolong life as much as is possible, the ramifications that this causes for the patient as well as for family and those that nurse and treat the patient, really makes one think.

Included are four Appendices at the back of the book, and these too make fascinating reading and could certainly be worthy subjects to debate and think about.

For anyone interested in this subject, and looking for an interesting and challenging read, then I highly recommend this book and author.  You may want to read some of her other books first though!  These are:

Call the Midwife

Tales from the Workhouse

Farewell to the East End

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