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Jennifer Worth

Jennifer Worth Biography

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“She approached them all without a trace of sentimentality or condescension. The older Docklanders were accustomed to meeting middle-class do-gooders, who deigned to act graciously to inferiors. The Cockneys despised these people, used them for what they could get, and made fun of them behind their backs, but Sister Evangelina had no patronising airs and graces.”

Middle ClassSentimentalityTaking AdvantageCondescensionPatronizingDo Gooders
Author:Jennifer Worth
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“...she saw that, as a patient drew near to the terminal stage of an illness, far from there being 'nothing more we can do', there was a great deal more to be done: bring comfort in relaxed surroundings, look after the physical, emotional and spiritual well-being of the patient, give medical care if possible, but if not, meticulous nursing in the last stages of life.”

InspirationalNursingEnd Of Life Care
Book:In the Midst of Life
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“Josephine Butler (1828-1907) writes in her journals, pamphlets and diaries of the second half of the nineteenth century about seeing thousands (yes, thousands) of little girls, some as young as four or five, in the illegal brothels of London, Paris, Brussels, and Geneva. ...The children had a life expectancy of two years, yet the brothel owners, frquently women, seemed to have an unlimited supply.... 'Clean' children, who were free from venereal disease, commanded a high price. All this is well documented, but strangely Mrs [sic] Butler never mentions little boys, though this branch of the trade must have been going on.”

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Author:Jennifer Worth
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“She sold her hair; she sold her teeth, but it was never enough. The baby became lethargic and ceased to thrive. She called it “wasting fever”. When the baby died no money could be spared for burial, so she sealed him in an orange box weighed down with stones, and slipped him into the river. That furtive journey in the middle of the night with her dead baby was the moment when she finally accepted defeat, and knew that the inevitable had come. She and the children would have to go to the workhouse.”.”

WorkhouseCall The MidwifeJennifer WorthMrs Jenkins
Book:The Midwife: A Memoir of Birth, Joy, and Hard Times
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“The reason why Jane’s spirit was not broken was that she had a secret. It was her own special secret and she had told no one else except Peggy. She locked it in her heart and hugged it to herself. It was this glorious secret that filled her with such irrepressible joy and exhilaration. But it was also to be the cause of her greatest disaster, and her life-long grief. The rumour that her father was a high-born gentleman in Parliament must have reached Jane’s ears when she was a little girl. Perhaps she had heard the officers talking about it, or perhaps another child had heard the adults talking and told her. Perhaps Jane’s mother had told another workhouse inmate, who had passed it on. One can never tell how rumours start. To Jane, it was not a rumour. It was an absolute fact. Her daddy was a high-born gentleman, who one day would come and take her away. She fantasised endlessly about her daddy. She talked to him, and he talked to her.”

ChildWorkhouseChild S Dream
Book:Shadows of the workhouse
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“Was it love of people?' I asked her. 'Of course no,' she snapped sharply. 'How can you love ignorant, brutish people whom you don't even know? Can anyone love filth and squalor? Or lice and rats? Who can love aching weariness, and carry on working, in spite of it? One cannot love these things. One can only love God, and through His grace come to love His people.”

PeopleKnowsCoursesGraceIgnorantGod LoveSpiteRatsOnly LoveWearinessFilthSqualorLice
Author:Jennifer Worth
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