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For all the negative replies about the world going mad- there are things about the present world that are much better than the way things were in the past. I just finished reading The Midwife by Jennifer Worth, a memoir of nursing in 1950s London’s East End. An old lady she nursed had spent 19 years in a workhouse- from 1916-1935. The lady was widowed with five children. She worked in a factory to support her five children and lived in a basement. Her oldest child took care of the little ones while the mother was working.
One day in the factory, the lady got her arm caught in a piece of machinery and lost movement of her right hand as the tendons were severed. Amazingly, she survived. She lost her job and the Council would not give her aid as she was not working. She proceeded to pawn all her possessions, including their shoes. Her youngest baby died and she reluctantly went to the workhouse.
Once at the workhouse, they were given uniforms and the children’s heads were shaved. She had already sold her hair to buy her children food. The mother was separated from her children and never saw them again. She scrubbed floors, did laundry, and picked oakum- ropes that were tarred and picked to bits in order to caulk boats. Within four years, all of her children died. The authorities at the workhouse would inform her “Your child died” and the mother could not even attend the funeral of her children.
The people in the workhouse were called “inmates” and were, in fact, prisoners. In the exercise yard, the women could hear the children in the children’s exercise yard, but not see them as they were walled off. The people were locked in the workhouse and not allowed out. They used a channel in the middle of the sleeping room as a latrine.
After 19 years, the lady was discharged with a suit of clothes, a sewing machine, and 24 pounds. But she was broken and most people considered her insane. She lived in a bombed out basement in the 1950s in pure filth. She would howl like a wolf. An older nun told the nurse it was called “the workhouse howl” and was common among workhouse inmates.
When Jennifer Worth and the nuns nursed the lady, the lady’s boots had not been off in years and Worth said the lady’s toenails were about a foot long. As of writing her book in 2012, the toenails were still on display in a chiropodist school (a chiropodist is a podiatrist in the United Kingdom).
Perspective- there are so many, many things that are better today. It is a shame to be morose about the state of the world.
One day in the factory, the lady got her arm caught in a piece of machinery and lost movement of her right hand as the tendons were severed. Amazingly, she survived. She lost her job and the Council would not give her aid as she was not working. She proceeded to pawn all her possessions, including their shoes. Her youngest baby died and she reluctantly went to the workhouse.
Once at the workhouse, they were given uniforms and the children’s heads were shaved. She had already sold her hair to buy her children food. The mother was separated from her children and never saw them again. She scrubbed floors, did laundry, and picked oakum- ropes that were tarred and picked to bits in order to caulk boats. Within four years, all of her children died. The authorities at the workhouse would inform her “Your child died” and the mother could not even attend the funeral of her children.
The people in the workhouse were called “inmates” and were, in fact, prisoners. In the exercise yard, the women could hear the children in the children’s exercise yard, but not see them as they were walled off. The people were locked in the workhouse and not allowed out. They used a channel in the middle of the sleeping room as a latrine.
After 19 years, the lady was discharged with a suit of clothes, a sewing machine, and 24 pounds. But she was broken and most people considered her insane. She lived in a bombed out basement in the 1950s in pure filth. She would howl like a wolf. An older nun told the nurse it was called “the workhouse howl” and was common among workhouse inmates.
When Jennifer Worth and the nuns nursed the lady, the lady’s boots had not been off in years and Worth said the lady’s toenails were about a foot long. As of writing her book in 2012, the toenails were still on display in a chiropodist school (a chiropodist is a podiatrist in the United Kingdom).
Perspective- there are so many, many things that are better today. It is a shame to be morose about the state of the world.
