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  The Sisters further won her over when they agreed to take part in an event for World Aids Day, handing out condoms on the street and being photographed by the world’s press. In her indomitable way Sister Alice, now well past retirement age, was filmed handing out condoms, telling the reporters: ‘We are here because we are human beings caring for other human beings. We believe in the whole ministry of healing and we don’t discriminate against anyone.’

  After that Sue regularly started to visit the London House and seeing, in a practical way, faith and love at work in the House had something of a conversion and started to build a relationship with God. She has remained a faithful visiting Associate of our community.

  We also have our Alongsiders, who come and live with us sometimes for a year or so, fully participating in the life of the Community. People come when they have reached a point in their lives where they have a significant issue that needs to be addressed. Betty arrived at the Mother House at a time of extreme crisis: she was only 25 but her husband had suddenly died. She was a person with major social problems. Every other door had been closed to her, but Betty stayed with us for two and a half years. We listened to Betty and showed her love, but we also kept her busy helping round the house. At first she felt the warmth of just our love, then she began to see our love as something of a reflection of God’s love and then began to sense and explore God’s love for herself again. It was with huge rejoicing that we held Betty’s Confirmation in our chapel. Eventually she felt strong enough to move into her own flat and is now training to work in the Church.

  Betty comes back regularly. We are her family now and it has been a huge privilege to be able to help her on her journey.

  We also have many visitors, especially the local clergy, who join us for days of reflection, prayer or to study. We host retreats and and study days for individuals and groups. We are still nursing, but nursing souls. It’s not always easy: it means we are a family who always have guests at our table. It can be difficult when we are feeling vulnerable and not always welcoming, but this is our challenge. We are born into a world with others, and the face of the other makes a demand on us, a demand that God requires us to answer with hospitality.

  In the last two decades we have changed out of all recognition. These are exciting times and yes, it sometimes feels risky, but I think we have found the way that God is leading our Community in the twenty-first century.

  In 1998 we celebrated our 150th anniversary with a special service in Birmingham Cathedral. This was a big event for us and terribly exciting, with over 600 people coming from all over the country, some of whom we hadn’t seen for years. It was an opportunity to give public thanks for all that had been, for all that is and for all that is to come. With this in mind we decided that we should all have smart new dresses for the occasion.

  Our former Reverend Mother, Sarah Grace, had spent the last seven years in happy retirement with us, as a much-loved elder member of the Community. She had been very supportive to me. A few months after I took over from her, she whispered: ‘You know I’ve been watching you, and you’ve smiled more times in the last 15 weeks than I smiled in the past 15 years. I wish I’d smiled more.’ (At which point she did smile, somewhat wistfully.)

  As the day for our celebration approached we asked her whether she would like us to make her a new dress too.

  ‘Oh no, it would be a waste! I won’t wear it again,’ she said.

  A week after the ceremony, sitting up in her armchair peacefully listening to Radio 4, Sister Sarah Grace died. We buried her ashes in the garden of the Mother House. We missed her greatly, but we were also able to rejoice that she had lived such a full life, with her work joyfully complete.

  EPILOGUE

  * * *

  The world has changed out of all recognition since the day in 1957 when I undressed Old Sue and had a vision of myself dressed in a nun’s habit. The East End is no longer full of dock workers and big extended families. The insular community, where it might still be an adventure to go to Whitechapel, is long gone. The population is more global and transient. There is poverty but it’s a different kind of poverty, less evenly spread; some places are even fashionable, attracting a new kind of wealthier resident, who would never have set foot anywhere near the East End in our day. But I still feel a sense of loss for the wonderful spirit and strong communities that shared their loos and their lives in the years that I worked there.

  The work of a midwife has perhaps changed less obviously. In the end, there are only so many ways a baby can be brought into the world. But there has been a shift to a greater emphasis on the theory rather than the practical, to medical intervention and a greater involvement by doctors. Of course the break-up of communities and midwives living in the community has also meant that those precious relationships that we had with our mothers in the district, like Bertha and Jackie Drake, where we knew them and they knew and trusted us, have gone. I think it is a loss, but perhaps inevitable in a world where these kinds of communities have all but disappeared.

  But for me the greatest change has been in the lives of the Sisters since the day I travelled up the drive to the Mother House for the first time in 1958, with Sister Clemence crashing into the rhododendrons in the old yellow Morris Minor. When I look back at the long knickers, haircuts, censored reading and formal names to give just a few examples, it’s hard to believe those days ever existed. The Community has changed so much, so quickly, that on the surface it’s almost unrecognisable.

  One of the most striking changes is how the Community is now made up not just of a group of Sisters, but a dynamic group of Associates, Alongsiders and visitors who share our life. Yet underneath I believe the core values, the really important things, most of all the centrality of love and care that is symbolised by our patron, St John the Divine, remain.

  However, it has become apparent that there is one thing that still poses a question mark over the future of the Community. While we have our mission which we are confident is a good and God-given one; in order to carry it through in the long term we need more Sisters. There is a core of six of us, together with our new novice, Kim. After Marie-Louise joined us we had no new recruits for ten years, until Eleanor wrote asking to come and stay. She was very young, only 18, and her parents wanted to come with her. Well, we saw no problem in having them but we made it clear to both Eleanor and her parents that we would not consider letting her join us until she was older and had completed her nurse’s training.

  Eleanor was very persistent. Like so many of us she did not come from a religious family, but through a friend had joined a church choir, and one day during a sermon had received a very strong message that she should become a nun. She also wanted to be a nurse so we suggested she should go and train and at the end of that, if she still thought she might like to join us, she could come back and talk to us. Well, that’s exactly what she did. And two years later we went on holiday to the Lake District with another young lady who thought she might have a calling. We had a very jolly time and while climbing a mountain, Eleanor had a strong sense that the time was right to join the Community.

  The other lady went to live with our Community in Vauxhall, met a local GP and went off and married! But Eleanor stayed with us and eventually took her life vows in the late 1980s. We were all concerned that she was so much younger than the rest of us – her nearest Sister in age was 20 years older. But we believed that eventually someone would join who was closer to Eleanor’s age. Now Eleanor is 50 and we are still waiting.

  One reason for this, I believe, is the fact that today there are so many opportunities for women that didn’t exist before, not least to become priests. That is a great thing; we have supported women priests all the way, and we pray that women will be allowed to become bishops. But it seems to have pushed into the background other opportunities there may be in the Church for women to pursue a life primarily dedicated to God. However we did start to get enquiries from women who had grownup children and who were now d
ivorced and interested in dedicating their lives to God.

  After much prayer we decided that we should open the way for women who had been married to become Sisters too. Laura came and spent some time with us, stayed, and has now taken her life vows. Her children and grandchildren regularly come and visit and are a wonderful addition to the Community. We also have a novice, Kim, who is doing great interfaithwork in the local community, and her family is also very welcome.

  So just as I did as a young novice, every day I pray that there will be women and men who will hear God call them to journey with us. I feel privileged to have had the opportunity to live a life dedicated to responding to others, with love. Now I believe my final vocation is to ensure that when those in need knock at our door there will always be someone to welcome them. In our busy, competitive, individualistic and generally materialistic world, there is a greater need for places offering hospitality and the love of God. So, as old Sister Martha said in the 1920s when the Community was made up of only five elderly Sisters, ‘We go on!’

  ABOUT THE SISTERS OF ST JOHN THE DIVINE

  * * *

  The Community of St John the Divine is a small Anglican community of nuns founded in 1848 in order to bring a better standard of nursing to our hospitals. Much of the Sisters’ work took place in the East End and focused on the poor. It is this work that came to the attention of the general public due to Jennifer Worth’s books, including Call the Midwife, and the TV series of the same name.

  Today the Sisters live and work in Birmingham. The ethos of the Community has always concentrated on health and healing, but now it embraces all aspects of health, healing, pastoral care and reconciliation in their widest context. Their website is www.csjd.org.uk.

  Nursing and midwifery in the East End and Deptford in the mid-twentieth century

  Two Sisters in about 1850

  The Sisters today

  BIBLIOGRAPHY

  * * *

  Cartwright, Dr. F. The Story of the Community of the Nursing Sisters of St. John the Divine. King’s College Hospital: 1968

  Chittister, Joan, OSB. Wisdom Distilled from the Daily. Living the Rule of St. Benedict Today. HarperCollins, New York: 1990

  Godden, Judith, & Helmstadter, Carol. Nursing Before Nightingale, 1815–1899, (The History of Medicine in Context). Ashgate: 2011

  Guenther, Margaret. Holy Listening, The Art of Spiritual Direction. Darton, Longman and Todd, London: 1993

  Moore, Judith. A Zeal for Responsibility – The Struggle for Professional Nursing in Victorian England, 1868–1883. Athens, University of Georgia: 1988

  ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

  * * *

  The Community of St John the Divine would like to thank Helen Batten for the hours of work she has spent both in interviewing the Sisters and in the writing of the book.

  As a Community, we would like to dedicate this book to all the Sisters who have gone before us since 1848, for their vision of living the religious life and their pioneering work in both nursing and midwifery.

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  First published in 2013 by Ebury Press, an imprint of Ebury Publishing A Random House Group company

  Copyright © Helen Batten and the Sisters of the Community of St John the Divine

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