Call the Midwife

[Jenny is describing her visit to a pregnant woman who has 24 children and lives in squalid conditions]

Jenny Lee:
I didn't know where to turn or how to take my leave. They seemed completely unconcerned.

Cynthia Miller:
About the pregnancy or the mess?

Jenny Lee:
The pregnancy *and* the mess. They only had eyes for each other.

Sister Monica Joan:
Exactly. And look where it's got them!

Jenny Lee:
And how can anyone have 24 children and still look so young?

Trixie Franklin:
*Now* you've opened a lovely jar of worms.

Sister Bernadette:
Because she was fourteen when she had her first.

Sister Julienne:
She may even have been younger. Mr Warren brought her back from the Spanish Civil War.

Sister Bernadette:
Most men would be happy with some enemy binoculars!

[introduction]

Mature Jenny:
[voiceover] I must have been mad. I could have been an air-hostess. I could have been a model. I could have moved to Paris, or been a concert pianist. I could have seen the world - been brave, followed my heart. But I didn't. I side-stepped love and set off for the East-End of London, because I thought it would be easier. Madness was the only explanation.

Mature Jenny:
I must have been mad. I could have been an air hostess. I could have been a model. I could have moved to Paris or been a concert pianist. I could have seen the world, been brave, followed my heart. But I didn't. I side-stepped love and set off for the East End of London, because I thought it would be easier. Madness was the only explanation.

Mature Jenny:
I had begun to see what love could do. Love brought life into the world and women to their knees. Love had the power to break hearts and to save. Love was, like midwifery, the very stuff of life and I was learning how to fly with it. Through all the streets, like the river to the sea.

Pearl Winston:
Where are you going to put the needle? Leg or arse?

Jenny Lee:
In your bottom, I'm afraid.

Pearl Winston:
I should have been a stripper! I mean, at least I'd have met a better class of man.

[Chummy Browne, a tall, gawky, clumsy midwife, has just arrived at the convent]

Sister Evangelina:
Ah, Camilla Fortescue-Cholmeley-Browne?

Chummy Browne:
I generally answer to "Chummy". My pa used to say "Long dogs need short names".

Sister Evangelina:
Follow me. And mind your head. I understand you qualified by a whisker, Nurse Fortescue-Cholmeley-Browne.

Chummy Browne:
I *did* pass. It was a bit of a scrape. Before that I was nursing for five years.

[Sister Evangelina brings out box containing a midwife's standard kit]

Sister Evangelina:
Do you need me to go through this piece by piece?

Chummy Browne:
Not remotely.

[Chummy looks in the box]

Chummy Browne:
What's that?

Sister Evangelina:
It's an enema nozzle.

Chummy Browne:
It's made of glass.

Sister Evangelina:
Do you break things?

Chummy Browne:
No.

Sister Evangelina:
And are all your dresses pink?

Chummy Browne:
I do have another - in eau-de-nil.

Sister Evangelina:
[ironically] I bet you look a picture in *that* too.

Mature Jenny:
She wouldn't kill him. No mother ever did. She would only curse his name, and say there'd never be a next time. And she would mean it. And there always was.

Mature Jenny:
I used to think that night was a time for women. All day, the docks were raucous with the lives of men. Lightermen and stevedores, dockers and pilots, the sailors and the drivers of the trains. In the smallest hours, only the river's voice was heard. Only women were awake. Men slept. Mostly.

Sister Evangelina:
And are all your dresses pink?

Chummy Browne:
I do have another, in eau de nil.

Sister Evangelina:
I bet you look a picture in that too.

Jenny Lee:
You can ride a bike?

Chummy Browne:
I can ride a horse. That can't be so very different, surely.

Mrs. Fraser:
Everything in order nurse?

Chummy Browne:
It would seem, Betty, as though your baby is presenting in the breech position.

Betty Smith:
You what?

Chummy Browne:
It's coming out arse-first.

Joe Collett:
[to Jenny] You'll know the secret of life, my dear, when you know how to love.

PC Peter Noakes:
[to Chummy] You look well.

Chummy Browne:
Well, and you.

Sister Evangelina:
Oh, enough. I cannot watch anymore. Constable Noakes, would you like to take Nurse Browne to the pictures on Friday evening?

PC Peter Noakes:
I, uh...

Sister Evangelina:
Simple question. Yes or no.

PC Peter Noakes:
Yes. Yes I would.

Sister Evangelina:
Nurse Browne, would you like to go?

Chummy Browne:
I'd love to.

Sister Evangelina:
Excellent. How marvelous for you both. Now I can get on and enjoy my cake.

Cynthia Miller:
You have to be brave to be in love, don't you? I mean, knowing that your heart may get broken, some point along the way.

Mature Jenny:
[voice-over] For just as the swan's last song is the sweetest of its life, so loss is made endurable by love and it is love that will echo through eternity.

Sister Monica Joan:
Dogs look up to us, cats look down on us. Pigs treat us as equals.

Jimmy:
Before? What, this phantom love? How could I not know. [pause] You look at me and there's someone else you want to see. For me it's just you.

[Sister Monica Joan has been found by the police, wandering on the banks of the River Thames, dressed only in her nightdress]

Sister Bernadette:
We don't know whether she has dementia or whether she's just wilfully eccentric.

Dr. Turner:
I understand. There are more medical treatises written about senile decay than you can shake a stick at. But I keep to one invariable diagnostic rule: if they're brought back by a policeman in their nightie, then they've got it.

[final words]

Mature Jenny:
[voiceover] In the East End I found grace and faith and hope hidden in the darkest corners. I found tenderness and squalor and laughter amid filth. I found a purpose and a path, and I worked with a passion for the best reason of all - I did it for love.

Sister Julienne:
I believe you've recently retired to Madeira, Lady Fortescu-Chumley-Browne?

Lady Browne:
No need to stand on ceremony Sister, Lady Browne will do.

Jenny Lee:
Every window and door is closed. Drawbridge completely pulled up.

Jimmy:
Bit like us, really. Well, at least, like you.

Jenny Lee:
[surprised] Jimmy - You've driven all this way. You've been so kind.

Jimmy:
I'd never be unkind. What would be the point in that?

Jenny Lee:
I'm sorry I hurt you, Jimmy.

Jimmy:
You can survive hurt.

Jenny Lee:
I hope so.

Mature Jenny:
The River Thames pulsed through the heart of the East End like its blood, sustaining its people and taking with it much they had thrown away or lost. For some, it marked beginning of a journey. For others, it became a channel of return, bringing back the missing and the loved, the forgotten, and the longed for. It was often an escape route and sometimes the road home.

Annie:
But John, the sister's coming.

Bob Lacey:
What bloody sister? Who the hell are you?

Cynthia Miller:
The bloody sister!

PC Peter Noakes:
Is there any news?

Sister Evangelina:
It's a baby, not a lubricated penguin, they don't come sliding out, to order.

Mrs. Tzirale Rubin:
You just keep living, until you are alive again.

[Fred places Jenny's suitcase in the car, while Trixie, Cynthia, Sr. Monica Joan, Sr. Evangelina, and Sr. Julienne gather to say goodbye]

Sister Monica Joan:
[quoting Leigh Hunt's poem] Jenny kissed me when we met, jumping from the chair she sat in. Time, you thief, who love to get. Sweets into your list put that in!

Sister Evangelina:
You make sure you eat three square meals a day and a proper breakfast. I have my spies. Hear me?

Cynthia Miller:
We will write often. And you must write, too.

Trixie Franklin:
Yes. We want to hear every titbit of enthralling news from the Motherhouse!

[Cynthia, Trixie, and Jenny embrace, as Sr. Winifred rushes out of the house]

Sister Winifred:
We've had a call from Joy Higgins in Orient Buildings. Looks like baby's on the way!

Trixie Franklin:
I should go. I'm first on call.

Sister Winifred:
Oh! You stay and wave Nurse Lee off.

Cynthia Miller:
You sure?

Sister Winifred:
Never more so.

[Sr. Winifred leaves, as Sr. Julienne takes Jenny's hands]

Sister Julienne:
May you find peace, my dear.

[Fred helps Jenny get inside the car. Sr. Monica Joan leans through the open window]

Sister Monica Joan:
[quoting Leigh Hunt's poem] Say I'm weary, say I'm sad. Say that health and wealth have missed me. Say I'm growing old, but add Jenny kissed me.

[Sr. Monica Joan kisses Jenny's hand. Sr. Evangelina leads Monica Joan away from the car. As the car drives away, the group on the steps wave goodbye]

Mature Jenny:
[narrating] The doors to Nonnatus House were still wide open but my heart had closed. All I could do was try to keep living until I felt alive again.

[at the post-natal clinic just before Christmas, Chummy is weighing a mother's baby]

Chummy Noakes:
Over eighteen pounds. Bravo! About the same size as a turkey.

Sister Evangelina is trying to break the ice with Her Hand and She Sees her Husband Brian Evangelina me. On the Ground Knocked Out by one of the patients who hit Him. and when she tried take a blood sample for her Husband Brian Evangelina me.

Sister Evangelina:
writing in her nnotebook and She Finds the Right "Patient Who hit Brian and She Throws a strong right hook so She can Keep her Husband Brian Evangelina me. Out of Danger So the Patients can Stop Messing with Him But If She can't Help her Husband Brian Evangelina me.

and then I'm going to be Bullyed by The Patients again if She can do anything to Help me But if she can save me. I can be with Her for the. Rest of my Life and so We can have a Wedding together And.

Sister Evangelina your Husband Brian Evangelina me.Carrying you up the Stairs and you 2 are still kissing each other in the Mouth and Sister Evangelina's Husband Brian Evangelina me. picks her up and She gets undress and her Husband Brian Evangelina me. gets undress (On Screen)

Welcome the darkness, embrace it as a canopy from which the stars can hang.

For there are always stars, when we are where we ought to be, amongst the faces we love best.

Each with our place, each with our purpose, as fixed and familiar as the constellations.

The Darkness is beautiful.

For how else can we shine.

Closing lines read by Vanessa Redgrave, Season 9 Call the Midwife, Episode 8

The seasons will always turn.

The clouds will gather and the cold will come.

We will survive them.

We will grow regardless of the weather.

We’ll know wonder, where there’s been despair.

There will be happiness, and we will remember it.

There will be friendships that we won't forget.

Love is the constant.

Whereby we endure all winters and all storms.

It is the climate in which all things can thrive.

Closing lines read by Vanessa Redgrave, Season 9 Call the Midwife, Episode 8

Flowers take many forms. Each one has its story, and its roots. Each one unfurls, from its bulb or its kernel.

Revealing itself and all its promise as it will.

Each is entirely precious and unique.

Each will linger in the mind.

Each will teach us what it is to love.

To be torn, to nurture, and let go.

Not every garden blooms as we expected.

Despite our care, not every child can thrive.

Tears take the place of rain, and the sunshine fails us.

But the buds, however delicate, were perfect.

They were real, and their fleeting scent will live forever on the air.

The wise will always learn.

The generous will always find they have more to give.

Thus, we cross the threshold into freedom, Into progress, into embracing all that’s new.

The world shifts around us, and we shape ourselves to fit.

Imperfect and beautiful, wounded and thriving, delicate, invincible, forever moving on.

Time is not the tide.

It moves in only one direction.

Go forth with courage and in hope.

Change is not loss.

We must run with it, dance with it, give it all we have.

Closing lines read by Vanessa Redgrave, Season 9 Call the Midwife, Episode 5

The crisis of faith may come to any of us at any time. We must try to look on it as a test, a chance to examine how much we are worth and how far we can extend ourselves in the service and praise of God. Hold firm. He will return.

- Vanessa Redgrave, voice of mature Jennifer Worth. Call the Midwife. Season 10 Episode