An Armful of Babies and a Cup of Tea: Memoirs of a 1950s Health Visitor

For all fans of Call the Midwifeamp;mdash;a touching memoir of a young health visitor in postwar England (from the 1940s to the 1970s).

After serving as a nurse in WW2, Molly Corbally joined the brand-new NHS and became one of the first official District Health Visitors, attending to mothers and babies from all walks of life in the picturesque village near Coventry she came to call home. Social work was uncharted territory at the time, and Britain was very much worse for wearamp;mdash;TB, polio, measles and whooping cough were just some of the hazards new babies faced. Social conditions could also add to the problems, when poverty and alcoholism were rife.

Armed with only her nursing training, her common sense and a desire to serve, Molly set out to win over a community and provide a new and valuable service in times of great change. As well as the challenges there were also joy and laughter, from the woman who finally had a baby after 15 years of trying to the woman who thought she should use marmalade as nappy cream because the hospital had never taken the label off the jar they were using to store it.

Warm, witty and moving, An Armful of Babies is a vivid portrait of rural England in the postwar years and a testament to an NHS in its own infancy and to what hasn't changed: the bond between parents and their children and the importance of protecting that.