Call The Midwife: A True Story Of The East End In The 1950S

CHUMMY

The first time I saw Camilla Fortescue-Cholmeley-Browne (“just call me Chummy”), I thought it was a bloke in drag. Six foot two inches tall, with shoulders like a front-row forward and size eleven feet, her parents had spent a fortune trying to make her more feminine, but to no effect.

Chummy and I were new together, and she arrived the morning after the memorable evening when Sister Monica Joan and I had polished off a cake intended for twelve. Cynthia, Trixie and I were leaving the kitchen after breakfast when the front doorbell rang, and this giant in skirts entered. She blinked short-sightedly down at us from behind thick, steel-rimmed glasses, and said, in the plummiest voice imaginable, “Is this Nonnatus House?”

Trixie, who had a waspish tongue, looked out of the door into the street. “Is there anyone there?” she called, and came back into the hallway, bumping into the stranger.

“Oh, sorry, I didn’t notice you,” she said, and made off for the clinical room.

Cynthia stepped forward, and greeted the woman with the same exquisite warmth and friendliness that had chased away my thoughts of bolting the night before. “You must be Camilla.”

“Oh, just call me Chummy.”

“All right then Chummy, come in and we will find Sister Julienne. Have you had breakfast? I’m sure Mrs B. can fix you up with something.”

Chummy picked up her case, took two steps, and tripped over the doormat. “Oh lawks, clumsy me,” she said with a girlish giggle. She bent down to straighten the mat and collided with the hallstand, knocking two coats and three hats on to the floor.

“Frightfully sorry. I’ll soon get them,” but Cynthia had already picked them up, fearing the worst.

“Oh thanks, old bean,” said Chummy, with a “haw-haw”.

Can this be real, or is she putting it on? I thought. But the voice was entirely real, and never changed, nor did the language. It was always “good show”, or “good egg”, or “what-ho”, and, strangely enough, for all her massive size, her voice was soft and sweet. In fact, during the time that I knew her, I realised that everything about Chummy was soft and sweet. Despite her appearance, there was nothing butch about her. She had the nature of a gentle, artless young girl, diffident and shy. She was also pathetically eager to be liked.

The Fortescue-Cholmeley-Brownes were top drawer County types. Her great-great-grandfather had entered the Indian civil service in the 1820s, and the tradition had progressed through the generations. Her father was Governor of Rajasthan (an area the size of Wales), which he still, even in the 1950s, traversed on horseback. All this we learned from the collection of photographs on display in Chummy’s room. She was the only girl amongst six brothers. All of them were tall, but unfortunately she was about an inch taller than the rest of the family.

All the children had been educated in England, the boys going to Eton, and Chummy to Roedean. They were placed in the care of guardians in this country, as the mother remained in India with her husband. Apparently Chummy had been at boarding school since she was six years of age, and knew no other life. She clung to her collection of family photographs with touching fervour - perhaps they were the closest she ever got to her family - and particularly loved one taken with her mother when she was about fourteen.

“That was the holiday I had with Mater,” she said proudly, completely unaware of the pathos of her remark.

After Roedean came finishing school in Switzerland, then back to London to the Lucy Clayton Charm School to prepare her for presentation at Court. Those were the days of debutantes, when the daughters of the “best” families had to “come out”, an expression meaning something quite different today. At that time it meant being presented formally to the monarch at Buckingham Palace. Chummy was presented and two photographs were proof of the event. In the first, an unmistakable Chummy in a ridiculous lacey ball gown, with ribbons and flowers, stood amongst a group of pretty young girls similarly attired, her huge, bony shoulders towering above their heads. The second photo was of her presentation to King George VI. Her great size and angular shape emphasised the petite charm of the Queen and the exquisite beauty of the two princesses, Elizabeth and Margaret. I wondered if Chummy was aware of how absurd she looked in the photos, which she was so pleased and so happy to display.

After the debutante bit came a year at a cordon-bleu school which took a small number of select young ladies on a residential basis. Chummy learned all the arts of the perfect hostess - the perfect hors d’oeuvre, the perfect pâté de foie gras- but remained ungainly, awkward, oversized, and generally unsuited to hostessing in any society. So a course of study at the best needlework school in London was deemed to be the right thing for her. For two years Chummy crocheted, embroidered and tatted, made lace and quilting and broderie anglaise. For two years she machined and set shoulders and double hemmed. All to no avail. While the other girls herringboned and feather-stitched and chatted happily, or sadly, of their boyfriends and lovers, Chummy, liked by all but loved by none, remained silent, always the odd chum out.

She never knew how it happened, but suddenly, unsought, she found her vocation: nursing and God. Chummy was going to be a missionary.

In a fever pitch of excitement, she enrolled at the Nightingale School of Nursing at St Thomas’s Hospital in London. She was an instant success, and won the Nightingale Prize three years in succession. She adored the work on the wards, feeling for the first time in her life confident and competent, knowing that she was where she should be. Patients loved her, senior staff respected her, junior staff admired her. In spite of her great size she was gentle, with an intuitive understanding of patients, especially the very old, very sick, or dying. Even her clumsiness - a hallmark of earlier years - left her. On the wards she never dropped or broke a thing, never moved awkwardly or crashed into things. All these traits seemed to beset and torment her only in social life, for which she remained wholly ill-adapted.

Of course, young doctors and medical students, 90 per cent of whom were male and always on the look out for a pretty nurse, made fun of her and passed crude jokes about the difficulty of mounting a carthorse, and which of them had the organ of a stallion suited to the job. Freshmen were told of the ravishingly lovely nurse on North Ward, with whom it would be possible to fix a blind date, but they fled in horror when the blindness was given sight, vowing vengeance upon the jokers. Fortunately, such stories or pranks never reached Chummy’s ears and passed straight over her head unnoticed. Had she been informed, it is very likely that she would just not have understood, and would have beamed amiably at her tormentors, shaming them with her innocence.

Chummy’s entry into midwifery was less successful, but no less spectacular. It was some days before she could go out on the district. In the first place, no uniform would fit her. “Never mind, I’ll make it,” she said cheerfully. Sister Julienne doubted if there was a pattern available. “Not to worry, actually I can make it out of newspaper.” To everyone’s astonishment, she did. Material was obtained, and, in no time at all, a couple of dresses were made.

The bicycle was not so easy. For all the genteel education and ladylike accomplishments, no one had thought it necessary to teach her to ride a bicycle. A horse yes, but a bicycle, no.

“Never mind, I can learn,” she said cheerfully. Sister Julienne said it was hard for an adult to acquire the skill. “Not to worry. I can practise,” was her equally exuberant response.

Cynthia, Trixie and I went with her to the bicycle shed, and selected the largest - a huge old Raleigh, of about 1910 vintage, made of solid iron with a scooped-out front and high handlebars. The solid tyres were about three inches thick, and there were no gears. The whole contraption weighed about half a ton, and for this reason no one rode it. Trixie oiled the chain and we were ready for the off.

The time was just after lunch. We agreed to push Chummy up and down Leyland Street until she found her balance, after which we would travel in convoy to where the roads were quiet and flat. Most people who have tried to ride a bicycle in adult life for the first time will tell you that it is a terrifying experience. Many will say that it is impossible, and give up. But Chummy was made of sterner stuff. The Makers of the Empire were her forebears, and their blood flowed in her veins. Besides which, she was going to be a missionary, for which it was necessary that she should be a midwife. If she had to ride a bicycle to achieve this, so be it - she would ride the thing.

We pushed her, huge and shaking, shouting “pedal, pedal, up, down, up, down” until we were exhausted. She weighed about twelve stone of solid bone and muscle, and the bike another six stone, but we kept on pushing. At four o’clock the local school ended, and children came pouring out. About ten of them took over, giving us girls a well-earned rest as they ran along beside and behind, pushing and shouting encouragement.

Several times Chummy fell heavily to the ground. She hit her head on the kerb, and said, “Not to worry - no brains to hurt.” She cut her leg, and murmured, “Just a scratch.” She fell heavily on to one arm, and proclaimed, “I have another.” She was indomitable. We began to respect her. Even the Cockney children, who had seen her as a comic turn, changed their tune. A tough-looking cookie of about twelve, who had been openly jeering at first, now looked solemnly at her with admiration.

The time had come to venture further than Leyland Street. Chummy could balance and she could pedal, so we agreed to half an hour cycling together around the streets. Trixie was in front, Cynthia and I on either side of Chummy, the children running behind, shouting.

We got to the top of Leyland Street and no further. It had not occurred to us to show Chummy how to turn a corner. Trixie turned left, calling “just follow me”, and rode off. Cynthia and I turned left, but Chummy kept going straight ahead. I saw her fixed expression as she came straight for me, and after that all was confusion. Apparently a policeman had been in the act of crossing the street when the two of us hurtled into him. We came to rest on the opposite pavement. Seeing a representative of the law hit full frontal by a couple of midwives was joy for the children. They screamed with delight, and doors opened all down the street, emitting even more children and curious adults.

I was lying on my back in the gutter, not knowing what had happened. From this position I heard a groan, and then the policeman sat up with the words, “What fool did that?” I saw Chummy sit up. She had lost her glasses, and peered round. Maybe this could account for her next action or maybe she was dazed. She slapped the man heavily on the back with her huge hand and said, “No whingeing, now. Cheer up, old bean. Stiff upper lip and all that, what?” Clearly she was unaware that he was a policeman.

He was a big man, but not as big as Chummy. He fell forward at the blow, his face hitting one of the bicycles, and he cut his lip. Chummy merely said, “Oh, just a little scratch. Nothing to make a fuss about, old sport,” and slapped him on the back again.

The policeman was outraged. He took out his notebook, and licked his pencil. The children vanished. The street cleared. He looked at Chummy with menace. “I’ll take your name and address. Assaulting a policeman is a serious offence, I’ll have you know.”

I swear it was Cynthia’s sexy voice that got us off. Without her, we would have been up before the magistrate the next day. I never knew how she did it, and she was quite unconscious of her charm. She said little, but the man’s anger quickly vanished, and he was eating out of her hand in no time at all. He picked up the bicycles and escorted us down the street to Nonnatus House. He left us with the words, “Nice meeting you young ladies. I hope we meet again sometime.”

Chummy had to spend three days in bed. The doctor said she had delayed shock and mild concussion. She slept for the first thirty-six hours, her temperature raised and pulse erratic. On the fourth day she was able to sit up, and asked what had happened. She was horrified when we told here, and deeply remorseful. As soon as she could go out, her first visit was to the police station to find the constable she had injured. She took with her a box of chocolates and a bottle of whisky.