First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday: Call the Midwife

Diane at Bibliophile By the Sea hosts First Chapter First Paragraph Tuesday, wherein bloggers can share the first paragraph or (a few) of a book they are reading or thinking about reading soon.  Here's my contribution to the cause.

My son gave me a copy of Jennifer Worth's memoir, Call the Midwife, for Mother's Day, knowing how much I love the series, and I started it yesterday.

It opens with this paragraph:

Nonnatus House was situated in the heart of the London Docklands. The practice covered Stepney, Limehouse, Millwall, the Isle of Dogs, Cubitt Town, Poplar, Bow, Mile End and Whitechapel. The area was densely populated and most families had lived there for generations, often not moving more than a street or two away from their birthplace. Family life was lived at close quarters and children were brought up by a widely extended family of aunts, grandparents, cousins and older siblings, all living within a few houses, or at the most, streets of each other. Children would run in and out of each other's homes all the time and when I lived and worked there, I cannot remember a door ever being locked, except at night. 

More of the Introduction can be found here, if I've whetted your appetite sufficiently.

I'm about a third of way done with the book and it's absolutely marvelous.  So far, the series has been very faithful to the book, although the first mention of Dr. Turner included a reference to his wife and children...

I have discovered that Jennifer Worth wrote four books about her nursing career so I imagine I will end up with all of them eventually.