Farewell To The East End

influenced me more than she ever knew, but perhaps her mind could not stand the strain. She had shown signs of clinical depression around the time of puberty, and this was a state of mind that beset her for many years. She left the order and became a hospital staff nurse, then returned to the convent to resume her life vows, but left again. Why does God so often cause good people to suffer so greatly? It is a question I have often asked myself. Sister Julienne turned the question the other way, and said, ‘God loves greatly those whom he requires to suffer greatly.’ This is a riddle wrapped in a mystery we cannot comprehend.
    Cynthia limped through life for many years, in and out of psychiatric hospitals. Many drugs were prescribed, and also electric shock therapy. A true depressive lives a life of inner hell, which little or sometimes nothing can alleviate. My heart bled for gentle Cynthia, but there was nothing I could do to help.
    At the age of thirty-nine she met a clergyman who was a widower and had a son. They married, and his needs, mentally, were even greater than her own. Somehow the necessity to look after him and organise his life became the focus of her existence and cured her. We none of us can understand the complexities of the human mind. She became a very happy and successful vicar’s wife and a health visitor. Her husband Roger was also a classical scholar. At the age of sixty-five he retired from the ministry, and for several years they lived like a couple of hippy teenagers. With no more than a rucksack each, and a budget of £3 a day, they roamed hundreds of miles across Greece, Israel, Jordan and Turkey, examining the architectural ruins of ancient civilisations. They slept in little caf’s, on buses, under the stars on beaches, in fields, in olive groves and lemon orchards. They planned nothing, but simply went where the fancy took them.
    After retirement, Cynthia’s husband joined the Church of England World Mission Association. This meant that he could be asked to act as a locum for any church, at home or overseas, which was temporarily without a priest.
    The couple were both about seventy years of age when the telephone rang one evening.
    ‘This is the World Mission Association. Could you go to Lima? The vicar has just been shot.’
    ‘Sounds nasty. Well yes, certainly. When do you want me?’
    ‘The week after next.’
    ‘I dare say we could go. I must ask my wife.’
    Aside: ‘Cynthia, could we go to Lima the week after next? The vicar has been shot.’
    ‘Where’s Lima?’
    ‘Peru. South America.’
    ‘Well, yes, I should think we could. A fortnight is enough time to pack things up here. For how long?’
    To the telephone: ‘Yes, we could go. For how long?’
    ‘Three months. Six, perhaps. Not really sure.’
    ‘That’s all right. Send us details, flight tickets, etc., and we’ll go.’
    Cynthia – quiet, sensitive, depressive – led a life of high romance and breathtaking adventure in her old age that few of us would have dared contemplate, still less had the courage to carry out.

    Some people have described my first book Call the Midwife as a spiritual journey, and they are correct – it is. I owe to the Sisters more than I could possibly repay. Probably they do not know how great is my debt. The words ‘if God really does exist, then that must have implications for the whole of life’ could not be dismissed. Sister Julienne and I spent many hours discussing these subjects, and the influence of her goodness has shaped my development. We corresponded, and I visited her all through my life, and I took my own children with me to the Mother House; we stayed in the caravan in the grounds of the convent.
    I remained very close to her and always sought her prayers and wisdom at any difficult point in my life. She always guided me well. In 1991 Sister Julienne developed a brain tumour, and for the last three months of her life I visited her every Friday. It was an enriching experience, even though, or perhaps because , she was deteriorating week by week. Time was short, and getting shorter, in which to convey, if not in words, then in silent empathy, my love and gratitude. On the last Friday she was deeply unconscious, and it was obvious that her life was drawing to its end. She died two days later on Sunday morning – a beautiful day in June at the hour when her Sisters were saying Lauds, the first monastic office to greet the dawn.
    It was a singular honour to be