Kicking the Habit
From Convent to Casualty in 1960s Liverpool
Kicking the Habit
From Convent to Casualty in 1960s Liverpool
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Paperback / softback
£8.99
Publisher: SPCK Publishing
ISBN: 9780745956114
Number of Pages: 240
Published: 21/06/2013
Width: 13 cm
Height: 19.8 cm
If you loved the TV series 'Call the Midwife', this real life account of a young woman's journey from convent to casualty is just for you. Kicking the Habit is the story of Eleanor Stewart's transition from carefree young woman of the Beatles generation through to a reclusive life in a French convent and on to serving as an inner city midwife.
Beginning among the parties and nightclubs of the swinging sixties, Eleanor's story is one of drama, excitement, exhilaration and tragedy as she first gives up everything for the life of a nun, and then sacrifices the peace and tranquillity of the religious life for the business of bringing new life into the world she's denied, but must now re-enter.
Written with honesty and affection, this is an intimate portrait of convent and hospital life that will appeal to readers of biography, social history and the details often missing from fiction set in the rapidly changing social and spiritual world of the 1960s.
Contents
Ack nowledgments 7
PART 1: Entry 9
1 A n Ordinary Girl 11
2 The Furies at the Door 18
3 A Very Big Decision 24
4 First Impressions 29
5 Black Pudding 35
6 A Real Beginning 38
7 Le arning the Ropes 42
8 Secrets and Mysteries 52
9 House Training 58
PART 2: Noviciate 71
10 "Taking the Veil" 73
11 A Novice's Life for Me! 81
12 So Much to Learn, to Love, and to Understand 88
13 Music and a Pink Corset 96
14 Holiday Time 101
15 Crisis 111
16 Death and Sister Pauline 120
17 The Turkey Experience 126
18 A "Hustings" and the delights of Literature 132
19 A Sawdust Carpet and a private Epiphany 138
PART 3: Profession 149
20 St Julien's School, Le Mans 151
21 W retchedness in romiley 158
22 A Happy house and a Change of Direction 164
23 Broadgreen, Val Doonican, and Other Oddities 170
24 Re newal of Vows and "Night Duty" 179
25 A New Broom and Family Worries 188
26 The Burns Unit and a Child Called David 197
27 Gh astly Gynae! 203
28 More Night-time Drama and that "Lovin' Feeling" 209
29 Midwifery, Three-Year Vows and Uncertainty 218
30 The "Leaving of Liverpool" 229
Glossary 237
