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Book Review - Sisters of the East End by Helen Batten (Aby & M 86)

The life stories of a dwindling community of Church of England nuns dedicated to nursing and midwifery, woven however skilfully into a narrative, dubbed a ‘Memoir’ by her publishers, may seem less than promising material. Not so in the hands of Helen Batten (Aby & M 86-88).

In the preparation of this lively fictional account of the vocation and creation of a member of the Community of St John the Divine, Sister Catherine Mary, Helen Batten visited and stayed at their convent in Birmingham eight times. She poured over their archives and interviewed them together and individually. She gained their trust, and she was herself moved when they told her how each of them had been called to be a nun. Without exception it was not something they had wanted – they felt God was pursuing them until they could run no more. Their individual stories were all different, but for each of them life meant sacrifice, service, and internal struggle.

Helen Batten has honestly and deeply penetrated the spirituality of a nun, while recording faithfully, with warmth and good humour, the day-to-day doubts, practical problems (particularly of nursing and midwifery), and occasional disappointments. Nuns are, after all, human.

They were Sisters of the East End until after the Second World War, during which they maintained nursing services, assisted at bombsites, and above all remained faithful to their calling in the East End; after a post-war sojourn in Hastings, the Community moved to Birmingham in 1976, where they were confronted by new, chiefly multi-cultural challenges, to which they continue to respond actively, providing healing, reconciliation, and pastoral care.

Helen Batten cannot have escaped being influenced by some of what she learned about the sisters; our good fortune is that she has enabled us to share some of her experience.

David Wright (Staff 73-06)

 

Originally Written: 08-Apr-2014 06:28, Last Updated: 05-Nov-2014 10:18