78 Quotes by Jennifer Worth

All nuns, by the very fact of their monastic profession, are exceptional people. No ordinary woman could live such a life. There must inevitably be something, or many things, that are outstanding about a nun.

The men were ordered to retreat, and to leave the dead. In the sun the injured would die of thirst the following day. “That was the moment when I realised the truth of my mother’s words, that we were just ‘cannon-fodder’. Young private soldiers were ordered, time and time again, to march directly into gunfire, and High Command didn’t give a damn how many died, nor the cost in human suffering.

I remember one old woman we pulled out of the rubble. She wasn’t hurt. She gripped my arm and said: ‘That bugger Hitler. ‘E’s killed me old man, good riddance, ’e’s killed me kids, more’s the pity. ‘E’s bombed me ’ouse, so I got nowhere ’a live, bu’ ’e ain’t got me. An’ I got sixpence in me pocket an’ vat pub on ve corner, Master’s Arms, ain’t been bombed, so let’s go an’ ’ave a drink an’ a sing-song.’” There.

One can only love God, and through His grace come to love His people.

Most houses had a wireless, but I did not see a single TV set during my time in the East End, which may well have contributed to the size of the families.

And ‘woman’ in the slums is capable of taking on almost superhuman responsibility, from a very young age, that would crush most of us. Today they live in luxury – look at all the giddy young girls around us – they have no memory of how their mothers and grandmothers lived and died. They have no understanding of what it took to raise a family twenty or thirty years ago.