A HEART-WARMING tale with a nostalgic tone.

For those readers who love to reminisce about the past, then ‘The Midwives of Raglan Road’ is a meaningful read written by an author who brings the characters to life through her knowledge of growing up in Yorkshire.

Jenny Holmes’ great aunts worked in Edwardian times as seamstresses, milliners and upholsterers. Their tales of life lived with little material wealth but with great spirit and independence, of a sense of community and fierce family loyalty has clear inspired Jenny’s writing.

As well as penning ‘The Midwives of Raglan Road’ Jenny has also written fiction for children and adults since her early 20s, and had a series of childrens’ books adapted for the BBC and ITV.

Although Jenny has lived in the Midlands and travelled widely in America, she returned to her Yorkshire roots to bring up her two daughters.

‘The Midwives of Raglan Road’ is very much about families with the character, Hazel Price, at its heart. Hazel is a newly trained midwife returning to the streets of her childhood.

As well as dealing with the demands of the job, naturally there has been a significant change on the street due to the passage of time.

Hazel’s modern methods and supposedly ‘stuck up’ ways bring her into conflict with her mother, other family members and the residents of Raglan Road.

Her year away down in the smoke had seen her grow up but returning to Raglan Road brought her back to her teenage years, only the street had changed and so had the people living there.

“One of the problems Hazel had come up against after her year away in London and her return to Raglan Road was the unshakeable feeling that she was fourteen years old again, a school leaver about to embark on the rocky road to adulthood.

“For that was how her mother treated her - as a naive girl with ideas above her station and a tendency to answer back.”

While aware all eyes are on her as she assists in home deliveries and supports the local GP, like any true Yorkshire lass, Hazel has the determination.

The days are long and hard but Hazel brings knowledge and compassion to her work. Then the inevitable happens when a complicated birth ends disastrously.

After calling in on the heavily pregnant Myra Moxon, the vivacious girl she’d known the year before and whose husband, John Moxon, she had met and was beginning to fall for, Hazel was concerned about her suspected hypertension.

She’d encouraged Myra to attend clinic but despite Hazel and John’s efforts to get her to attend the clinic it seemed she wasn’t willing to accept the medical help she needed.

As Myra is about to give birth Hazel swings into action. Myra has passed out, unconscious, and an emergency situation is rapidly developing as Hazel discovers Myra’s convulsions were brought on by full-blown eclampsia.

The doctor is swiftly summoned as Hazel battles to save mother and the baby who arrives with the chord wound tightly around his neck. Despite Hazel’s rapid actions she can already recognise the baby is stillborn.

“Hazel’s heart missed a beat and cold shock coursed through her.”

But the battle wasn’t over. Myra’s condition was rapidly deteriorating too and, as the doctor felt once more for a pulse he turns to her husband to deliver the devastating news.

Without wanting to divulge too much of the plot, readers will be able to make their own minds up about the circumstances Hazel finds herself in.

A lovely heart-warming book and well worth the read....

‘The Midwifes of Raglan Road,’ by Jenny Holmes, is published on December 15 by Corgi. The paperback is £5.99. For more information visit penguin.co.uk