I’m reading Jennifer Worth’s wonderful book, Call The Midwife. Last night I read the chapters about her relationship with the nun, Sister Evangelina. Apart from telling the story of this remarkable woman, Worth mulls over the fact that the relationship never became one of trust, or respect or even tolerance. Everything she did prompted criticism and that caused her to be clumsy and awkward in the nun’s presence.

This morning, during that lovely period of being awake but not alert, a possible answer occurred to me. Did Sister Evangelina sense Worth’s writer’s observation and resist it? Did she see that while Worth the nurse and midwife was all she should be, there was another dimension? The standing apart that we all practise while the stories lodge in our brains is evident to many. It’s Barrie’s M’Connachie in us all.