Karen Lawrence

‘I’m going to snuff out the old witches – every last one of them!’

Childbirth in England is a state-controlled procedure. Midwives have been outlawed for decades. Only a handful remain, risking everything to help mothers give birth in secret, but now their very existence is under threat.

When young nurse Chiara arrives from Sicily, her dreams...

In 2013, I returned to University at the age of forty-eight to train as a midwife. After having seven children of my own, I felt a strong sense of vocation to support other women on their journeys to parenthood.

Becoming a midwife was one of the most thrilling and challenging adventures I have ever undertaken. It took me to places few people are...

Walsingham is a special place. A sleepy English village buried deep in the north Norfolk countryside, Walsingham hums with a spiritual resonance so gentle you might mistake it for the baa of the sheep in the fields or the burble of the little river. According to tradition, the Virgin Mary appeared here in the eleventh century. Walsingham became...