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Original poster

To think Call the Midwife is too depressing

294 replies

jewelledsky · 24/02/2013 20:03

for a Sunday night and to almost be tempted by Top Gear as a light viewing alternative? Where is Downton Abbey?

OP posts:
ALMOSTMRSG · 24/02/2013 21:28

Tonights episode reminded me of my lovely dad. He lost his siblings to TB in the 40's and left him in poor health and disabled as the TB weakened his spine. Life is often sad. Call The Midwife reflects life as it once was.

LaurieFairyCake · 24/02/2013 21:29

Last weeks was very hard to watch, this weeks was lovely and uplifting.

minouminou · 24/02/2013 21:31

I see it as a love letter to the NHS because you see how it made a difference to people's lives. The episode with poor old Mrs Jenkins (with the toenails)....she thought the nurses were coming to take her back to the workhouse, because thst's the only "social care" she'd ever known.
It makes me really appreciate the NHS because this series throws into relief just how much of a revelation/relief/amazing gift it is.

Which makes me feel doubly sad when I see what's happening to it.

pumpkinsweetie · 24/02/2013 21:34

I really enjoy Call The MidwideSmile.
Series one was good, and this one even better. Yes there are lots of sad tales, but in those days there wasn't as much medical advances like there are now. I, myself find it really interesting watching what women in childbirth went through in that era.
Haven't watched todays one as i have just had a mc & it's too raw for me right now but in time i will get back to watching it.

pumpkinsweetie · 24/02/2013 21:36

I agree miniou, awful isn't it how this government are set to ruin the NHS.
It may not be perfect, but the NHS is there and is mostly very good.

McNewPants2013 · 24/02/2013 21:36

Sorry for your loss pumpkin Thanks

pumpkinsweetie · 24/02/2013 21:36

Thankyou Mcnew x

ConferencePear · 24/02/2013 21:41

It makes me very thankful not just for the medical advances but the changes in social attitudes. The shame of having a baby out of marriage for example and work opportunities for mothers.

ConferencePear · 24/02/2013 21:43

It makes me very thankful not just for the medical advances but the changes in social attitudes. The shame of having a baby out of marriage for example and work opportunities for mothers.

Viviennemary · 24/02/2013 21:47

It does make people (like me anyway) grateful for the NHS and better housing and grateful that attitudes to a lot of things have changed. I think some people did lead very grim lives in those days. But there was a really good community spirit.

DonderandBlitzen · 24/02/2013 21:52

The Call the Midwife Book had some really upsetting bits, but the book "Shadows of the Workhouse" that she also wrote was even more upsetting i think. I hope that they don't make a TV dramatisation of it as it was just too upsetting.

scarlettsmummy2 · 24/02/2013 21:57

I agree, it's been very upsetting this series. I have been in floods of tears every episode in a way I wasn't with the first series.

LaVolcan · 24/02/2013 22:14

I thought this week's quite touching, with the old man saying to the baby 'I'm just going while your arriving,' and telling him it would be his job to get the barrels up.

thegreylady · 24/02/2013 22:16

To me it is one of very few things I can be bothered to watch. It isn't a period bodice ripper but is rooted in our recent history. In the 50's I was growing up in a council house ina NE pit village. I remember the mobile Xray vans very well.
CTM avoids most of the saccharine sentimentality of most Sunday evening viewing.

thegreylady · 24/02/2013 22:19

The character Jane plays a central part in Shadows of the Workhouse which is gritty and harrowing. I think they have used sanitised excerpts from it in this and the first series.

JazzAnnNonMouse · 24/02/2013 22:21

They've used storylines from 'shadows of the workhouse' already so I'm guessing that they are combining the two Smile

Cornwall73 · 24/02/2013 22:28

I don't find it depressing, I think it's a very necessary dramatisation of social history that you don't learn about at school. Conditions were grim and the NHS made a huge difference. I read the three books and if anything I find the TV series too sanitised. The books are very harrowing especially the workhouse ones.

DonderandBlitzen · 24/02/2013 22:34

Oh have they? I must admit I've not watched many of the TV episodes. Blush Her story was so deeply upsetting in Shadows of the Workhouse it was unbearable I thought.

PedlarsSpanner · 24/02/2013 22:40

gosh no I find it a wonderful prog

and joy of joys, Chummy's back from her travels next week too

Tansie · 24/02/2013 22:43

My nearly 12 year old DS watched it with me last week (the back-street abortion one.)

It was a great opportunity for me to talk about the wonders of contraception, the horrors of endless child-producing, the poverty it brings and how The Pill brought us out of the dark ages. It was sufficiently uplifting where we see that the woman survived but I think that as a social history esp for DS, it's been useful. He was really disappointed this week that Top Gear won in my house (philistine older DB...) but I said we'd watch it together on iplayer tomorrow.

Sure, I can't 'just sit there'- as you can't if you have a curious DC beside you, watching anything but early-evening light entertainment rubbish, but the opportunity to explain stuff is great.

And yay to the NHS.

Alliwantisaroomsomewhere · 24/02/2013 22:47

I love the show, but feel that it should be post 9pm watershed viewing.

So sorry about your mc, pumpkin.

DeepRedBetty · 24/02/2013 23:09

ddtwins and I have been hooked from the very first episode (they're just turned 14). I find it a beautifully balanced drama and I'm delighted to find something that isn't Friends or Big Bang Theory or wall to wall MTV that they're willing to watch. Also they've picked up loads of social history from it - as indeed have I, and I thought I was well educated!

Suzieismyname · 24/02/2013 23:42

It's great TV. I've just read the first two books on holiday and they were absolutely gripping. Some of it is so sad and some is so uplifting. I'm definitely more grateful to be having my children in the 21st century rather than the beginning/middle of the 20th!
It's amazing to think how times have changed, especially what we perceive to be poverty!

DonderandBlitzen · 24/02/2013 23:59

Something that has never left me from the first book is her description of the smell of the ante natal clinic. It smelled because she had to heat up their wee over a bunsen burner to test it and also because some of them didn't have the means to wash regularly and so were smelly down below when she had to examine them, plus some had infections. I think the author was quite gifted in her descriptions of how vile the smell was and it still makes me cringe a bit to think of it.

Bue · 25/02/2013 00:05

I don't think it's depressing at all, I find it quite feel good. Yes there are upsetting bits, but such is life, and it is usually countered by something lighter. The wonderful swinging soundtrack helps too. And gosh, is it ever sanitised compared to the books!!