To think Call the Midwife is too depressing

[jewelledsky]

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

[gazzalw]

Yes, my DS (12) is intrigued by it too....Am particularly impressed that a drama that's female driven in plot and particulars can be appealing to boys too. It is indeed a fantastic way of showing social history in an 'engaging' way.

[SmiteYouWithThunderbolts]

YABU. It's not always comfortable viewing but it sure as hell makes me grateful for the social housing, benefits system, contraception and NHS as it is today.

[NeverKnowinglyUnderstood]

I find it the opposite... people facing the most hardships and yet found ways of making the best of their lot wherever possible.

also as a social history it is fascinating.

[MrsBeep]

Last nights was very tear jerking, ended up sobbing all over my ironing, but they're not all like that, and as someone else said they are aided by very happy moments.

I want to read the book too.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Ha ! All the posters saying this was set in the decade their parents were born !

It was only the decade before I was born !

And I remember our Health Visitor riding round on her black bicycle with her black stockings - the overall impression to a 1960's 5 year old was definitely serious, sombre, and old-fashioned even then!

I often think what you said thinkso - about how people will look back at our lives - I wonder what they will make of them !

[WestieMamma]

YANBU I think it's quite triggering. I've felt very sad since watching last night's, and am getting teary again writing about it. I'm almost 8 months pregnant and for me it was heartbreaking to watch last night as my Dad died of heart failure recently so will never get to meet his grandson. :(

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

I think Chummy will make an appearance, back from Africa, next week ?
That should brighten things up a bit !

[minouminou]

I think it's on at an ideal time....younger kids will be in bed, but older ones....say 11-12 plus will be up and interested. I'd have loved it at that age.

[JugglingFromHereToThere]

Sorry last night's episode made you sad Westie

Sounds like the books are quite harrowing and they've toned things down quite a bit, but perhaps they need to go further to lighten and brighten the mood.

I'd like to be able to watch it with DD, who's 13, but feel I have to keep sending her out. I don't know, maybe I should let her watch, but even I don't feel I want to watch everything (perhaps because I know family are around though)
Feel it could be a little lighter especially for a Sunday evening pre-watershed.
Did notice the woman in labour last night was less of a screamer though unlike me

[ivykaty44]

I have to admit that as I read the books it was

thank goodness for the church and the nuns

rather than thanks for the NHS

as it was the nuns that had been helping the woman of Poplar survive child birth for the last 50 years rather than doctors private or NHS

some of the Nuns were going to deliver babies to people they had delivered years before and without them things wouldn't have been good in a lot of cases

[hackmum]

I quite enjoy it, except that I think it's sometimes too sentimental.

The books, especially Shadow of the Workhouse, are much more harrowing. They've sanitised almost all the stories for the tv series. In last night's episode it didn't mention that the reason Julia's five siblings all died of TB was that she was a carrier, and that her child eventually died of TB for the same reason. (In the book, the child was actually born near the beginning of the war.)

Jane's back story, as told in the book, is so horrific you couldn't actually show it on tv.

[Missbopeep]

Gosh you lot are young!

I was born at the same time as CTM is set- the 50s. It shows a certain side of life but believe me it wasn't all like that!

My parents married in 1948 and waited 7 years until i was born- contraception was available, and they weren't rich. My mum worked in a typing pool- like last night's episode- and my dad worked in the ship yards. It was quite possible to space your children or not get pregnant- even my grans had only 2 or 3 children each and they were born in the 1890s. Contraception was available but you had to buy it.

The programme dwells on the hard side of life but it's not how everyone lived in that era.

[expatinscotland]

Haven't ever seen it. Doesn't seem my cup of tea and looks depressing even in the adverts/trailers.

[Missbopeep]

It's not depressing at all- it's uplifting generally as each episode ends on an upbeat note albeit with some tragedy along the way!

I am trying to predict what will happen to TB nun- either she will die and marry DR on her death bed, ( or at least they will declare thier love for each other) or she will recover from TB, throw off her habit and they will marry and live happily ever after.

[ppeatfruit]

The thing about CTM is the QUALITY of the writing, directing and acting (Vanessa Redgrave's voiceover and the music used are amazing!) it is beautiful as well as very sad in places. It makes you feel sympathy for every character even the batty old nuns. I love it and will not hear a negative word against it. So yes YABVVU !!!

[exoticfruits]

I find it very warming and uplifting. It was grim in that place, at that time. I find it generally ends happily-I don't think it did in RL.

[TheSilveryPussycat]

Ha juggling I was born early in the 50's and I think thegreylady was as well :)

[CinnabarRed]

I couldn't watch the episode about the baby born with Spina Bifida. The abortion one was harrowing, of course, but somehow I can cope better when awful things are happening to adults rather than children.

[limitedperiodonly]

I love it. That comment about the broken biscuits the other week. Oh God.

[CinnabarRed]

What was the broken biscuit comment?

[atthewelles]

I did find last night's episode very depressing.
Thank God for Trixie and her red stilettoes!

In general, though, I love this programme and I think while it shows the difficult and very sad parts of life in the East End in the 1950s it also shows a community spirit which has sadly died out.

Delighted to see Chummy will be back next week. She really left a gap in the programme.

[ivykaty44]

CR

the home for special needs were given broken biscuits from the factory next door....

[limitedperiodonly]

In the spina bifida episode where the father was being shown round the home where his son would end up and the young man showing him round said it wasn't a bad life because there was a biscuit factory next door and they always gave the children in the home the broken ones.

And even though the people running the home were nice that was all that children like him could expect.

[spottyhankystripysocks]

YABU

I love it! It is based on how life really was and is an interesting piece of social history.