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?

[peeriebear]

The books are definitely a lot more hard hitting. The woman having the abortion in the book- it didn't have a happy ending, even less so than the programme. They have sanitised a lot of the stories, and mixed up storylines from all the books into the series.
I love Sister Bernadette, she's magnetic.

[sarahtigh]

the NHS was started in 1948 so anyone born pre NHS is at least 64 / 65 years old, CTM is set in `1950's so everything is NHS

[plaingirly]

The Doctor is really rather dashing!

[LaVolcan]

hackmum I have wondered the same. As far as the midwifery goes I think she has taken true stories but changed some details and mixed people up a bit so as to not identify them. As far as the workhouse stuff goes, she couldn't possibly be talking from experience, but I suppose could have found out the stories from talking to the nuns or to older residents of Poplar.

It wasn't just working class people who needed to fear the workhouse. I had a great-grandfather who had a comfortable upbringing, private education, no expense spared;who then went and blued in the family fortune. My grandfather had to take his parents in in their old age, because it was either that or the workhouse.

[stubbornstains]

Would anybody else have loved an outfit called the Obstetric Flying Squad to rock up while they were having a baby?

[coribells]

The first episode I saw was the Christmas episode, I am hooked., I found the episodes with old who needed his legs dressing and the old lady with the toe nails particularly powerful. I recently came across a lady in rl with toe nails just like that. We have a fully functioning NHS but people still fall through the net, and in some ways we have less care in the home than those in the 1950s

[mrsjay]

The poverty and deprivation I witnessed has shaped my life and taught me never to be judgemental

When watching Call The Midwife I can still smell the East End.

and this was early 60s as you said did the women still have their babies at home or did the go to hospital by then

[SoleSource]

Enjoy that is really spooky!

[2old2beamum]

mrsjay fuddled mind Yes some babies were born at home and definitely well less than half. We did have many babies brought in to the children's hospital very shortly after birth both from home and maternity homes The Mothers Salvation Army Hospital and The Mile End Maternity Home some in a dreadful state.
TBH when we went out with the nuns we were dealing with many patients with cancer who were terminal. We did however go to antenatal and postnatal clinics the poverty was horrendous!
Bet you are sorry you asked

[Xenia]

I was born at home under protest in the 60s (first baby and my mother an early NCT member) and discharged herself almost immediately; her other babies were born at home. First births were more complex so you can see the logic of first at hospital and others at home.

In the 1950s people certainly did remember much older relatives who had been in the work houses.

The story needs happy endings but the reality would often not have been happy.

[CheapBread]

I find it uplifting. I rarely watch TV dramas but this one has me hooked.
It's fascinating to see how hard women/people had it in those days and makes me bloody thankful to be around now!

[Oodsigma]

In the book Jenny writes about it being very different to her training due to the massive poverty & deprivation. One reference to breast feeding as she had learnt formula was better but could see why that would be worse in poplar due to cost & lack of hygiene.

[Oodsigma]

In the book Jenny writes about it being very different to her training due to the massive poverty & deprivation. One reference to breast feeding as she had learnt formula was better but could see why that would be worse in poplar due to cost & lack of hygiene.

[Oodsigma]

Sorry lost connection & double posted!

[recall]

I find the main character Nurse Jenny a bit annoying, she seems a bit precious and too hesitant, the sort of person in RL that I would instantly clash with. I haven't read the books unfortunately, but is she like the character in the book?

[BertieBotts]

In the book she writes about the attitude to hospitals too, when the workhouses were closed down, many remained open as "infirmaries" where elderly or disabled or injured people would go, conditions were barely better than the workhouse - they weren't starved or beaten or put to work, but they were generally neglected and left without being sat up or seeing sunlight for days or weeks on end :( There was a man in the last series who Jenny became friendly with who ended up there.

Then once the infirmaries started to close they became the hospital buildings (and to this day many UK hospitals are built on old workhouse sites or housed in old workhouse buildings - it's true for a small part of my local one, which I never realised before reading the book.) but they had such a reputation of fear, of death and of never coming out again that many, many people were utterly terrified of the idea of going there. They didn't see a hospital as a safe, helping place at all.

Makes you wonder how much of "hospital fear" which is still fairly common is based on this old association with workhouses.

[MagratOfStolat]

I honestly thought I was going to throw up last week, I was in FLOODS. DH was like "are you OK?!" and I was literally retching from sheer sadness and just the awfulness of it!

I bloody love the series. It's incredible!

[mrsjay]

We did however go to antenatal and postnatal clinics the poverty was horrendous!
Bet you are sorry you asked

not at all I find it really interesting not that poverty and death is interesting but you know what I mean

[LaVolcan]

Did I watch the same programme? I thought it quite positive - the old man and his daughter were reconciled, he died in peace after having met his grandson. Sister Bernadette was having a crisis in her vocational life, so maybe she could seeTB as being sent as a way out of the nun's life.

On another note, I was around in the 1950s but the poverty was nowhere near as severe as in the East End. The local district nurse/midwife riding round on her bike was a well respected figure though.

[mrsjay]

My friends mum used to work in a building that used to be a 'girls maternity home' friend picked her mum up 1 day it was away out the way and surrounded by trees and it felt depressing those poor girls been sent to it must have felt

[BadMissM]

I love this programme....

It's only about 10 years before I was born. It echoes all the stories my grandmother used to tell me when I was a child. She grew up in Bethnal Green, and her stories were very similar to those you see on the series. She had all her children at home, as did her sisters. Reading the books is like listening to one of my Grandmother's stories...

My other grandmother used to tell me about her grandmother, who ended up in one of the 'infirmaries', simply because her family didn't have the space nor the money to take her in when she couldn't support herself. My mother has a photo of her and the other 'inmates' lined up aginst the wall...
Cameron would like it to be this waya agin....
My DD of 14 loves this series, and I think it's really important for her to understand how recently this happened, and where her family came from, and how all of this has changed so much in 50 years..

(Although I think Mr Cameron would like it to be this wayagain...

[JackieTheFart]

I love it. I like that it deals with real issues, but I admit last week's was harrowing. Makes me even more grateful that whatever I am dissatisfied with, at least I have access to contraception and am not living hand to mouth.