To think that call the midwife is promoting smoking!

[ScottishJo31]

Just for the record I am no puritan or prude in fact I would consider myself a social smoker... Therefore I am not judgmental about smoking) however in the recent few episodes of Call the midwife... literally every other scene involves the cast and extras smoking... I can understand the need to show how life was in the 1960s ( more people smoked and fewer knew the dangers) but someone is lighting up in nearly every scene.. in the last episode a pregnant woman was offered a fag! ( again I get that pregnant woman didn't know the risks)
However It just seems like overkill, and almost like cigarette companies are advertising through the show!

What are other people's thoughts on this?

They were smoking last night to show their stress over the little girl adoption storyline I think.
Other characters smoking is to be indicative of the times.

I also think they're setting up for a storyline for the period when the word started to get out that smoking was bad for you. My parents both quit in 1968 after seeing a film that included pictures of a smokers lungs.

I agree that there was a lot last night and Trixie did look rather glamorous smoking in her civvies in the bedroom. I had also thought the Turners had given up.

I agree it was pretty common in those days - my NDN said that when she had her DC in the 1960s - homebirth - her DH the midwife and the GP all chain smoked through her labour and she had a couple too.

I was a bit surprised that they didn't have something on the problems with self-administering castor oil last night too- I know it was common then (and even 15- 20 years ago midwives wrote out how to take it in your notes when you were overdue and wanted to avoid an induction but it is frowned upon now.

It's a period piece and should reflect the way life was then not the way life is now.

CTM did an episode about Dr Turner and Shelagh giving up smoking (although he did have a stress-cig last night) and it included him reading about smoking being linked to lung diseases in the Lancet, seeing a dissection of a smokers lungs, Tim applying reverse psychology on him and him caring for someone with lung cancer.

They have shown the nascent understanding of smoking being bad but it was still very much the norm at the time- they would be wrong not to show it. It is part of showing how very different the prevailing culture was. Do you feel the same about smoking in shows Like Ashes to Ashes (which had a pregnant smoker as a plot point in one ep) and Life on Mars?

Gosh, don't watch Mad Men then. The amount of smoking and drinking in that!!!!

Complerely agree. I also think its promoting unprotected sex.

-sarcasm alert--

*strikethrough fail!

I must admit I did comment on that as well, I mean , I get that it was the norm..but even so!

@BookMeOnTheSudExpress since watching the programme I have become a part time nun, had nine children and have received a notice from the council saying my house is going to be demolished. I haven't started smoking though.

Don't be silly. Cigarette companies are not using CTM to promote their disgusting killer sticks.

I agree that if the series is to continue it will be setting up for a storyline about how bad smoking is. Its surprising how things have changed over the last 20 years alone as it was so the norm. Now its very rare though vapers are everywhere!

Probably too few days to be realistic if anything.
I spent most of my childhood in a haze of cigarette smoke and indeed my early working life. In fact some teachers smoked in class!

At the beginning of my teaching career, everybody had a fag break at playtime, and one well-loved teacher took her hot cup of tea and cigarette with her on playground duty. Both would now be considered Health and Safety hazards now. Not the done thing to smoke during lessons, but totally routine to spark up when staying on after school to tackle marking in the classroom (although in one instance a classroom was gutted by a small blaze caused by an imperfectly stubbed cigarette.)
As a pupil, (naice girls' grammar school) one expected a thick fug of tobacco smoke when visiting the staffroom, if you needed to see an off-duty teacher.
I'm told that doctors' conferences of the period would be covered by a pall of smoke.
My DF's army rations included cigarettes as standard.
Trains had "non-smoking" carriages, which were the exception to the general rule.
Sadly, we know now that the facts about health threats were out there, but supressed.
Grownups smoked, that was the way of things; as a child, I loved "sweet cigarettes"; purchased on a frosty morning, you could imitate the adults by puffing out clouds of warm breath.
Then came smoking and non-smoking staffroom, then completely smoke-free school premises.
The programme may surprise us, but it is true to life as it was.

Didn’t the surgeon general say smoking was dangerous in the mid 60’s?

Perhaps this is what showing the smoking is working towards?

I don't actually watch it apart from the odd scene here and there, but it seems quite culturally and historically factual, although obviously a drama, so smoking is part of that.

Haven’t you noticed they do this in all 1950/60s dramas? It’s how you know it’s In The Past. 😉

It's a period drama. At least it's semi-trying to be authentic, unlike Poldark featuring pubs without anyone smoking a pipe, everyone with excellent teeth and women with gym-toned arms.

Actually ToWanda is probably correct there, I certainly did notice everyone was at it last night. Would have been amusing if the pregnant woman had turned the cigarette and said ‘nah, I’ll stick to me wine, ta’.
Cue ‘cigarettes are bad for you’ story line.

I was born in 1961. In my childhood people smoked all the time including doctors in their consulting rooms and teachers in classrooms. Trains had smoking and non-smoking carriages. Planes, cinemas and theatres had separate areas for smokers and non smokers which was a bit pointless as the smoke obviously drifted over the entire place. As far as I know restaurants didn’t have non-smoking areas because there was no demand for it. Objecting to smoking was considered faddy and precious.

There are many good things about living now and not having to constantly breathe in other people’s smoke and wear clothes that stink of fag ash all the time is definitely one of them.

I get what you mean OP. I am an ex smoker, been quit 7 years. But I think the combination of lots of smoking and it being a sad episode, it made me want a fag!

I know that is how things were, and now we know better. Still made me think about having a fag. Interesting that they (shelia and the doc) smoked outside though, that is what made me want one more. If they had sat at the kitchen table and fagged it, it wouldn't have resonated as much with me.

I used to have a packet of toy sweet cigarettes in my handbag as a child. I can remember people smoking in the cinema, upstairs on the bus, on the train, on station platforms, the theatre, in restaurants in fact just everywhere.....

So CTM is true to life IMO.

@ScottishJo31

My DF in the 50s had tuberculosis and was hospitalised on bed rest for months. Although he did not smoke other members of the chest ward smoked regularly and in bed! It was only in 1950 that Dr Richard Doll published a study on the relevance between smoking and disease!

I would guess that the cigarettes used in the programme are "props" and contain nothing toxic!

It made me want one too

My late DM chain-smoked all through her pregnancy with me and my DB. During the birth she was given cigarettes by the midwives as pain control for the contractions! No such thing as epidurals then. It was considered weird if you didn't smoke.