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?

I've never smoked and am very very anti-smoking, but this is ridiculous. It's not a public service broadcast. It's trying to be historically accurate! Are you also going to claim that war films are encouraging violence and period dramas are encouraging people to have servants and wear bustles?

BeardieWeirdie How are you sure the midwives didn’t smoke in their bedrooms? Of course they did! Life was so much different then, and as previous posters have said, Drs used to encourage smoking to ‘calm your nerves’
I remember my maths teacher used to smoke his pipe in the classroom and used to put it down in an ashtray on his desk when writing on the blackboard.

The programme focuses on pregnant women and mums. Until the 60s few women smoked. So there would be less smoking seen in the earlier episodes. But in the 60s smoking amongst women took off and increased into the 70s

Nah, they're setting the stage for a big weepy baby death due to smoking/a doctor starts fighting against the establishment after he's seen too many baby deaths/miscarriages/premature births in smokers storyline.

That makes it less of an advertisement and more of a public information film.

My first pregnancy started in 1970, definitely no one was promoting smoking then. One of the first things they asked at the booking in appointment. I got a lecture even though I didn't smoke.

Lots of people did smoke in the 60s but not everyone, I didn't, my future husband didn't, my mother didn't but my father did. I do think it is a bit exaggerated.

Yes, you are being unreasonable. Its a period piece. That is how the world was during those particular times.

It was considered weird if you didn't smoke. It really wasn't.

My granddad was a doctor and smoked! He did give it up earlier than most (late 1950s/ early 6s) as he learnt about the health warnings sooner than the general population.

It was promoted as a healthy thing to do in the 1920s and 30s I think!

Isn't being concerned about accurate depiction of smoking in the '60's equivalent to getting pissed off about sexism in Mad Men?

Haven't caught up with the latest episode yet, but there has been a conversation on smoking recently in CtM. I suspicious there might be a(nother) smoking related storyline coming.

In the 80s everyone was smoking, and we knew the dangers, I expect the 60s was like this. My mum tells tales of everyone smoking at college, lecturers and students.

It no more promotes smoking than Peaky Blinders promotes the newsboy cap.

I don’t see loads of people wearing them, except in fancy dress.

Everyone knows the dangers of smoking these days, for most it's drummed into you at school. Watching someone light up on call the midwife on a sunday evening isn't going to suddenly override that

YABU. My mother did her midwifery training in the 60's and she said there was more smoking than shown in CTMW.
One midwife she worked with on the district used to have a fag on the go during deliveries .

my mum say she still gets older patients who think smoking is healthy and don't believe what doctors say now.

i haven't watched it in ages but im assuming theyre setting up a storyline, like the thalidomide one from earlier series.

Coming from a smoker, it’s a bit rich!

I had my first baby the end of 1998 and there was a smoking room off the postnatal ward. There was
also a nursery where you could leave you baby at night if you wished. Midwifes would bring the baby to you if breastfed or feed them if bottle fed.

There was a smoking room on the midwife-led unit I visited, early 2000s. I was quite surprised, really.

Agree they are heavily signposting smoking on CTMW and they aren’t the most subtle of scripts

My parents smoked in the 60s although they knew by then that it was bad for you. At primary school we made papier mache or clay ash trays to take home as gifts, it was assumed people would smoke. At Grammar school there were two staff rooms, they were supposed to be Masters and Mistresses but were used as smoking and non-smoking. When the door to the master's room opened clouds of smoke billowed out.

Oddly enough, although almost everyone I knew in the 70s and 80s smoked, I never took it up.

Actually I think that there used to be more smoking in the earlier series. I remember in the "old days" when they used to have the antenatal and baby clinic in the old hall that everyone used to light up with the babies crawling around them ... even the Dr. was puffing away in the kitchen.

I think they used the Turners' smoking yesterday to show the level of stress they were under with the prospect of May's adoption breaking down. However an earlier plot line was that Sheila had smoked before she became Sister Bernadette - as a nun she talked about when having some puffs with Dr Turner after a difficult delivery.

I think that people forget how pervasive smoking was in everyday life and impossible to escape even as a non-smoker. Even in the 1980s there was smoking in cinemas, hospitals and workplaces.

You are right that last night it was more prevalent; Tricia, Mr and Mrs Turner, the Adoption agency last and the pregnant lady being offered a fag. I agree that people did smoke more at that time, but it was noticeably prevalent last night. There’s a storyline approaching I tell you.

It's only relatively recently that smoking has become so abhorrent I watch classic coronation street and Eastenders both are currently showing episodes from the 90,s people are lighting up.all the time on them , when I qualified as a nurse in 1996 ( albeit mental.health) patients all smoked in the dayroom I can't remember if we even had separate non smoking areas for those who didn't smoke gradually over the years we had separate smoking areas ,then patients couldn't smoke inside ,until eventually it became a completely smoke free trust

I did teach training in the early 2000s and there were still smoking staff rooms. Think they must have only disappeared when the smoking ban which was 2007.

It is just depicting how it was in the 60s, 70s and even in some places in the 80s. In the 69 and 70s it was unusual for people not to smoke. When I started work I had to share a room with 4 other people 3 of which were heavy smokers and they were allowed to do it at their desk.smoking was allowed in all public places even hospitals.
When I see it on TV now I am shocked because we don't see it but it is realistic.

There is no “promoting” of cigarettes - everyone knows the health risks. Fact. No question.

Young people are appalled by it.

It’s a programme showing the reality of the day.