Call the Midwife is back!

[PolkadotsAndMoonbeams]

This Sunday (17th) at 8pm on BBC1.

I enjoyed the Christmas special - it was good to see Delia back, and I think there's going to be a nice romance with Tom and Barbara

The - it looks like we are going to get a thalidomide story.

I thought it was the jam too!

Oh last night's episode was a tough watch. I thought the actress who played her was fantastic. She was so fragile and so broken, I completely believed her. The horror of what women were forced to put themselves through before access to safe legal abortion is just beyond my most awful nightmares.

I wondered if it might have been the red headed midwife (whose name escapes me!) but, as the old man was ill too, realised it couldn't be

I don't know how much things had changed for unmarried mums by even 1972. My aunty got pregnant, was sent home to my grandparents, who bunged her in a home for unmarried mothers, and she was made to give her son up for adoption. 40 plus years later, she says there's not a single day goes past when she doesn't think of him. The only consolation she gets is that his parents were university lecturers and so could give him a much better life than she ever could.

Well I think Tom and Barbara make a lovely couple. She is so sweet and would be just perfect as a vicar's wife. Trixie had her chance and she wouldn't have been as well suited to him as Barbara anyway.

Go Tom and Barbara!

Tom and Barbara seem very suited. I did like next week's preview where they showed Trixie cycling past with a very pointed 'Good afternoon Tom', 'Good afternoon Barbara'.

I'd rather see Barbara develop as a character without having to have a romantic storyline. We know very little about her other than that's she's a vicar's daughter and it would be a shame to pair her up with Tom too early.

brittany That's very sad there's a happy ending to my story; my friend's dd got in touch with her when she was in her 20s and they are so happy now. Surely the adoption agency would have the details of your auntie's child ?

They are not usually allowed to pass any details on without the permission of the adopted child. A friend of mine had her baby adopted, and she kept the agency up to date with every change of address she had, in the hopes that one day her daughter would ask to contact her. That did happen, many years later,and luckily there was a happy outcome.

Sorry if this as been answered or I'm being dim, why can a nurse or midwife go back to work when married but not a teacher?

I'm wondering, shutup I don't think it was 'official' policy because lots of our teachers were married in the 50s\60s. Maybe that HT on CTM was just a blue meanie!

Teacher could have worked when married, just not when pregnant even if married.

ShutUp I thought it was just convention for women to stop work when they married, to the point where it was almost unthinkable they'd go back. Did they need their husband's permission or something? I've got a feeling I heard that somewhere...
Whereas being pregnant is different... at least when it's starts to show and the questions from children start. Certainly being unmarried and pregnant would have been scandalous.

It seems astounding that they were quite happy to train up nurses who would only work for a few years before leaving the profession. Now they'll get years and years work out of each nurse but don't want to fund the training!

Another one here who think Tom and Barbara make a good couple. As for going out with your colleague/friend's ex - in close knit communities that was bound to happen, surely?

x-post Bertie - gosh I'm a slow typer!

Glad we live in different times even though theres still huge room for improvemnent.

www.bbc.co.uk/wales/history/sites/themes/society/women_teaching.shtml

www.tes.com/article.aspx?storycode=342027

Marriage bar for teaching in England and Wales wasn't lifted until 1944

My grandma married in 1942 and had to give up work. She worked at Woolworths and they had a strict no married women policy. Grandma's auntie was a single mum during WW1, she became pregnant and her boyfriend just never returned (though researching it I found he was not KIA as assumed but lived into the 1920's elsewhere). She somehow managed to keep the baby against a backdrop of appalling judgement. She was blamed for the little girl's disability, which based on the one photo of her was probably Down's syndrome. Her DD died aged about 7 or 8 thank goodness times have changed and on the whole society is kinder now.

Can anyone elnighten me about Patsy's background (references to her mother and sister in the "camp")?

Patsy was in a Japanese interment camp during the war and her mother and sister died of typhoid

Patsy was in a Japanese interment camp during the war and her mother and sister died of typhoid

Patsy was in a Japanese internment camp during WWII and her mother and sister died of typhoid

Was she in a Japanese camp by any chance owl?

Bloody phone

DrCoconut that is an amazing story,what an incredible woman she must have been. Someone should write that story.

Thanks for clarifying, owl - my attention must have wandered when that was originally revealed!