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 wasn't the best episode, it was a bit like the previous series, too cheesy and far too much going on, ok it was a full moon

I thought it was very lame, much more soap than drama. I usually only watch TV on a Sunday evening - country file, CTM and then something on iplayer. Didn't feel it was worth my time last night!

I thought the eclampsia lady's baby was going to be a thalidomide baby, when Trixie said the mum (Gina?) hadn't put on much weight.

I thought they'd 'done' thalidomide. Bike

Bike so did I. I seem to think every baby will be at the moment.

The preview of next week could bring it up again though?

Only managed to watch the first 10 minutes last night, so I have just i-playered it. I think it was a bit of a non-story but nice to have something a bit jollier. I suppose they are giving us one cheery episode before the series finale next week.

Also I am the least superstitious/woo person ever, but I have worked in hospitals long enough I believe that the full moon effect is real. I have no idea why or what could possibly cause it, but everything goes crazy when there is a full moon.

I wonder what will be in the Call the Midwife slot on a Sunday night once it finishes. HopHopefully something good.

Barge Lady with the gruff voice has been in something I have watched recently and it is really bugging me what it is. A wiki search hasn't helped at all.

They haven't advertised anything for the CTM slot have they? They showed trailers for the Night Manager for a few weeks before it aired.

Daisy, barge lady, has been in doctors.
www.tvguide.co.uk/actor.asp?actor=Kathryn O'Reilly

www.tvguide.co.uk/actor.asp?actor=Kathryn O'Reilly

hope this works

well, when I checked Kathryn O'Reilly it suggested doctors,

Is it any of these? m.imdb.com/name/nm4392927/filmotype/actress?ref_=m_nmfm_1

I'm so interested in nonnatus house and all this history, and the whole concept of it all.*
You should read the books, they explain more details like this. In the last one, Farewell to the East End' Jennifer Worth says that in the 1950s the Sisters delivered about 100 babies a month in 1964, after the introduction of the Pill, it dropped to 4 or 5. This would have left them somewhat redundant so as someone else said they started looking after drug users etc.

Ah, that's interesting glamarous, I was wondering what would happen to the Sisters when the pill inevitably brought the birth rate down.

That is amazing glamorous just goes to show how many babies were not particularly wanted.

I thought that they may have tied in the unplanned eclampsia-flat-uninterested dad baby with the Pill ie: as an example that the couple were shagging anyway, and now there's an unplanned baby.

Yes the books are really well written. I actually felt sick when she was describing how smelly the antenatal appointment rooms were because the women weren't able to wash properly before the appointment and the smell of having to boil wee to check for pre eclampsia. I didn't read the last book, but i found the Shadows of the Workhouse one massively upsetting. The girl Jane who's spirit was broken by the cruel treatment and the "Workhouse howl" story of the woman who lost all her children. Someone on a train asked me if the Workhouse one was good and i said that i didn't recommend it as it was too upsetting!

I am reading the first one Ida, someone bought them for me for Christmas, still on the first one. I like the books better than the TV show (isn't that always the case though).

I think they are well written too, really interesting account of social history. I lived in the East End after Uni and know some of the places referenced, makes it very real.

I think I might ask for the books as a mothers day present!

Love Nurse Crane. She is wonderful
Loved it when she told Barbara about the airman and the douche. Wonderful.

Thanks all but alas no I haven't watched any of these, perhaps she just reminded me of someone

I agree that Shadows of the Workhouse is a distressing read, for the same reasons Ida referred to. Those two stories had me sobbing. However if you have an interest in social history they are very informative. Really really distressing though

I love Nurse Crane and her story of her dirty weekend. Particularly when she said she never regretted siezing the moment

And oh my goodness Tom and Barbara!!! that was one passionate tryst!!

(emoticon overload - and I haven't even used my favourite one >> )

Martha , the actress's wiki page lists a few films too

I want Barbara to get pregnant by Tom as I think it will be an entertaining story.

Sister judgy winnifred would explode if tje vicar got a midwife pregnant would be kaboom