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.

Win Win then Mrs!

Thanks glamorous. I might download them for my holiday in the summer.

Anyone a little envious of shelagh with all her inside knowledge and meeting of the stars?

Backatcha Katz

I am still clueless though. Bet she is one of my mates or something! I was walking along Oxford Circus one day and thought I saw a s'leb. It wasn't - it was a mate of DH!!

Shelagh is MN royalty as far as I am concerned. I am worried they are going to have a cliffhanger next week re her lung cancer. Dr T referred to her cough last week.

Stay safe Shelagh the thread needs you!

I don;t think they've finished with Thalidomide yet ppea. The preview for next week seemed to suggest that the "Series finale" will be the discovery of the link between the drug and birth defects.

Yes!

I think the barge would have been a difficult place to get water/heat things, because of getting fuel? I have a couple of mates who live or have lived on barges, and it really is backbreaking, even in 2016. Must have been even harder back then, especially for a pregnant woman. I bet bathing the children was 'women's work' too!

I also thought that the implication from Patsy and Sister W's conversation, where they said that other children were often smelly, was that the children weren't actually that different from many others, so the bullying was partly down to children using it as an excuse? After all, they were presumably also unable to read and so would have stuck out a bit?

It always strikes me watching this how fast we've got used to really good sanitation. Thank god for a power shower!

I am thoroughly enjoying seeing Sister Julienne getting judgy. She was far too saintly until now! The evil bit of me really wants to see a giant, soap-style showdown between her and Patsy/Trixie at some stage. But the other bit of me hopes they don't make it too trite.

No, they're not finished with thalidomide yet....

Fascinating that there were still old-fashioned barge families on the canals in the early 1960s (I trust CTM to get its history right on things like this!). They must all have been gone by the end of the decade as heavy cargoes moved onto the motorways.

Yes, the revolution in sanitation is extraordinary. I always think this when someone starts a thread on MN moaning about people who don't shower every day. It's such a new way of life!

A relative worked at a home that used to cater for thalidomide children, although it was heavily criticised later on.
I was wondering whether they would visit the home at some point. Probably later, or probably not. I don't spose the home feel happy about how they are portrayed but it was how things happened in thoseTimes

Nurse Crane was Queenie in Lark rise to Candleford - I think she is a brilliant character

Too, you may want to have a look at this website

www.csjd.org.uk

She was fab in East is East too.

Thanks shadow, that was really interesting!

Oh yes she was in East is East as soon as you said that Mrs khan popped in my head I had been trying to place her

Yes Jeanne ref. the barge, and can you imagine how hard it was to bathe 4 children once a week let alone more than that I suppose it was better in the summer, if there was somewhere safe they could swim .

True hesterton but anyone 'new' in a class could be (and sometimes still are) bullied whether they were boat people and smelt or not!

Both my Dds are off work/college today so we are having a CTM catch up have 2 episodes to watch

I hope you've get plenty of tissues in MrsJayy

Thanks for that link, shadow. Does anyone know how the relationship with the NHS would have worked? Were the midwives directly employed by the NHS, or were they a bit like a contracted-out service, with funding going to Nonnatus House to be disbursed by the order?

I didn't particularly enjoy this last episode, it felt like there was just too much going on.

I have a couple of mates who live or have lived on barges, and it really is backbreaking, even in 2016
People who lived in working barges didn't even have the space a modern conversion would have, they all lived cramped into the back cabin. The rest of the barge was used for cargo. The Canal Museum at Ellesmere Port is really interesting and has photos of barge families from the '60s.

Oh that's interesting. I didn't quite understand the cargo references, but that makes sense now.

Oh i am not too far from Ellesmere Port, i will look into that thank you glamorous

Mornington There is a brief history of the order onthe link Shadow posted.

It says when the NHS was bought in they were contracted out

Don't see much of the copper now.

My opinion of him plummeted after he arrested that gay/bisexual man. I used to like him but now he can park his arse on the Judgemental Bench with Sister Winifred and Tim.

Plus their clothing looked almost Victorian compared to other characters on the show. I think it would have been the case that they were noticeably different. There was poverty, so cleanliness wouldn't have been the stand out thing I don't think. But even today traveller children often struggle to acclimatise into schools. And in the 1960s not much was thought of bullying or racism in these kinds of terms, children were just expected to get tough and get on with it. Today the teacher might try to help the other children understand but I can't see that happening in the 60s.