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Call the midwife- brand new series starts tonight!!

999 replies

Soubriquet · 22/01/2017 10:23

At 8pm

Who's ready for it?!

OP posts:
BestIsWest · 19/02/2017 21:22

My grandmother had ECT in the late 50s. I don't know if it helped her but I do know that she was terrified by it.

AnneEyhtMeyer · 19/02/2017 21:24

The home for Reggie was a bit far-fetched. As was just finding Sr Mary Cynthia.

Dr Turner just can't act at all. The bit with the new house was just so twee.

Trixie needs a bit of romance, I hope the dentist doesn't turn out like gurning Dr T.

My neighbour growing up and her mum both had ECT and both just walked round like zombies.

Groovee · 19/02/2017 21:29

My gran had all her teeth removed in her 20's!

Girliefriendlikesflowers · 19/02/2017 21:33

Loved tonight's episode, I think I cried the most tonight!

Poor Cynthia😥 I feel quite annoyed that the head sister (having a mind blank and forgotten her name) didn't listen to Trixie when she voiced concerns last week.

The dentist seems lovely, about time Trixie got a man!

Was hoping Reggie would stay with Fred and Vi as well.

BubbleBed · 19/02/2017 21:41

Oh I loved this weeks. I sobbed, it was so heart wrenching in places. The Reggie scenario got me so much, with a child with SEN. And the hospital scenes.

Archimandrite · 19/02/2017 22:04

I'm not convinced the storyline about the community found for Reggie was far-fetched. The Camphill Communities that sound very similar started about 70 years ago. They're still thriving today and provide an environment where adults with learning difficulties can have autonomy, meaningful employment, independence and relationships but with 24 hour support on hand if and when it's needed and as far as I know can live there indefinitely. From what I've heard about the one where a friend of a friend's son lives, he is happy,has a partner who lives there too and the fact that he is part of a nurturing and loving community is a great comfort for his parents now that they are getting old and have to face the time that they aren't around for him.

DesolateWaist · 19/02/2017 22:18

I think Fred and Val would have been worried about them getting older and there being no one to look after Reggie.

Excited101 · 19/02/2017 22:36

Have only just caught up watching that all, placemarking.

DreamingOfAFullNightsSleep · 19/02/2017 22:40

archimandrite lovely to hear that. I've cheered up about him now!

ZackyVengeance · 19/02/2017 22:43

I was so glad the reggie story line had a good out come
Having just dropped my adult dc off at sn college, a bad one would have had me ranting.
But omg the teeth thing was badly done

TreeTop7 · 19/02/2017 22:44

That was a particularly superb ep. I was thinking of my grandmother, who had her teeth removed when she was in her thirties, and of a girl I knew with DS in the 1980s who didn't have a mainstream education, but who did have a Saturday job in a shop as a teen, and was a member of the Brownies as a younger child.

It seems I'm the only one who didn't see the Mary Cynthia thing coming. Poor woman.

Nice to see Fred and Violet getting some decent screen time.

That house seemed modest for a middle-aged doctor with a family. The GPs of my 1970s/80s childhood were living in much swisher houses.

Crunchyside · 19/02/2017 22:46

A bit too twee for me tonight... So much happy sighing and lovingly smiling at eachother... the Turners, Trixie and the sexy dentist, Fred and Violet!

Found it so cringey, the way they were lovingly smiling at eachother while pulling all those rotten teeth out Grin

I do love Call the Midwife and I'll always watch it and enjoy it, but sometimes the tweeness ruins it a little bit, it's just laid on a bit too thick sometimes!

identityhidden · 19/02/2017 22:50

My mum had ECT in 1989. She doesn't remember my early childhood much, her short term memory is shit but worst is that the seizures that the ECT induced have never stopped - she has at least one a week, sometimes up to 8 at a time. She was belted down to the bed , she remembers. She was only 23 and was so unwell (suicidal, bulimic and anxious) because she had been sexually abused, physically abused and then raped.

They didn't care about that part - just like the programme, no sympathy or kind words.

ECT has taken away her freedom to have a normal life :(

She like Sr Mary Cynthia didn't get the choice , she doesn't know who decided on it.

I'm sure they believe it does help some people but I can't get over what it did to my mum.

Obsessedalready · 19/02/2017 22:57

I'm pretty sure sister Mary Cynthia had ECT in real life (it's in the books) she had severe depression I think.

Spoiler ahead if you don't want to know what happened to her in the book

She ends up much better from her depression though (although it never fully goes away), she stopped being a nun and she marries a vicar and they end up travelling around the world together. So the ECT can't have been too bad

Itscurtainsforyou · 19/02/2017 23:01

This is the trouble with ECT it can work for people with severe depression, where other treatments have failed.

But historically (as in this case) it was the go-to treatment for many things. Sister Mary Cynthia obviously has PTSD at the very least and, looking at that in a modern light, ECT just isn't appropriate. But I'm not sure what else was on offer then. To an extent I agree with the psychiatric nurse, tea and sympathy isn't necessarily enough to help (she probably needs focused therapy but I'm pretty sure CBT wasn't prevalent then).

MorrisZapp · 19/02/2017 23:08

I must have missed a few episodes. How did the lovely wee nun go from irritatingly chipper to incarcerated in an asylum?

What happened?

FourKidsNotCrazyYet · 19/02/2017 23:09

Sorry to be controversial but does Mary Cynthia slightly grate on anyone else? I can't put my finger on why. She is playing a tricky part and plays it very well I'm just not keen at all. Other than that loved this weeks.

Thinkingblonde · 19/02/2017 23:16

My sister got really severe gum disease in her twenties, during her first pregnancy. Her teeth were perfect but couldn't be saved so she had to have them all extracted. The gum disease had loosened them.
Her dentist did everything he could to save her from having them removed, my nephew was a year old when it happened.
The scene with the black rubber mask made me laugh, it looked so serene, not like I remember it. I fought like a tiger when it was clamped over my face, the nurses had to pin me down. It was a horrible feeling going under, the smell and the strange noises....urgh.

MorrisZapp · 19/02/2017 23:16

The whole thing is utterly nauseating. It makes Love Actually look like Reservoir Dogs.

But it's ever so well done.

identityhidden · 19/02/2017 23:24

Yes not just you, I remember an episode where Trixie had called samaritans and Sr MC took the phone off her , I remember that irritated me a lot - what right did she have to do that? I couldn't get on with her (pre illness). I think it's just her general manner I find disconcerting, but I find that with Sister Winifred too at times!

My gran has never really spoken about my mum's illness much to me but we talked about psychiatric hospitals a few weeks ago. She said the nurses were not worthy of being called that, treated their patients like animals. I don't think my mum will ever fully tell anyone what she experienced. The bits she has told me I sometimes almost wish she hadn't, because I don't know what to say back

I have to be honest , colleagues have said they have seen patients go for ECT and it doing 'something' to change things, I just find the whole idea hard to understand. I know my gt gt died in a psych hospital in 1961 and can hardly bear to imagine what happened to her , she was in there for 40 years.

Mrscaindingle · 19/02/2017 23:25

CBT is not going to help someone suffering from severe trauma or depression, it's more aimed at mild to moderate as you need to be able to function a bit to do the work involved. ECT in the old days was a much cruder form of the treatment that is used today, it is always the last resort due to the short term memory loss that accompanies it but as a previous poster said for some people it is a life saver.

I didn't love tonight's episode, I could see the storylines coming a mile off and I usually love this show.

KingJoffreysRestingCuntface · 19/02/2017 23:54

Sister Julienne winds me up. She looks so bloody vacant. I know she's trying to look serene and calm but she ends up looking totally away with the fairies.

Although I'm still hoping that one day she'll randomly break into Climb Ev'ry Mountain.

New nurse was a bit of a non-event. Did they lose a few pages of script of something? 'Welcome!' 'Bitch, you moved my clothes!' 'Oooo, these broken biscuits are nice!'

I was hoping for a bit more.

KingJoffreysRestingCuntface · 19/02/2017 23:55

Fred's lush, BTW.

Violet's so lucky.

PageStillNotFound404 · 20/02/2017 00:28

Sister Winifred would make Pollyanna look like an emo who has just been told they can't paint their room black.

Toddlerteaplease · 20/02/2017 00:43

Not seen today's yet, but I've always found cynthia/Mary Cynthia annoyingly

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