Call the midwife- brand new series starts tonight!!

[Soubriquet]

At 8pm

Who's ready for it?!

The mother of the battered wife (Trudy?) was part of the "firm" though wasn't she? This was at the time the Krays ruled the east end, she saw her daughter as disloyal, regardless of how her husband was treating her. Very patriarchal society.

I wonder if Sr Ursula has been sent to Poplar to learn her own lesson from the others. I'll be interested to see how Trixie reacts to her. I presume we are heading towards a Barbara, Tom wedding for the Christmas special, so they are bound to encounter their own problems in this series.

I loved that Sr Ursula even led Nurse Crane to cocktails, although all the evaporated milk in cocktails is a bit minging.

I love CTM.

Dp goes up to bed to watch his shite on a sunday night. Ds is in bed for 7pm. Dd has her bath and comes down and watches it with me if she saves any questions until the end, otherwise I am mithered to death all the way through it.

I loved this episode. I wonder if the horrid scary nun has been sent to assess everything to see if it should be closed down. Or if they are looking for a reason to get rid of it. The maternity homes and women having babies in hospital instead of home births seems to be becoming more popular.

Great episode - just watched it & cried as per. Agree re sheelagh's baby, but we don't know what will happen there. And it does happen sometimes like that.
Cruel new nun is horrible - their lunch was pitiful! Love it when they tuck in usually...

Love CTM

Thought it was a good episode.

Bit worried that Cynthia will not do very well

Was also a bit that someone could leave their husband in 1962 and be given a council house somewhere nice, my understanding that it was still very difficult for a woman to manage independently and raise her kids in the 1960s. Harrowing to watch though.

Not sure what I think about Shelagh being pregnant, will be interesting to see how that plays out.

I miss Chummy and find it a bit weird that she and her son are not mentioned. We need Trixie back as well.

Don't like the scary new nun, am hoping she is made to go soon surely she would just drive all the midwives away!!

I thought the vicar not being able to afford an engagement ring was a bit rubbish, surely a vicars pay isn't that bad and would he not have had a little bit in savings?! A single man with out anything to pay for other than a bit of food?!

I don't think Shelagh is pregnant. I think she just thinks she is and it is either an illness or the menopause.

I thought it was clever that Sr Ursula was introduced during a storyline about violence against women (unless that was just a lucky coincidence?).

Early menopause would be an interesting storyline. Limited hormone treatments available then, I guess - it was probably something women just got on with, quietly and uncomplainingly.

I thought it was a brilliant first episode, despite the domestic abuse storyline. I wasn't too keen on Sister Ursula but she redeemed herself with the scene with her and Micky. I'm sure we'll find out why Sister Julianne has been demoted (perhaps Jenny Agutter has decided to leave the show?). Perhaps Shelagh is pregnant by some miracle? I still can't believe people actually complained about the episode though!

I know people who adopted because of infertility, and years later conceived, it is possible. I do worry that it will be traumatic in some way though, there will be some drama to the story!

I know people who adopted because of infertility, and years later conceived, it is possible

It is possible but, as someone who is infertile, it is annoying that no one can ever been shown having a happy life with either adopted children or no children. That is possible too.

When you are struggling to conceive everyone will tell you a sodding story of their hairdressers friend's cousin who was told she'd never have children and after they adopted she got pregnant. It all leads to this underlying feeling that women who are infertile are just not trying enough, or trying too much, or not praying hard enough.

It was the mother who said that the patching was for his astigmatism. I thought that was odd too. Most people have an astigmatism to some degree and patching is generally used for a squint to force you to use the 'lazy' eye. An astigmatism is the shape of your eyeball and I can't see how patching can change that.
However this was a long time ago and ideas about these things change. I am very very short sighted (-10 for those who understand) as is my mother. When it became clear that my sight was rapidly deteriorating I was given hard contact lenses with the idea that it would slow it down!

I've got astigmatism. When the optician first raised it, my father confidently predicted I would have an eye patch.

I HAD an astigmatism I didn't even know until I had laser eye surgery, they removed it!

Dd had patching 9 years ago for an astigmatism. The other eye had near perfect sight and so the one with astigmatism had become lazy. She had a patch over the good eye to try and force the other eye to work.

I struggled to watch this episode, just because little Mickey could be my DS, same looks, blonde hair, same age, glasses and patch (he has his for weak eyesight in right eye - he wears it to strengthen the sight). I just wanted to pick him up and hug him tight... I watched the entire episode with a knot in my stomach.

DesolateWaist i know exactly what you mean, I have a friend who has two beautiful adopted DS's. They are complete, and happy, but she still gets the head tilt and the 'ahh - could you not have your own?' Er yes they 'are' her own. I agree that they should have left the storyline there, Shelagh and Dr T were perfectly content with their DS and DD.

So they are getting rid of all the main characters by the looks of it, Trixie is staying in South Africa, Cynthia whilst-irritating is off to the MotherShip, it looks like Patsy is off to Hong Kong and Sister Ursula is pushing Sister Julienne away..... who will we be left with??

I still really enjoyed it

I have astigmatism and was at school in the 50s and 60s, wearing glasses from the age of 7 - no-one ever suggested eye patches. I would have thought that, where one eye is worse than the other, having glasses which equalises them forces the brain to use both eyes much better than covering one eye. A quick google suggests that patching is only appropriate if one eye is also lazy.

Hi all, just watched the first ep.

Firstly, NATALIE!! Thanks to whoever mentioned that because it was bugging the hell out of me who she was.

WRT Sr Julienne, I think we've had discussions here in previous series about how 'right on' and liberal the nuns seem when the show is portraying how prevalent some old-fashioned views were. Perhaps the mother ship house felt the same and that NH needed a change.

But as a cast member, she's basically replacing Sr Evangalina, who was also quite firm but fair and the scene with the young lad and the biscuit tin IMO is putting that across.

I do love Nurse Crane more and more with every series though. And Fred and Vi.

I watched it yesterday and had a massive cry.CTM is always good for a cry. Little Mickey was a heartbreaker. I hope Shelagh is actually pregnant.

Seems s bit odd that Mother Gesu Emmanuel would have sent someone to be in charge for only 4 weeks. Then just allow her to take over. Wonder what's going on. But disappointed in Shelagh's pregnancy though.

I love the Natalie actress, she has such an expressive face.

Glad I have discovered this thread!

I reckon we might learn to love Sr Ursula - we know she has a good heart in there. And Sr Julienne is making sure to be cheerful in her new position even though it's hard for her.

I was glad that Trudy and her children had a happy ending but I didn't think they had women's refuges in 1962? Also, the early women's refuges were makeshift and had mattresses everywhere like refugee shelters, they weren't nice comfortable single rooms. They were set up by women, perhaps like Nurse Crane, who were angry about the lack of opportunity for women like Trudy to escape and were very much just pulled together from nothing.

I was a bit confused about (when the children were abandoned) why they were going to contact children's services when they knew the children had a father. I know Nurse Crane didn't want the children to go to their father but surely they would have asked, and she wouldn't lie to an official agency. PC Noakes wouldn't have gone against the law by keeping them from their father either, even if he felt it was wrong! I also feel like since she wanted to save the children from their father she probably would have been more likely to try and kill all three of them, sadly enough.

It's strange because the original series didn't shy away from the sad stories and often played them out to their conclusions. Perhaps there were women like Trudy in the early 60s but they must have been rare. I feel like it's trying to condense it into one episode a bit. So you get a sad/shocking storyline but surprise! It's all nice and lovely at the end. I don't know. I feel like the domestic violence/refuge thing might have been really interesting to explore over a longer arc but perhaps they felt it would detract too much from the other storylines in the show.

They research theses all very well so it would have been true or they would have said a sad ending. I guess there was still very much acceptable rates of giving your wife a black eye on a Friday night after the pub, but beating her senseless locking her in a room as she's due to give birth, would have been a step to far for a lot of people.

Im not sure what benefits people got then apart from family allowance I'm not sure income support was paid. But would have been plenty of cheap unregulated childcare mrs Jones 3 doors down with 5 kids would looked after yours while your went work sort of thing.

Guess why very few young unmarried mums kept babies because there wasn't benefits to support you you would have to work bloody hard to support them. Given equal pay didn't come in till 1970s.

I agree.

I thought initially it seemed very realistic, but the end struck me as absurd. Very sadly, I know a couple of women who've come out of very violent relationships, and it just wouldn't ring true, even today. She would be terrified about that man tracking her down - not cheerfully wandering around the same tiny area of London waving to the nurses!

I never thought of the mother being anything to do with the Krays, though - maybe I missed that bit - but that makes a lot of sense.

Perhaps the mum went to the Women's Hostel run by Chummy. She was relocated (my mum was telling me that this did happen to women seen to be in grave danger, they were given a new life). There was little the bloke they were with could do. Divorce for women then was extremely difficult to obtain.

Shelagh's pregnancy is a lovely storyline. She could have twins! Hope it all works out for her.