Call the midwife starts this Sunday!!! Who's excited?

[Soubriquet]

I certainly am

I don't think it's a good as it was when it first started, and it can be a tad predictable at times but I still love this show

The grandmother was in Coronation Street, and had a baby with Ken Barlow - Daniel!

Oops got that completely wrong, it wasn't Denise Black!!

Wasn't it clawdy?! That's who I thought it was too!

Wasn't she Sheila in Shameless?

Yes! Maggie o neill

The young nun is definitely not being very nunlike. You are taught constantly to suppress your own feelings - all this wibbling about a driving test would be unacceptable.

It's a bit much to believe that nuns in the 1960s were spreading liberalism, cake and gay acceptance around the east end of London.

Nobody's allowed to still be nasty at the end of the show. They're always portrayed as finally learning their lesson.

Apart from the grumpy policeman who has a whole series story arc ahead before be becomes the biggest, sweetest, most caring gentleman ever, and very possibly married to the one from Yorkshire.

It's like watching a very slow train coming round a hill far away.

It's a bit much to believe that nuns in the 1960s were spreading liberalism, cake and gay acceptance around the east end of London.

Yes - the storyline with the gay bloke was ridiculous. Even today a lot of people would be rightly appalled at a man cheating on his wife and using public toilets to have sex in. Men thinking their sexual kicks are more important than basic consideration for others doesn't really provoke sympathy from me! In contrast, Patsy and Delias' storyline actually highlights the important issues involved and makes you feel sympathetic to them.

There seems to be a lot more out of place stuff on CTM as it continues, stuff that's wrong for the time, and really over the top storylines. Eg. the au pair situation is being laid on a bit thick. I think the Turner's house must be on ley lines, so every event or emotion is cheesily amplified!

And when Valerie was talking to Lucille, it just didn't sound right for the time period. I could believe the nurses/nuns would be sympathetic to her, maybe say something firm to anyone making negative comments, but saying "What that woman said was unforgivable" just sounded like a modern person speaking. These nurses would have witnessed all kinds of human unpleasantness and I don't think racism would have been treated as worse than any other thing.

Also Sgt. Jobsworth saying, in classic pantomime policeman style "Well, well, well..."! But I kind of love him anyway. I reckon he might deliver a baby or something later in the series.

And completely random, but it annoyed me that the Turners were all fully dressed but the baby was in a little summery outfit to signify "it's warmed up". (In fact the mismatch of clothes in this way generally annoys me on TV!)

I do like CTM, honest!

They had occupational therapists in it! Something that other medical dramas never manage!

I hated the nun stealing the car. She was like an off the rails teenager, especially being grumpy about being out in her place.

We were shouting 'leave her for the sexy Hungarian', although that feels cruel to the young woman now I think about it.

What a dreadful pair.

In think the phrase "bring up to speed" was used during Marjory's birth scene, which seemed out of place. Do any of the posters who remember working class London communities in "63 recall that phrase being used? It sounds like 1990s jargon to me, I sometimes use it myself having picked it up from my first boss!

The liberalism can be jarring but I do remember Jenny Worth's reminiscences about the real-life workhouse/incest storyline from S1 or S2 and explaining that she was told not to judge them. Likewise, re unmarried teenagers, patients with STDs, and the man with the monolingual Spanish wife whom he'd married when she was 14 and had about 17 children with - imagine what Mumsnet would be saying about him!

I thought the "unforgivable" bit was saying that the stroke had been caused by the nurse, not that she was black?

anything that isn't teal is aqua

Yes, I know teal was around in the early-mid 60s, but it wasn't the only colour available! And sometimes it looked a little faded, not always strong, new and vibrant as it is in CTM. I think someone's been studying 1963 knitting magazines just a little too hard and taking them just a little too seriously.

I do miss Sister Evangelina. She was my favourite character, and often a brake on the saccharine-ness of some of the others. It's not been the same since they bumped her off.

I was an adult in the 1960s though not in working class east London.
But "bring up to speed" was not around then.

Teal was around a lot but not as overdone as the CTM made it. As I recall it preceded the brown and orange fashion of the next decade!

One of my most abiding and painful memories of the cold winter of 62/63 was having my first car and one day carelessly trying to open the car door without my gloves on. My hand froze to the handle and when I pulled it away a load of skin came off my palm. It was incredibly sore, but that's how cold it was. Minus 20C.

"where she was a young bank clerk who had an affair with a married taxi driver played by Keith Barron"

Yes it was called Take Me Home. Rhys Dinsdale played her husband and Annete (One Foot in the Grave ) Crosbie played Barrons wife.

This is without Googling.

Yes HelenaDove! 👊

It was pretty good iirc.

Jenny Worth does judge the man with the Spanish wife though.

She makes some kind of comment along the lines that Mr Warren, being working class, could have no understanding of the political situation in Spain

Here you go
It is doubtful if he had the faintest idea of what he was doing, as foreign affairs rarely penetrated the consciousness of working people in the 1930s. Political idealism could have played no part in it ...

She went right down in my estimation after that.

I always thought she was quite judgemental in a lot of the stories. Or maybe it was the way that The actress portrayed her.

I spent the whole of that episode being annoyed that the lady with the stroke had a complete left sided paralysis. The nerves cross in the neck so if she’d had a left side stroke she would have lost her speech, as they showed, but then had a right sided paralysis of her body.

Trixie's hair-what's that all about?

It's so straggly & unkempt!

Loved the teal kitchen!

We had similar in aqua when I was a kid!

Yes I thought Trixie was looking a bit rough at times. Also when she settled on the bed with the book she seemed very uncomfortable as she sat down.

Yes, because she actress was desperately trying to hide a baby bump as she did it