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

I haven't rtft...I'm struggling to understand what all the teal comments are about

This ad is in a needlework magazine of my grandma's from 1955.

If they kill off Barbara I will stop watching - total girl crush on Charlotte Ritchie.

Yes I love Barbara, sweet and kind but underneath she's quite tough. Valerie has grown on me this series too.

It's definitely become more soapy, and the nuns have been sidelined to an extent in favour of the Turners. Still enjoy it though!

Nurse Dyer isn't as interesting as any of the characters who have left recently.

I think that Phyllis' romance with the sergeant should be good viewing.

Why is Nurse Valerie such a thin character?

I'm sure the actress playing her is better than this, but she comes across so wooden in every scene.

The acting was dreadful this episode.

I watched it with a colleague who I'd been bigging it up to and saying how good it was and I was quite embarrassed.

There wasn't really much widwifery. Yet another surprise twins which as soon as they said was a girl was obvious was going to happen because she needed to name a boy after crap driver chip eating man.

The fire was such a non-event, Barbara was totally 'meh' about it, no wonder the firemen didn't give a shite.

And I can't under the teal. The next series will have to be called Teal The Midwife, it's the only way.

But surprise things were a thing. A mother of school friends had surprise twins in around 1975.

“Surprise twins” not “things”.

They are cramming too many storylines into a single episode. We dont have time to get to know the characters so we dont care. That episode should have been about the fire family only.

I was born in the early sixties and clearly remember my parents had a cigarette box in the lounge and would offer a cigarette to visitors in the same way as they'd offer a cup of tea.(despite them not smoking
My Dad got cigarettes as part of his pay! He got luncheon vouchers and a carton of fags!!

To echo Pebble - The Vanishing Act of Esme Lennox is absolutely wonderful. This interview with Maggie O'Farrell discusses the history in a bit more detail (no spoilers for the book).

When I was little, in the early sixties, every house had a brimming ash tray on the table, and yes, people were offered a cigarette like a cup of tea!

Blanche moaning about the dry turkey Deidre had made was great too

So sorry wrong thread

I’m a twin of the fifties. My sister & I were born at home, my mum had absolutely no idea she was having twins. My Dad was said he was waiting downstairs when the midwife came down & told him they’d got two girls! He said it was the best thing that ever happened to them.

Oh that's nice @Trevorthebikethief

Think my mum was in shock though. She always said she went back to bed for two weeks because she had a relapse 😆.

Got to be a hell of a shock to find you've two babies rather than the one you were expecting.

Given how much medical support you're given now for multiple births I find it amazing that you could give birth to twins naturally! ! That said my uncle who was born in the 50s was one of twins, his twin sadly died at birth and the story goes the baby was 'disposed' of by the midwife, my grandma never really got over it 😔

I too remember having a cigarette box that people were offered like the biscuit tin. And a big marble table lighter.
It was considered rude to ask people to go outside to smoke.
I think it’s very hard for people today to understand what it was like. It changed overnight.
My parents smoked 40 a day, each. How did they have the time?

We never had a cigarette box in my childhood (early 70s) but my parents never smoked at all.

When I was at work in the late 80s, smoking was allowed at your desk! It was perhaps 1990 when it was stopped.

I worked in the Netherlands around 15 years ago. Smoking still allowed in offices - depended on numbers and agreement among staff.

I remember as a toddler sitting and playing with the smoke from my parents' cigarettes. I would move my hands in it and it would make all these swirls in the air, I found it fascinating.

This must have been in the early 90s, it seems incredible now - they must have known it was unhealthy? Did they used to think it only counted if you smoked yourself?