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Call The Midwife

964 replies

Homethroughthepuddles · 26/12/2018 11:51

Surprised there's no thread on this. Did anyone watch it last night or has the series reached its natural end and is no longer attracting viewers?

OP posts:
JamAtkins · 10/01/2019 09:03

I like sister Julienne and sister Mónica Joan and nurse Crane but the other midwifes are all bleugh. I miss chummy and the policeman and any actual storyline. Why did the Australian woman keep coming up to the convent and then do a runner? I felt the whole Australian thing was just to say that they had an awareness of the child migrant programme and it’s failures and they forgot to actually write a story or characters so they shoved in a near miss mini bus crash and a woman running about the grounds clutching her bump in lieu.

JamAtkins · 10/01/2019 09:04

And I love Timothy Turner but the other Turners can do one. I used to like shelagh

CurbsideProphet · 10/01/2019 20:05

I rewatched series 1 recently on Netflix and it has changed a lot. Sister Monica Joan was very confused back then and it was quite odd to watch, as I had assumed she would have had a dementia storyline by now.

Toddlerteaplease · 10/01/2019 23:32

Yes. I don't understand how Sr Monica Joan's confusion has improved as she's got older either. Thought the Australian story added nothing to the episode.

Beeziekn33ze · 11/01/2019 00:31

Polarbear - We were teaching in SE London in the early 60s, straight out of college. We knew young nurses in the area. I love to see the midwives off duty going out in the everyday fashions of the time, they definitely stir memories. We always had neat hair and tidy clothes, a small amount of makeup was normal. We shopped in Oxford Street, mostly at C&A, didn't have a lot of clothes but looked after them carefully, wore tan nylon stockings and polished shoes with matching handbags. Trousers (often with stirrup straps!) were for weekends.
By the mid 60s things had changed so much!

Mynamenotaccepted · 11/01/2019 10:47

Oh Beeziekn33ze what memories you have brought back. Like you in the early 60s I was a student nurse in the East End. We too went to Oxford Street to shop I bought a black duffel coat from C&A
1-19-11 (old money for you young uns) it lasted years.
The series is authentic the atmosphere is right, a few medical inaccuracies but who cares I am loving it and I am 18 again.

MinesaPinot · 11/01/2019 13:32

My DM loves this (as do me and DH). My family come from round Poplar and the surrounding areas and I was born in the early Sixties. DM says that she remembers well the nuns and the midwives on their bikes going out to calls. She says that CTM has got the atmosphere just right and gives a really good idea of what it was like living in that area at the time. She particularly remembers when thalidomide was first offered and said that the storyline brought it all back.

Bittermints · 11/01/2019 21:43

Very late getting into CTM, but thanks to Netflix and Amazon have now seen every single episode! I agree it's changed and got more soapy. I hope next year's series, which I think the BBC has announced is already contracted, will be the last. Looking forward to this one!

I thought it was a bit anachronistic to have anyone commenting that white families adopting children of another ethnicity could be problematic, but it was Lucille who said it, and if anybody was going to see the issue it would be her.

Clionba · 12/01/2019 22:10

I love this programme, but have to say that I'm annoyed by Trixie's voice. It never sounds genuine. I don't know why Helen George doesn't just use her own voice.
I do like the Buckles, they're such a great couple, and Reggie.

Bittermints · 13/01/2019 08:30

I agree, it does sound a bit false and affected, but I think that's probably right for the times. If you listen to old radio programmes/watch old films or TV programmes up to the early 60s, almost everybody is using that sort of accent, unless they're a comedy character like Gracie Fields or Norman Wisdom or the Carry On Team. The odd film during the war allows characters to have regional accents to make a point that the whole country was pulling together in the war effort, but even then they're usually chirpy Cockneys or reliable NCO or foreman types, not officers or managers or professional people.

If CTM aims to be realistic, this series and the next one will have to reflect that there is a huge social change coming to Britain in the mid 60s. We've had mention of the Rolling Stones but The Beatles should be omnipresent in this series, and from that point on regional accents suddenly became supercool. That, and the emergence of the first generation of working class children who'd got a decent secondary education and proceeded to university or art college or got jobs with large employers who would train them up, send them off to college on day release and promote them on merit. Social mobility was about to be the highest it had ever been in the UK and to our great shame it's now heading back to where it was.

If it went on to the end of the 60s, we'd see huge legal changes - divorce law reformed, male homosexuality no longer criminalised, abortion legal in some circumstances, Equal Pay Act, Sex Discrimination Act, Race Relations Act. We should also be about to see a slow decline in the number of unplanned pregnancies and unmarried girls pressured to give their babies up for adoption or get married. We'd probably also see a rise in sexually transmitted diseases and drug problems.

What we should be seeing more of is families fractured by well-intentioned but poorly executed rehousing schemes. Lots of new housing was in new towns or outer London suburbs and young couples with new babies often ended up a long, long way from the family support that had always been a big feature of East End life.

Polarbearflavour · 13/01/2019 20:27

@DeloresJaneUmbridge thank you for sharing your memories about the lady who Trixie is based on. Smile

Clionba · 13/01/2019 21:07

Oh my goodness, that little weeny triplet!!
So touching.
Horrifying abortion story. What a terrible situation.

Sarcelle · 13/01/2019 21:22

I may have had something in my eye during that episode....

ChesterGreySideboard · 13/01/2019 21:36

DH happened to go out during tonight’s episode which meant I was able to cry with abandon.

AppleKatie · 13/01/2019 21:37

I enjoyed the Christmas special and I thought that was a good first episode of the series.

I didn’t cry tonight which is unusual! The episode felt safe and cozy though, like winter 🤣

Clionba · 13/01/2019 22:08

The abortion story wasn't cosy!

RedForShort · 13/01/2019 22:17

Flipping heck wouldn't class the abortion story as safe or cosy. Even the mention of the lady with the roses around her door taking the screwdriver to herself made me shuddered.

Clionba · 13/01/2019 22:43

Also the forceps delivery just after 2 previous ones, including a breech birth.
Plus nearly losing the wee one.

AppleKatie · 13/01/2019 22:46

No, of course you’re right the abortion story wasn’t cozy. But it didn’t make me cry (although yes shudder a few times). The topic makes me more angry than sad I suppose on reflection. It’s a really really important story to tell (and tell again, and again and again until people get it!)...

AppleKatie · 13/01/2019 22:47

Something in the editing or storytelling of the triplet story made me feel sure it was all going to work out in the end (which it did) that’s what I meant by cozy and safe.

Clionba · 13/01/2019 23:08

I still winced when the forceps went in, after 2 deliveries.... Shock

RedForShort · 13/01/2019 23:14

Oh yes, she went through it all really. Suprised they didn't go for quads and make the last one a c section!

jessstan2 · 13/01/2019 23:21

Helen George (Trixie), does sound like that in real life. I watched her a few years back on Strictly and have also seen her interviewed, she's quite genuine.

Loved tonight's episode, as always a mixture of joy and tragedy. I was so glad the third triplet was OK in the end and felt terrible for the poor girl who had the abortion.

The Turners aren't going to want to part with little May.

ellenanora5 · 13/01/2019 23:50

I nearly turned it off once I saw bloody Miriam Margolyes again, I was hoping she was only in the Christmas special.

Chummy delivered triplets years ago in the dark all by herself, the woman who plays Sarah in corrie was having them.

The abortion story had been done at least twice that I can remember, always handled very well I think but shows the reality of it back then, thank goodness for choice, we are lucky women to live in an era of choice.

Toddlerteaplease · 14/01/2019 00:16

@ellenanora5 I've written almost the exact same thing in another thread! We've also had the back street abortion and sr Monica Joan being ill twice now. I love it but they are really scraping the barrel now.

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