Call the Midwife.

[Toddlerteaplease]

What is going on with Mother Mildreds make up?

Only started watching this recently but is nurse lee a rather cold character or is it just me?

Am getting a slight village of the damned feel.

I was thinking more of 'The Shining'.

Samantha Spiro in a seriously dreadful wig there.

Was she playing Jewish (I know she is but it doesn’t follow the character is). Some Jewish women wear wigs.

I don’t think she was playing Jewish- I thought they were meant to be a standard cofe at Christmas and weddings east end family.

She is Jewish, but doesn’t wear a wig in real life. Her characters daughter wasn’t wearing a wig either I don’t think.

Not all Jewish women wear wigs. I guess if she was orthodox enough to wear a wig then her husband would be wearing a kippah.

Also, is there only one hospital bed in Poplar?

I really enjoyed tonight's episode, although it sounds like I'm the only one who did! I thought Phyllis was fabulous, as ever, and loved her comment about men being at the centre of childbirth. We could do with more midwives like her today. I also really like Fenella Woolgar, it's good to see her playing a bigger part.

Grace's story was sad and very common, even today, for middle aged women to be at breaking point, trying to cope the the demands of work and caring for elderly parents and grandchildren.

Poor Shelagh got the worst flowers ever bought.

They looked like three dead stems of dandelion clocks.

I'm also impressed that Sister Monica Joan appears to have the world's only case of improving dementia, as she's now only mildly eccentric...

How come Sister Julienne had a choc ice at the end of the film? And how much did Violet spend getting a single colour poster printed for the raffle - which wasn't a raffle but a sort of tombola?

Love Phyllis! Quite right that men should not be centred in childbirth!

I had no idea that ‘tv dinner’ and ‘breathe out the baby’ were both coined in the 1969s.

Coined/used
1960s

Home help and incontinence laundry service, all available on the NHS at the time.

I can remember my granny in the 70s having all sorts of practical assistance that is no longer available.

I want to know who was on duty while they were all at the cinema together. Other than good old Dr Turner!

I didn't quite understand why Sister Julienne went 'civvy' for the afternoon? Is she supposed to be having some type of crisis of faith?

I think Grace's words hit home. She's been a nun for so long, things have changed and she didn't know what it was like to be a middle aged woman in Poplar. Not that an afternoon at the flicks was going to solve that but anyway... Sr Bernadette did the whole looking in the mirror thing before she threw off the wimple for Dr Smarmy.

That makes sense @WaterFowls. Loved that Sister MJ kept her secret.

Yes and she experienced how society treads middle-aged women because she was told to get out the way, walked into and mocked leared at by a group of men. Then saw the contrast as to how a nun is noticed and respected.

It did make me wonder when the automatic respect for religious people stopped in London (and England as a whole).

had no idea that ‘tv dinner’ and ‘breathe out the baby’ were both coined in the 1969s TV dinner definitely was. It was like a microwave meal but cooked in the oven - convenience food. I've no idea about child birth at the time though.

Only started watching this recently but is nurse lee a rather cold character or is it just me?

Not just you!

Which one is nurse Lee? I've just looked in the cast list and can't see her.

It took me a while to remember - she's Jenny who is the original author and was in the first few series. Not this series!

Of course! Thank you.

So Sister Julienne was so upset she took off her robes and embezzled funds to go to the cinema? It didn’t make a lot of sense to me. I thought she would give the £5 back to the family who needed it. But then that’s not the church’s style, is it?

Jenny was definitely to wooden and cold. Don't know if that was the actress, or how the real life Jenny was.

I think the thing about jenny is that she was totally unprepared for what she found, she had learned of poverty but the reality that people lived like that was a lot to take in. I think she admitted to that in the books and in the tv series you have a great moment where she says "I didn't know people could live like this". She was young and unsure and like a rabbit in the headlights.

If you read the book by Jennifer Worth’s sister entitled “The Midwife’s Sister” a lot of Jenny’s behaviour is explained by a terrible childhood. From watching the television series, it’s presumed that she had a happy, middle class upbringing. This sadly wasn’t the case.