Call the Midwife - nuns but no Nonnatus

[NumbersStation]

Just caught up then realised the thread was full.

Sister Monica joan’s flowers.

Cried like a seal.

My garden didn’t bloom and for me the sunshine failed. My buds were perfect but not for here.

And the hairy bud who grew and blossomed in my care soaked up the love.

Missing the three of you more than you know. X

All I could think of was how unlikely it would have been to be taking in fairy cakes for 'Nan' to eat in prison. Sure that smuggling stuff in was just as much of an issue then as now, albeit less likely to be drugs in that era.

Doctors knew the harm of smoking in the earlyish 50s but the companies kept pretending there was no problem, they still market aggressively to the 3rd World countries.

Re the smuggling, I suppose they didn't have mobile phones to worry about in those days.

I remember my mum in the late sixties, a heavy smoker,saying in an aggrieved voice "All this rubbish about smoking being dangerous, and they're even trying to say it can harm your baby if you smoke while you're pregnant! As if !! "

Right up to the 80s everyone smoked all the time.

My parents, who were very health conscious otherwise, both smoked 40 a day.

I still remember the smoking carriages on the tube. Think they only stopped after the kings cross fire around 1988?

I remember when restaurants had smoking and non smoking sections with nothing to stop the smoke drifting over, teachers smoking on playground duty, smoking in the cinema and on planes. Even when I worked in a jewellers shop we had ashtrays on the counter.

And going out meant coming home wreaking of cigarette smoke whether you smoked or not.

'I remember when restaurants had smoking and non smoking sections with nothing to stop the smoke drifting over, teachers smoking on playground duty, smoking in the cinema and on planes. '

I remember reading a comment that having a no smoking area in a restaurant was as pointless as a no pissing area in a swimming pool. Made me piss myself laugh then and still does

I didn't mean everyone stopped smoking in the 60's just that medical attitudes shifted and it was no longer considered "healthy".

I was born in 86 with heavy smoking parents and remember thinking nothing of sitting in the smoking area whenever we went out to eat until the late 90's atleast! I look back and shudder now at the thought of my kids sitting in that 😨

I think the medical link happened about the mid 50s (and that was hinted at in CtM) but the government did not start supporting health campaigns till mid 60s.

Obviously that doesn't mean people stopped smoking, as well we know!!

It made me laugh that they admitted that woman with a UTI. They must have had excess beds! How times have changed. The last time I had a UTI on a weekend. I phoned the OOH and got a prescription faxed to the local chemist.

I was at 6th form college in 82/83 - pupils & teachers smoked in class. I remember uni exams & people lighting up as soon as out the door

I've been rewatching life on Mars and Ashes to Ashes and they all smoke all of the time. It seems shocking now really as I can't remember the last time I saw someone smoke!!

I remember when you could smoke in night clubs... Meant you had to wash your hair before work the next day!

I've never smoked and loathe the smell. It makes my nose and eyes run. In the days when there were smoking carriages on the tube and mainline railway services it was always a nightmare to run for the train, jump on just as the doors were closing/whistle was blowing and find that I was in the smoking carriage. Yuk.

We had a GP in the 80s and early 90s who chain smoked in the surgery through all his appointments. He was a very good GP in many ways but what an example to set to his patients!

One of the worst examples I can remember of smoking in the late 50s\60s was my ballet teacher smoking THROUGHOUT the class !!!!

Though even now in Athens dh said he was having lunch and some of the women were smoking while eating IN the restaurant Some of the idiotic youngsters do smoke here (in France) but not inside buildings.

I remember when you could smoke in night clubs...

An you’d end the night with cigarette holes in your clothes.

Oh I'd forgotten that, Flamingo It is a really vile habit! I began ,and finished , smoking in a very crowded pub where I lit up and the smoke got in my eyes and I was coughing etc. I thought fgs it's not worth the revoltingness of it!!! It's certainly NOT cool, even though the fags had little silver rings round them and were 'menthol' yeuch

I remember commuting where the smoking and buffet cars would be foggy with smoke, late 80s/90s. The smell was ingrained in the upholstery and transferred to clothing etc.

Ironically, my grandsons had never seen anyone smoke until after the smoking ban and people smoked outdoors. It's wonderful, though, to be able to go anywhere and not have a lungful of second hand smoke.

The irony is I was at A&E at the weekend and despite the hospital and grounds being No-Smoking and despite TV screen messages saying 'We are a non-smoking site and you will not have to be subjected to passive smoke' - there was a very strong smell of cigarettes floating into the waiting room every time the door opened, from people right outside the A&E doors lighting up! Nobody told them to stop either! We're still not quite there yet!

Pebble Its the people parked outside the hospital door under the no smoking sign in their wheelchairs usually with a drip attached, puffing away.
I know I really shouldn't but it always makes me laugh.

Yes, Pebble it's like that at my local hospital, even outside the maternity unit.

I've seen a man with oxygen tanks attached smoking. What could possibly go wrong!