Call the Midwife

[ilovecarbs90]

Is back 18th April. I'm so glad we are getting a series this year, I find it such great escapism.

Is anyone else a fan?

But everyone at the secondary moderns would have left at 15 or 16. So the majority of school leavers.

It was ok to leave my school if you had a job in the bank. My mother was obsessed with people who had jobs in the bank.

@Maireas

But everyone at the secondary moderns would have left at 15 or 16. So the majority of school leavers.

Yes. I was replying to someone who said 'even from Grammar schools not everyone stayed for 6th form'.

Oh yes, that's right @CaptainMyCaptain
It seems so weird now that there were so many young school leavers!

Was it likely the pregnant teenager had university in her sights

@Maireas

Oh yes, that's right *@CaptainMyCaptain* It seems so weird now that there were so many young school leavers!

Indeed. My dad left school at 14. I can't imagine my grandsons going out to work at that age.

So true. Most people worked full-time from 14, didn't they? It does seem young to us now.

Begs the question... Did we ask too much of teenagers then, or not enough of teenagers now?

I definitely wasn't old enough for full time work at 14. But was more independent then a lot of teenagers now.

My favourite quote in that episode was "Fetch, Timothy's A-Level results, Teddy". Proving how well trained the Turner children are.

I think that the Turners have to be there for the comedy element. It's all too ridiculous to not be. The "yay" scene where they celebrated Timothy's results was so awkward!!

The baby being taken away from the teenage parents made me quite tearful.

@AbsolutelyPatsy

why did Tim have 4 results? surely 3 would have been usual?

He may have done Additional Maths?

Re the A levels, I am pretty sure my Dad did three to get into medical school in the fifties. Three was normal in my highly academic, selective all girls school in the 70s and 80s. The girls who went to Oxford or Cambridge had three.
I think the historical accuracy isn’t great in this series. Lots of 70s clothes and the makeup is completely wrong.

Next episode: Dr Turner invents the cervix and SMJ drops her newly refound faith like a hot jacket potato and fights Trixie to the death for the Cheese plant...

Apparently General Studies A Level started in 1959 and ended last year.

The Turners will genetically engineer a much better cheese-plant one evening to pass the time between expert costume making and poring over the Lancet.

If they could get me an extra two hours in the day with a space time continuum (they’ll no doubt have something like that going on their box room) I will stop calling them from heaven to hell.

There’s an incentive rictus twins...

My least favourite character is Dr Turner. Stephen McGann does not even do any real acting in the show. He just reads his lines and is so unconvincing. I like to watch him though, just to see how bad he is.

My MOST favourite character is (or was) Chummy played by Miranda Hart. I hope she can come back some time even briefly.

Did anyone recognise the actress who played the mother of the teenage pregnant girl? She used to be Ashley Peacock's girlfriend in Corrie.

Yes very sad to see how just a few decades ago a young mother could have her baby taken for adoption and she had no choice. Unthinkable now.

I am sure that the "She Devil" style nanny applicant was in an earlier series as a pg/new mum......

Dr Turner was great at first but now, I agree he is just annoying.

I understand that they are trying to portray the great medical leaps that happened in the 60's but to try and pin them all on one doctor is a bit much! Perhaps a few less miracle discoveries on his part and few more training weekends where he learns about what some terribly bright chap (of course, it will be a chap) in ....shock horror.....the colonies has worked out.

Although as a PP said, given that he is married to the writer it will inevitably be the Dr Turner Show Ft A few Nuns and Midwives.

@dogsdinnerlady, secondary schools changed from secondary modern and grammar schools to comprehensives at different times in different parts of the country. As we know, schools still exist in some parts of England.

Comprehensive schooling was introduced by the Labour. government in 1965, according to Wikipedia but, as the article says, it had already begun in some places. In the West Riding of Yorkshire it was in 1960 or soon afterwards, and there were definitely comprehensive schools there in 1962.

When I started at grammar school in the mid- 1960s my parents had to sign a form to say I would stay on until I was 16 and not leave at 15.

Or even grammar schools still exist in some parts of England.

Timothy’s B grade in the 1960s sounds quite respectable, to me, possibly equivalent to an A or even A star now.

According to this piece of research on A level Maths

“A candidate who achieved a grade B in 1996 or 2012 appears to have been perceived by experts to have performed approximately at the level of a candidate who achieved a grade E in 1964 or 1968”
“....our results support a decline of around three grades over almost five decades...”

@NewModelArmyMayhem18

I need to know what this is! Are spoilers allowed on this thread though?

No but I'm open to PMs

I'm not opposed to being told the spoiler either. By pm if needed!!

Usually I am not interested in spoilers but CtM has been made so farcical by the Turners I don't care with spoilers for it. CtM is now (for me) is enjoyable for the new stories about the mothers each week, interesting to see how things changed for the midwives/nun stories and the hilariously entertaining as to how ludicrous the Turners will be portrayed.

I would quite seriously not be surprised if it was written in that Dr Turner discovered DNA (despite that really being done in the 50s (I think)).

Wouldn't shock me if we saw Mrs Turner mused over a diabetic patient of Dr Turner after having spoken about new plastic packaging* and then say how something like synthetic insulin would be useful and then Dr Turner will invent it.

I'm now waiting for Timothy to invent the first artifical heart in his first year.

*one of the Turners would also predict the environmental impact of plastics while they had thier family discussion on them.

Am I the only one that hasn't twigged the spoiler?

Starting a new thread....