Call the Midwife

[Toddlerteaplease]

Well this is boring.

The calendar on the wall in the furriers workshop said 1967.

We are long enough post rationing and supermarkets are starting to take hold.

I have just watched another episode and something grated.

Despite all the Poplar locals having the same accent occasionally you hear NONNAtuns rather than nonAHtuns. Why?!

@PyongyangKipperbang

My grandmother got married in 1939 at 17 (my aunt was born 6 months later ;) ). She was the eldest of 6 in a family that were paying their way but very much working class, every penny was made to stretch.

When she could get an egg she would make a cake with it as it went further that way, I suspect she was taught that by my great grandmother.

Interesting! My grandmother was born in 1924 and married in (I think?) 1944; she was from a family of three but they were very poor because her father couldn't work and her only brother had polio, which left him disabled. She very much married 'up' and spent her life being slightly shocked by the profligate ways of my grandfather's family, who were just ordinarily middle class. I also remember her talking about the expense of heating an oven 'just' to cook a cake. But of course, it could be she was finding excuses for not doing something she wasn't confident of doing well. There must have been so many women who were young married women or teenagers during the war, who just didn't have the opportunities.

@PriamFarrl

The calendar on the wall in the furriers workshop said 1967.

We are long enough post rationing and supermarkets are starting to take hold.

YY, but people's experiences would play a role for much longer. Again, boringly anecdotal, but I remember my grandmother being absolutely delighted by things like smash or gravy granules as she associated them with being very modern (and gave her a reason to not cook!). I imagine someone like Trixie, who is a 'career woman' in her 30s, might have the same attitude of slightly patronising delight about cake, rather than a more domestic sense of it being quite routine?

@PriamFarrl

The calendar on the wall in the furriers workshop said 1967.

We are long enough post rationing and supermarkets are starting to take hold.

My grandmother passed in 2006, she never wasted a thing, all food was precious. As PP have said, she cut the buttons off cardigans before rewinding the wool to reknit, she could make just enough pastry to cover a pie to the last 16th of an inch, and the oven never went on if there were not at least two and preferably three things cooking in there.

Some things you never forget.

And bear in mind that this was during a time of great upheaval......war was going on everywhere. The Russia/US thing was at its worst, communism was on the rise, the cuban missile crisis was (in CTM) just 5 years previously.....the idea that war may come again was not such a made idea. So many women made sure that they would not be caught wanting again. Its why so many people of that generation (my grandparents and their friends included) have a tendency towards "just in case" thinking.

It is a bit weird though. Are they having more cake now at NN House compared to 1957?

@PriamFarrl

The calendar on the wall in the furriers workshop said 1967.

We are long enough post rationing and supermarkets are starting to take hold.

Yes, but for many folk, the wartime strictures stayed a way of life. You didn’t waste food. People didn’t snack between meals. Knitted jumpers were unravelled and knitted up again a bigger size, often with a stripe round the cuffs! Old clothes were used as cleaning rags or even into rag rugs. It actually made a lot of sense.

London was probably different, but my town still had lots of little shops in the 60s. If I went with my mum, I’d get a slice of ham from the pork butcher, a barley sugar lollipop from the chemists etc - and on Sundays, although the bakers was shut, the bake house was open in the mornings, for people to buy rolls - and I remember the joy of a roll straight out of the huge oven, split open and spread with butter! our first “supermarket” was Asda in 1973.

Butchers vans and bakers vans were still a common sight in the 1960s. And of course the milkman. People didn’t use their cars to go food shopping - mum took her wicker basket and a string basket and went “round the street for her messages”, as we say in Scotland.

And also, fridges and freezers where hellishly expensive in the 60's so shopping daily for food was another chore. So (going back to cake) something that lasted a day or two without needing chilling was useful.

I can remember going to a friends house, and realising they didn’t have a fridge

We were lucky, because my dad had a shop, and had a freezer for ice lollies (like Fred’s one, only ours had a Walls logo on it). Everybody else just had the wee icebox thingy in their fridge.

I think its interesting that there is definite split between "Call the Midwife is olden days" MNers and those of us who were either there or born shortly afterwards so remember that there wasnt just a magic day when we went from War to Abundance.

To me it isnt history. My mother was 17 in '67 she remembers it vividly as the year her and my father got engaged!

@SantaClawsServiette

It is a bit weird though. Are they having more cake now at NN House compared to 1957?

They do seem to be! I think the food was much plainer early on, and it was made clear the nuns wouldn't indulge. I found the storyline of Sister Monica Joan and the ice lolly totally weird - sure, she's elderly, but she's still a nun and (as we've said) much more compos mentis than she was in previous series, and I can't believe that would have seemed ok!

@PyongyangKipperbang

I think its interesting that there is definite split between "Call the Midwife is olden days" MNers and those of us who were either there or born shortly afterwards so remember that there wasnt just a magic day when we went from War to Abundance.

To me it isnt history. My mother was 17 in '67 she remembers it vividly as the year her and my father got engaged!

I don’t think that the war stopped and suddenly there was stuff everywhere. I remember the 70s, and food not going to waste etc. What I’m referring to though is that the young mothers in CTMW weren’t wartime mothers. They will have picked up the attitudes from their parents but they will have learned to run a house in a time with a little more, if you have the money.

I have a hunch that Sister MJ is at that "Fuck it" stage of life. She would have been like that if she had been married to a man rather than her religion. "I have given you my whole life, if I want a lolly then I will sodding well have one!"

@PyongyangKipperbang

I think its interesting that there is definite split between "Call the Midwife is olden days" MNers and those of us who were either there or born shortly afterwards so remember that there wasnt just a magic day when we went from War to Abundance.

To me it isnt history. My mother was 17 in '67 she remembers it vividly as the year her and my father got engaged!

Is there?

Like you, to me it's history as my dad was also 17 in 1967, so I didn't live through it.

But I have very clear memories of my grandmother's life being shaped by the war - so was my mum's. She was born in 1952 and she still knows exactly what a ration of cheese looks like because it was so ingrained. And for that matter I was brought up to know you don't put an oven on for one thing, you co-ordinate what you're cooking.

In real life (aside from this thread) what strikes me most is how the middle generation - the people who grew up after the war but before austerity - seem so removed from worrying about money. I never had a freezer for most of my adult life; I had periods without a fridge or without heating, and those are increasingly normal experiences for my generation. Our parents can't quite get their heads around it. But I know from younger people I teach that the idea you just have a fridge full of food is seen as not only expensive, but also old-fashioned. I would say it's become quite snob middle class to avoid supermarkets and go to the butcher and the greengrocer. It's interesting how the circle gets squared.

@PyongyangKipperbang

I have a hunch that Sister MJ is at that "Fuck it" stage of life. She would have been like that if she had been married to a man rather than her religion. "I have given you my whole life, if I want a lolly then I will sodding well have one!"

I love this.

the young mothers in CTMW weren’t wartime mothers

But they were living in a very deprived area, and most of them would have grown up very near the breadline. Remember the condition of the housing in the first few series? Abject poverty. That was their norm growing up.

Again, in the early days, we saw how most of the men were in manual Labour jobs, sometimes hired on a day by day basis. And most of the married women didn’t work outside the house. Money was really, really tight. And kids were well aware of that.

I never watched the series when it first came out but binge watched it during the various lockdowns. I thought the early series were fabulous, really hard hitting with great characters.
I was gutted when Pam Ferris left and feel that there is a real shortage of interesting characters now. Thank God for Phyllis. It's also become a bit twee.

The worst thing is that CMW has turned into the Turner show. Hardly surprising when the actor's wife writes the scripts 🙄

Regarding conversion therapy, there was an episode I believe in Season 3 or 4 where a young gay man had been arrested and was told he would have to take drugs to suppress his urges if he wanted to stay out of jail.

It was really sad because his wife who had just had a baby seemed to think that his medication was just going to make him infertile instead of suppressing his sexual desires.

Yes I think it being the Turner Show is an issue. Mostly centred on how St Patrick Mansplain of Poplar can identify, understand and cure every know disease and physiological issue know to mankind (note, not womankind, because what they know means nothing). We must spend our Sunday evenings in wonder.

Rather than be about the centred (usually unreported) issues that (usually not considered interesting) women ssuffered or dealt with. Gave a nice warm feeling how other woman came to aid and help each other. Even the sad bits. When midwives would share experiences to help people without lecturing.

Interesting discussion! We don't see very much about the docks now but a lot of men in Poplar would have been reliant on getting work there, and as I understand it, that was particularly uncertain, as dockers used to go down to the docks early every morning and wait to see if there was any work. I'm not sure if they were self-employed or treated as casual labour, taken on by the day, but they had no security at all. If there were no big ships in needing to be unloaded, there was no work that day and no money.

Not sure when the move to bigger ships and containerisation took place - the 1970s? That was the end of the London Docks and a huge change for a place like Poplar.

This week was particularly twee from Dr Mansplain.

I can just about believe Mrs Turner saying "that's good" about it being decriminalised as she had seen the effects on families while not exactly approving of the act so to speak but the response was awfully flowery.

Were one GP practices the norm back in the 60s? I can actually believe that the GPs would have been 'centre stage' in anything unusual or regarded as a medical emergency (taking place in their practice patch). However, he seems to have quite a massive caseload to manage on his own? Leaving little time for being so 'up' on medical research/breakthroughs/etc. AND having such a happy family life (there's never any indication that he's a workaholic who doesn't give enough attention to Mrs T. or his children)?

Very common, yes. Not sure they were all one step away from the Nobel Prize, though!

My parents were born in 1936/7 and obviously lived through the war years and would be contemporary to the new parents in this series. Their "waste not want not" attitude lasted throughout life and was passed down to me and my siblings. Reusing stuff, not wasting food, making and mending your own things... we always baked on a Sunday when the oven was on for the roast.

Going back to post war diets I think the war affected most peoples views of food and people seemed to go either towards famine or feast. My Nan was definitely a 'feast' person, always had lots of food in, constantly baking and cooking. I also think in the past there probably wasn't as much convenience food so a piece of cake would be a normal part of lunch or to have mid afternoon if you're hungry. Nowadays we have more access to fruit, crisps, yogurts etc to make up lunch.