Call the Midwife

[Toddlerteaplease]

Well this is boring.

@GarethSouthgatesWaistcoat my mum stated hers when she was 10 or 11 in the 60's. I was 1; in the 90's. Seems to be happening even earlier now.

@VeryLongBeeeeep

Or a house bought for £5k in 1970 is now worth £1.1 million in the North and probably £2.5 million in London.

Lol wut? My parents' house in the NE cost £5k in 1971 and is worth about £140k now.

This is based on mine and my parents- so both real figures.

£5k in NE would have been a large Victorian villa with grounds? Ex Vicarage type house.

My parents’ house was £5k or thereabouts in 1967. Zoopla currently values it at £294k.

Can't believe Nurse Crane got six weeks annual leave with a weeks notice! Can't stand her, so glad she's out of the way

We got The Period Talk in what's now Y7 (1989-81). The girls were taken into one classroom for it, the boys into another for a normal lesson. The biology teacher took the lesson - good call as she was loved by everyone. We were given samples of pads & tampons.

I started when I was 13. My nana phoned my dad at worked & announced 'Your daughter is a woman'. When he came home he very awkwardly handed me a box of Milk Tray.

My nana was 11 - 1928. She told the teacher she had a headache and must have cut her leg because she was bleeding. Teacher gave her a sanitary pad, told her to put it in and go home. So she put it on her head (for her headache) with the loops over her ears. Her mum gave her a good hiding for 'showing her up'.

£5k in NE would have been a large Victorian villa with grounds? Ex Vicarage type house.

Nope, new build 3 bed semi with small garden in a supposedly 'up and coming' commuter suburb that ended up being more 'down and going'.

My parents house in the East Midlands cost £8k when they married in 1977. Probably worth about £220 now.

We had a video which was mostly about farrowing sows as I remember, when we were 7 or 8 in 1979-80. Then two or three years later, we had the Tampax lady come in. And age 12, we watched a series of videos, which briefly covered puberty and sex, which embarrassed our young nsle form tutor mightily, and then went on for weeks about how babies developed in and out of the womb. It seemed an odd balance.

I remember a talk at Primary in P7. My mother had already told me when I was 9. Most girls didn’t start till 12 or 13 . This was early seventies.

My house was built in 1815, we have all the old paperwork. The first mortgage on it was for £6.

I started my periods when I was just 14 (early 90's). My mother was nearly 15 (late 60's) and my DD was 13.5 (last year).

I was fairly late starting compared to my friends. DD has friends who started when they were 9 and some who still haven't. There's generally a 5 or 6 year window for 'normal' menstruation start age isn't there? So I guess 11ish wouldn't have been that unusual in the 60's

I’ve just had a thought about Phyllis’s odd reaction to the letter.
I think that initially the letter was meant to have bad news that would involve her going away.

They filmed the scene with the letter being opened earlier (as I’m sure you know things like this are shot out of sequence) and then realised that Trixie would need to leave earlier than planned.
This would result in two characters leaving for sad reasons on the same episode, along with Lucille losing her baby.
So they quickly changed it to a good thing and gave a half arsed reason.

I guess there may have been some primary schools in the late sixties that had discussion about periods. But I can't imagine any discussed eggs and sperm, as in tonight's episode!

This "drama" is so twee, it's hilarious, apart from Vanessa Redgrave's words of wisdom at the end of the episodes, her voice is so gravelly, and never changes in whatever past role she has acted in.

@PriamFarrl I think you might be right. Hadn't thought of that! It does seem a very odd reaction.

And the talk about money was odd as well.

Re start of periods, I found this

Peter Hindmarsh, professor of paediatric endocrinology at Great Ormond Street Hospital in London, says it's . "Between 1958 and 2005 the age at menarche (first period) hasn't moved much – from about 13 to about 12.8."

I thought this ep was really good, and more like the old days. So sad for Lucille.

Had to laugh at middle age Dr T having the trendiest male hairdo in Poplar, while his student son is stuck in the 50s with enough Brylcreme to fry an egg.

Trixie and her man have less chemistry with every episode.

Of course, we have more of the wonders of Dr P to look forward to next week. Why wasn’t this man knighted, given the Nobel Prize for medicine and sent to walk on the moon?

I wonder what he will do next? Maybe invent Smash?

My parents bought a largish semi-detached.house in what subsequently became a trendy part of London in the late 60s for around £12K. They moved away a long time ago, but I've just checked online and they reckon it's now worth around £2m. However, that's on the basis that the ground floor has more or less been gutted and redone, probably with a state of the art kitchen, , I'm sure new owners will have installed a new bathroom and at least one en suite, and they've made the loft into two bedrooms.

Sister Julien seems more older and frailer every week like she’s slowly losing her marbles. She thought a box of pads and tampons had been left for the jumble?

I suppose we could have more student midwife’s to cover everyone’s holiday.

My nana was 11 - 1928. She told the teacher she had a headache and must have cut her leg because she was bleeding. Teacher gave her a sanitary pad, told her to put it in and go home. So she put it on her head (for her headache) with the loops over her ears. Her mum gave her a good hiding for 'showing her up'

Sorry Nana that you got a hiding, but that did make me laugh

It wasn't so much the age of girls starting their periods, I'm aware there would always be a few starting at the early end of the spectrum (ditto the older end hence the average age!).

It was the nun and nurse's sudden manic involvement and the comprehensive materials they put together to teach the girls. I couldn't imagine it happening on a whim like that and not in a primary school during that era. Secondary maybe?
It just seemed very progressive to me and very spur of the moment! Would primary schools not have a school nurse on site (not to teach a class about periods but to provide supplies)? We had one in an average sized primary in the mid-late 80s but I don't know about the late 60s.

From the teaser for the next episode it looks like Dr Turner is going to have a crack at eradicating measles next week!

What got me about the period talk was that when we had ours at primary school (was 9 iirc) there was a requirement for parents to consent and before that they were invited to listen to the presentation for themselves. I remember that particularly because my mother was surprised that one mother refused consent for her dd was "see that filth" (it really wasnt!). So surely there would be consent needed for girls that young, given that the teenage class they ran a few years previously had needed parental consent when one woman meant barmy that he dd had been attending (her sister had had a baby as a teen I think).

I dont think informing the girls about sanitary belts would have been odd but tampons most certainly wouldnt have been mentioned. I remember when I was 12 and started I asked my mother about tampons and it was made very clear that they were for "married women only" and it seemed to be the same for my friends.

I really cant see nuns especially recommended them.

I should say that I started my periods in the early 80's.

The maternity home is looking less and less viable not even a spare nurse or assistant on hand at night to use the phone! It’s time we had another doctor, Dr T giving his wife lectures on doing to much when he’s single handedly curing the parish 24/7. Never shouts go away I’ve been up all night I’m not doing a home visit for haemorrhoids.

We had our “talk” in either P6 or P7. This was in early/mid 70s.
And mums were invited before hand to see the film that was shown. It was made by one of the sanitary products manufacturers.

No idea what those pants they were talking about were. Does anyone have a clue? Unless they meant dark coloured knickers?