Call the Midwife

[Toddlerteaplease]

Well this is boring.

Thats kind of what happened though. Maternity homes were gradually closed and women pushed into hospital. It became official policy to discourage home birth (there was actually a push to make home birth illegal in the early 70's) and home birth rates dropped through the floor. It so happened that the increase in hospital births coincided with the improvement in outcomes for both mothers and babies and it was assumed to be causal. When actually it was because of better medical care in general, better diets and health over all and anti biotics.

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

My mum was the same. This was in the mid 70s. I used pads until I was about 14 or 15 and my period started when I was at a pals, and she only had tampons. She handed me the packet, pointed out the instructions and that was that! Never used a pad again, until menopause hit.

@Akire

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.

I thought that. There was just Lucille there on her own. What if there had been an emergency? Is used to run more like a small hospital.

Has anyone else noticed that for the patients houses/flats they seem to have about 3 sets?
There is ‘modern flat’ which we saw tonight.
Victorian terrace, which we also saw tonight and was the same back room/kitchen and the mum with mastitis from last week.
And ‘slum flat’ which we had a couple of weeks ago with the mum who didn’t want social services involved.

Now I know that a lot of the flats, especially the modern ones will have a similar lay out but surely not this much.

Oh and the whole deal with the jumble sale and new playground equipment didn’t seem to come to much.

We had a nurse come to give a talk to the girls in third year juniors (year 5) in 1974/5. We were given a brick like Kotex stick on sanitary towel to hand round - probably fairly newly invented then - and a leaflet called Very Personally Yours sponsored by Kotex. There was mention of tampons at the back of it but none in the talk. It was quite enlightened for the time I think. My mum had told me about it just before then as she started when she was only ten and, having been told nothing about it, thought she was dying. I was fourteen when I started but most girls then were around thirteen with some earlier and some later.

I think those of us who stared in the 70's and 80's were at the crossover between the old ways and the new.

Our mothers hadnt been given much information or help and they didnt want that for us but many, my own mother included, didnt really know how to bring it up so were happy for the school to do it. But then things like tampons still had worries attached. I remember it being a common thing on Cathy and Claire about whether using tampons would mean that a girl was no longer a virgin. I was told by a girl at school that using tampons proved you were a slag and had had sex. It was said with such fear that it can only have come from her mother, I know that mine believed that to be true.

Going back to CTM I think that it proves that there are younger writers. The early series were historically accurate, no matter how offensive some of those things would be considered now, probably as they were based on Jennifer Worth's memoirs. It was accepted though that this was in context of the times and as distasteful as some of the themes were, forced adoption, racism, sexism, brutality in the home, there were not considered to be as appalling as we now know them to be. Now it seems to be a fancy dress party of people in old fashioned clothes doing contemporary things.

@PyongyangKipperbang
Yes, you are right. I read all of Jennifer Worth’s books and the first series followed them closely. Crummy to be played by Miranda was even chosen by her because M was so like her friend had been. Jennifer Worth also mentioned how much she herself had loved very good clothes, so that aspect had been true to her character too.

I do agree to some extent with what you said and this,
“Now it seems to be a fancy dress party of people in old fashioned clothes doing contemporary things.”

It still love it though.

I meant the character Chummy.

My DM (now 90) was told not to wash her hair while she had her period and that if she did "bad things would happen".

It wasn't until she was studying medicine in her 20s that she raised that was rubbish and tried it out. Though her mother was terrified when she told her what she'd done!

So do I! I work every Sunday evening and there is a reason why I post so late, its because I get home from work, pour a glass of wine and watch it!

The thought of chilling with CTM gets me through the single most BORING shift of the week :o

@Justkeeppedaling

My DM (now 90) was told not to wash her hair while she had her period and that if she did "bad things would happen".

It wasn't until she was studying medicine in her 20s that she raised that was rubbish and tried it out. Though her mother was terrified when she told her what she'd done!

God that brings back memories! Another Cathy and Claire one! I remember problem page letters about it well into the 80's about that, and asking about whether its safe to bath on your period as their mothers were telling them it wasnt. I can sort of see the bathing one, if there was a misunderstanding that if blood can come out then bath water can go in, but the hair washing one baffled me then and baffles me now!

@GarethSouthgatesWaistcoat

Would girls starting their periods at 10 or 11 have been common in the late 60s/ something that community professionals would publicly involve themselves in?

It wasn't common in the late 80s/early 90s and certainly wouldn't have warranted a campaign. The vast majority of us started at 12-14 (and older in some cases). Anyone starting younger was discretely helped by the school nurse and/or their mum.

We only had the period talk in Y7 and Y8 (Tampax lady 😁) and a bit of sex ed in Y6 and that seemed progressive for the time.
I just find the idea of the enthusiastic nun and nurse going into a primary school in the late 60s unfathomable, particularly without parents' knowledge.

Maybe I'm wrong!

I'm 31 and had the period talk in Y5, I was 9 as an August baby. That was in the 90s.

Was the issue about having a bath while on your period not more likely to be old-fashioned squeamishness about sitting around in water tinged with blood?

@OnlyTheTitosaurusOfTheIceberg

Was the issue about having a bath while on your period not more likely to be old-fashioned squeamishness about sitting around in water tinged with blood?

Could be, hadnt thought of that, but I do know that my mother was brought up to not even have a stand up wash on her period in case she got a "chill in her system". To this day neither she, I or my sister have managed to work out what could be :o

My mother was 9 when she started, in 1959 and was by no means the only on who had started by the time her class started high school.

I suppose back in days of tub shared baths no one wanted see your bloody bath or empty it. Periods made you more delicate and run down more so if poor diet so washing your hair and sitting with it in cold home could made you “ill”. My body temp always drops with period so can see why old fashioned wisdom was to stay warm and not sit around wet hair for most of the day.

Still think v early to be including tampons for such young children even in 80s it was considered something for older teens.

No mention that some kids would been getting belt or cane in schools right up until mid 1980s. No one ever turns up with caned hand or anything at surgery.

Agree that the male teacher bringing up the subject of periods for primary school aged girls seems very unusual and at least 20 years too soon. Whereas now it's quite common for girls to start when they're 8, 9 or 10, in those days it was highly unusual (and very unlikely a male teacher would have been the one to bring it up!).

Also felt wrong that Trixie was sneaking back into Nonnatus House in the morning after a night of passion. It seemed quite disrespectful and given how well-brought up she is, I'm not sure she would have been doing 'the morning walk of shame'?

Nurse Crane seems to very much feel what her beloved girls are going through, doesn't she? She has very much the same type of relationship with Lucille as she did with Barbara.

Why has nurse crane left? Is she doing something else in RL?

My grandmother was also convinced that washing your hair whilst on your period would cause a chill. Her sister died when she was 17. She just dropped dead apparently. My grandmother was convinced it was because her hair was wet that day to hair washing. Women had waist length hair in those days and there was no central heating.
Also shared baths as people mention.
My grandfather had the view that children shouldn’t be allowed to play in the snow on case they got chilled. He also thought if people didn’t wear slippers indoors they would get ill.
So many children got fatal illnesses at one time, in unheated houses with not enough clothes or proper shoes. Keeping warm was probably very important in reducing the chances of fatality ir serious illness.
No hairdryers then either.

@PyongyangKipperbang

I think those of us who stared in the 70's and 80's were at the crossover between the old ways and the new.

Our mothers hadnt been given much information or help and they didnt want that for us but many, my own mother included, didnt really know how to bring it up so were happy for the school to do it. But then things like tampons still had worries attached. I remember it being a common thing on Cathy and Claire about whether using tampons would mean that a girl was no longer a virgin. I was told by a girl at school that using tampons proved you were a slag and had had sex. It was said with such fear that it can only have come from her mother, I know that mine believed that to be true.

Yes, mine too. I started using them at 15 and when my mother found out she was aghast.

The period pants I remember had poppers in to attach the pad before the sticky back ones were invented.

It seems a bit disingenuous that Sister Julienne wouldn't have fully understood what was in the box (STs, ST belts, etc), surely?

And was the NSPCC something that children would have really known about in the 1960s? Certainly in terms of calling them for help? I think that only became a thing that was widely publicised in the 21st Century?

Yes I agree about the NSPCC. Children didn’t know about it in the sixties. I don’t even know if it existed.

Ah. It was set up in 1884.

No idea what those pants they were talking about were. Does anyone have a clue? Unless they meant dark coloured knickers?
Nikini, I think they were called. Plastic pants with a thing to hold the pads in place. They were very uncomfortable if the plastic got crispy from washing. I think there were some more expensive ones made from a better material. There was a reason they called it 'the curse' back then because all forms of protection were torture in varying degrees. I don't think they would have taken tampons to a primary school. They were a bit risque in secondary school back then.