Page 40 | Call the Midwife

Snowisfalling33 · 01/02/2022 19:38

Fair enough then, I'm no medical expert. I'd assumed there was evidence to support her story. It wasn't a particularly well written story line then... in too much of a hurry to get to the happy ending part.

SarahAndQuack · 01/02/2022 19:52

Oh, there might be evidence I just don't know - I am hoping someone on here will be able to confirm, as I'm just parroting what I know from reports, rather than knowing in practice what would be done.

I did wish there had been a happier ending there, too! I found it a really weird episode overall.

PriamFarrl · 01/02/2022 20:51

[quote Wilma55]Did anyone else remember Nurse Crane meeting a chap at Spanish lessons? Perhaps she will bump into him in the Spanish part of her coach trip!
www.radiotimes.com/tv/drama/call-the-midwife-tugs-at-the-heartstrings-in-new-ways/[/quote]
He’s living in Ambridge now so that’s no good.

SantaClawsServiette · 01/02/2022 22:27

@SarahAndQuack

Did you not see earlier episodes when Sister J was very definitely shocked about the idea of providing contraception advice?

Obviously she had seen thousands of unmarried mothers, illegitimate children, and botched home abortions.

Her reaction to tampons in the hallway isn't anything to do with being an innocent shrinking violet. It's clearly coming from the same place as her reaction to contraception talks - she wouldn't think Nonnatus House was the place for it and I suspect she wouldn't approve of unmarried women using tampons.

It's really not that long ago people considered tampons quite inappropriate for unmarried women (because it was thought it might damage the hymen). My cousin was an Anglican nun; she's not still with us so I can't ask her what she'd have thought, but I'd be gobsmacked if she'd have thought tampons were acceptable.

I don't think these things are particularly similar in the end.

While young girls might not have been wearing tampons much in 1967, it wasn't that unusual for older women to do so. And an Anglican nun with a good education would not likely have thought it would impinge on someone's virginity.

Contraception on the other hand was still seen as a moral issue in an entirely different way, and when Lambeth discussed the issue in the early 20th century their decision was that contraception could be used by married couple with serious reasons but would have detrimental social effects if widely distributed, and they felt that even that decision might be questionable. In fact that episode somewhat hints at some of those things in what Sister J says though I thought at the time it might have been quite interesting to explore it further, as some of the things they predicted did in fact come to pass.

But in any case, it was a real religious problem for Sister J in a way that tampons simply never would have been.

SarahAndQuack · 01/02/2022 22:39

No, wearing tampons was definitely understood to have to do with virginity.

It wasn't to do with education.

ScrollingLeaves · 01/02/2022 22:43

Re: Did young girls use tampons in 1967?

Young girls did use them, but just not in the first year or so after starting their period.
I even remember a girl at school having a tampon in her pocket.
No doubt they were not used as often as they are now though.

blyn72 · 01/02/2022 23:24

I started using tampons when I was fourteen (1964), prior to that I used pads.

SantaClawsServiette · 02/02/2022 01:14

@SarahAndQuack

No, wearing tampons was definitely understood to have to do with virginity.

It wasn't to do with education.

This is much too great a generalization.

Back in the 4th century St Augustine, who Sister J would certainly have been familiar with, said that even rape did not impinge on a person's virginity. Now, he meant that in a spiritual or moral sense, but that is also the sense that Sister J would likely have thought was important religiously speaking. And while some nuns might have less worldly experience, she was a practicing midwife, a nurse, she is not likely to have had odd spiritual ideas about the hymen.

She might have thought young girls should avoid them for practical reasons - some do struggle with tampons - but there' s no reason she'd have had issue with older women using them.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 02/02/2022 07:18

He’s living in Ambridge now so that’s no good.

@PriamFarrl, as we've seen recently, his current love interest doesn't take kindly to other older women catching Leonard's eye, so I hope for Nurse Crane's sake she steers well clear of Borsetshire! Jill's aim with a flapjack is probably still true.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 02/02/2022 07:37

Re new writers being too young to know what life was like in the 1960s - Heidi Thomas herself wrote the most recent episode. She will be 60 this year so is a year younger than me. I remember a fair bit about that era, but obviously from a child's point of view. If I had to tackle writing an episode (now there's an idea) I'd have to do a lot of background reading to feel confident I was getting the details right. Maybe CTM doesn't pay enough per script for the writers to feel they have time to do that.

I was going to say HT used to write all the episodes, but I see from Wikipedia that that was never true. From the first series on she's usually written about half the episodes and various other writers have tackled the others, presumably working from her detailed outlines.

Samcro · 02/02/2022 07:57

I was in primary in the 60's no way was there any discussion about periods. did live in surrey though. can't remember having male teachers either.
in the 70's any talks about that or sex was very basic. I remember early 70's our form teacher having a chat with us (all girls) and getting into a lot of trouble, think it was as she hadn't got parental permission.
we had to go to the office if we needed SP and got one of those massive belted things.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 02/02/2022 08:20

I went to three different primary schools. The second and third had male headteachers but I don't remember any male teachers. I do recall a male student teacher taking us in Top Juniors (Year 6 now). My mum was a primary school teacher and had a male colleague for the last few years of her career (early 1980s). Just the one, which is why I remember her mentioning him!

UnicornsReal · 02/02/2022 08:27

I had a male teacher at Primary. Also had a talk about periods in my last year. 60’s and early seventies.

sluj · 02/02/2022 08:36

I was at primary in the late 60s and had lots of male teachers ! It was a fairly big school with 2 classes in each year but I think at least half of the teachers were male and the headteacher was too. I do remember having the period talk but due to the mess that was the educational system at that time, we didn't go to secondary school till we were 12, entering as second years.

Aroundtheworldin80moves · 02/02/2022 08:39

My mum had a male teacher in the 1960s. Female teacher had the infants, male teacher had the juniors. Vicar taught the odd lesson too. There was only about 25 kids in the whole school. (And it covered two villages!)

WeAreTheHeroes · 02/02/2022 08:46

I thought the primary school chat was anachronistic. We had that chat in PE at high school in the mid 80s. Too late for most of us who were already having periods and the majority had been told about puberty, sex, etc by their parents.

The language around unmarried women having sex and going on to have babies is all about subjugation, blaming the woman, and not holding the men involved to account.

TopsieGreenwood · 02/02/2022 08:58

I liked them showing the school as you get more of a sense of the community as a whole. I remember thinking they should have done storylines with Timothy and his school to make him seem more of a rounded character but we never did.

Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g · 02/02/2022 08:58

The language around unmarried women having sex and going on to have babies is all about subjugation, blaming the woman, and not holding the men involved to account.

Yes, it is. Starts with Genesis. The snake tempts Eve to taste the forbidden fruit, she succumbs and then she makes Adam do the same by her womanly wiles. When God finds out the contemptible Adam attempts to wriggle out of it by whining 'The woman made me!'

Same with violence. 'You made me do it.' 'She wouldn't stop nagging and in the end I just lost it. I didn't mean to do it!'

TopsieGreenwood · 02/02/2022 09:01

They could have done a school uniform sad face with Shelagh storming up the school about Timothy having the wrong schools and St Patrick mansplaining why they were the right shoes

OakleyStreetisnotinChelsea · 02/02/2022 10:22

Catching up.

I liked nun and Nancy giggling over the questions, it was a lot like when I get my Cubs to do things like that.

I reckon we could make it all a bit more like Eastenders. Trixie can get pregnant and everybody can be shocked at her being an unmarried mother. Lucile can finally lose her temper and yell at Trixie for being a whore and how unfair it is that she gets a baby when Lucile lost hers.

Then Phyllis will come back through the doors with a fit, young Spanish husband on her arm.

Sister J will be seen throwing off her wimple and muttering "FFS" Sister MJ will exclaim "about time!" Before settling down in front of the TV with a slice of cake.

The closing scene is Mrs Higgins standing in the shadows with a sinister grin.

OakleyStreetisnotinChelsea · 02/02/2022 10:24

Oh and young nun will decide to quit too and let Nancy take her shopping. She and Nancy will move in together as best mates and have all manner of fun.

GruffaloSolja · 02/02/2022 11:40

@OakleyStreetisnotinChelsea

Oh and young nun will decide to quit too and let Nancy take her shopping. She and Nancy will move in together as best mates and have all manner of fun.

Yes, then they can have their own Liver Bird-sesque spin off series.

GruffaloSolja · 02/02/2022 11:42

And when Nonatus house finally gets condemned, Sister Monica Jones can move in with them.

TrashyPanda · 02/02/2022 12:26