Call the midwife 2!

[Toddlerteaplease]

Wow. I've never filled a thread before!

Oh yes, good point about the All Saints and saint-named churches and cathedrals. Probably should have been a fairly sizable clue.

Would a Peaky Blinders/CTM mashup be called Peaky Midwives or Call the Blinders?

About Anglican saints: according to that unreliable source Wikipedia, saints who were recognised before the Anglican Church split with Rome have generally continued to be recognised as saints, eg St Paul.

There seems to be a category of heroes of the Christian Church in the Anglican Communion, (Lambeth Conference 1958) who are not canonised, the Anglican Church doesn’t do that, but they are recognised for their ?exceptional work/good lives.

Saintly Timothy might fit in that group. Or, he could convert.

I vote for Call the Blinders.

And if you go to Cornwall (other areas are available) there are plenty of churches dedicated to saints not really recognised by anyone and might have been mythical.

The train filmed was a diesel loco (DH is a train nerd!) but the line from Chelmsford to London was third rail electrified at that point so people would actually have been in more danger on the tracks than in the coaches this is my favourite comment @InMySpareTime. The entire plot is just too ridiculous - and if it really was necessary to stage a train crash, did the driver to be the husband of one of the women who was giving birth that week? I too was waiting for Dr Turner to rush to the driver's cab and take the controls. I think by next week he'll have recovered enough to single-handedly treat all those in his carriage. I have also been enjoying This Is Going to Hurt and I must say I find it an excellent antidote to Call the Midwife. I love them both for different reasons - and both rooted in memoirs.

Sorry but that one wasn't third rail electric, it was always overhead electric for all my childhood, and It remember plenty of diesel. Third rail was only south of the Thames.

@LillianGish

Just caught up with the latest episode and found myself properly sobbing at Lucille's miscarriage. I had a miscarriage at a similar point in my pregnancy and in similar circumstances (I don't mean I was in the middle of delivering a baby ), but I was on my own went to the loo, saw the blood and then was back in the loo - just like Lucille. I went on to have two lovely children and I often think if I hadn't miscarried when I did then I wouldn't have them so it really took me by surprise that the scene affected me so much. Brought back all the memories of how bereft I felt at the time - it was at about this time of year, cold and grey - I thought I'd packed it all away. I'm glad this thread is here so I can come and post - it feel a trivial thing to talk about in RL as I know people go through much worse so thanks for listening.

I've just gone down a train-nerd rabbit hole trying to find out why DH was on about third rail electrification.
The Great Eastern Main Line (where it's set) was overhead electrified at the time.
The Watercress Line (where it was filmed) was third rail electrified at the time.
Neither would have run a diesel loco, and the train nerd fora are irked at the suggestion that a passenger service would be held up at all to allow a simple shunting operation.
Don't even get them started on "train from Chelmsford" (as if it were a terminus!)

The early 1980s saw track rationalisation and signalling work carried out in the Ipswich area and, on 9 April 1985, the first electric train consisting of two Class 305 electric multiple units (EMU) worked into Ipswich station. The previous year, another member of the class had been dragged to Ipswich by a diesel locomotive and was used for crew training. The first passenger carrying train was formed of British Rail Class 309 EMUs, which ran on 17 April 1985. The plan was for Inter-City trains to be hauled by British Rail Class 86 locomotives which, until the line beyond Ipswich to Norwich was electrified, would changeover with the Class 47s at Ipswich; this arrangement commenced from 1 May 1985.

This is from wikipaedia, and as I belong Eve that train probably originated in Ipswich or Norwich, it could well have been pulled by diesel.

Thank you @amispeakingintongues. That was a couple of weeks ago now, but it is rather a good illustration of how CTM is much more affecting when it deals with tiny, individual tragedies than with the full-on melodrama of a rail crash which merely leaves us pondering whether the line would have been electrified at that point and whether Dr T should have seized the controls to head off the crash.

Hear, hear, Lillian. You are so very right about this, and it's why a good friend initially recommended CTM to me. I had wrongly assumed it would all be very soppy and superficial and the early series weren't. Ah well.

I am not a train nerd but I was baffled by the idea that a train coming from Chelmsford to Liverpool St. would go through Poplar at all. I tried googling and it seemed to me there was a freight line through Poplar which had probably closed by 1967. I could easily be wrong here. Perhaps one of our train nerd correspondents could report back.

I guess we aren't really meant to look into the trains, or the lines etc as being absolutely real. It's what the location managers could find, with a vintage train, at a platform that could be hired to film at in the right timeframe etc etc.

Don't like to burst the bubble of enjoyable pondering but it's pointless being baffled whether Poplar actually had a freight line or not or if the type of train was around in 1967 etc. Whatever the factual case was, in this fictions programme it did.

@MollyButton

The early 1980s saw track rationalisation and signalling work carried out in the Ipswich area and, on 9 April 1985, the first electric train consisting of two Class 305 electric multiple units (EMU) worked into Ipswich station. The previous year, another member of the class had been dragged to Ipswich by a diesel locomotive and was used for crew training. The first passenger carrying train was formed of British Rail Class 309 EMUs, which ran on 17 April 1985. The plan was for Inter-City trains to be hauled by British Rail Class 86 locomotives which, until the line beyond Ipswich to Norwich was electrified, would changeover with the Class 47s at Ipswich; this arrangement commenced from 1 May 1985.

This is from wikipaedia, and as I belong Eve that train probably originated in Ipswich or Norwich, it could well have been pulled by diesel.

I used to take the Norwich to London train regularly. That would be the Chelmsford train I think. I was out that he said that the train was from Chelmsford as it would have been the Norwich train.

So deffo no electric trains (EMUs) in the 60s then?
Given Wales still doesn't have electric trains 60 years later, that doesn't surprise me. So much support for electric cars, while there are so many diesel trains causing so much pollution.

I'm enjoying This is Going to Hurt too @LillianGish but wishing it was only available weekly so I could savour it more and have a thread like this to discuss it on.

Perhaps one of our train nerd correspondents could report back

Oh dear god in heaven, please no

The set dressers seem to look at magazines from the period and furnish accordingly, with all the latest stuff, rather than mostly old fashioned, mismatched, with a few new things

I think you must have only watched one episode, as while some houses are bang up to date like The Turners, they are well off so you might expect it. Other houses of the older and poorer are frequently shown to have older decor. Also with fashion, Nurse Franklin is up to date, Nurse Crane isn't, which it what you'd expect.

@Rosehugger

The set dressers seem to look at magazines from the period and furnish accordingly, with all the latest stuff, rather than mostly old fashioned, mismatched, with a few new things

I think you must have only watched one episode, as while some houses are bang up to date like The Turners, they are well off so you might expect it. Other houses of the older and poorer are frequently shown to have older decor. Also with fashion, Nurse Franklin is up to date, Nurse Crane isn't, which it what you'd expect.

I agree. There is a variety of decor.

@Hellosunshiner

I guess we aren't really meant to look into the trains, or the lines etc as being absolutely real. It's what the location managers could find, with a vintage train, at a platform that could be hired to film at in the right timeframe etc etc.

Don't like to burst the bubble of enjoyable pondering but it's pointless being baffled whether Poplar actually had a freight line or not or if the type of train was around in 1967 etc. Whatever the factual case was, in this fictions programme it did.

Yes and no. If we were watching a fantasy, I'd accept anything they invented, as long as it was consistent. But outside fantasy there has to be some semblance of realism or we get so distracted by the mistakes we stop concentrating on the story.

Can't wait for this evening, despite it all!

I'm looking forward to tonight too, just in the same way I used to look forward to seeing what ridiculous scenario Neighbours would come up with next.

Last bets on the fatality?
My money is still on Phyllis being injured.

Sister Julienne.

Very long odds - Stephen McGann has said to Heidi Turner over breakfast 'You know what, darling, I'm a bit bored with CTM now. Can you write me out in some spectacular way?'

I'm thinking Sister J. They will build it up to make us think it is Dr T with the whole last time Timothy spoke to him was an argument thing and then he will appear like the resurrection of Christ.

It has been too long since the fabulous Sister Evangelina died so they need a Nun funeral.

@Aroundtheworldin80moves

Last bets on the fatality? My money is still on Phyllis being injured.

I hope not. I like Phyllis

I agree with Sister Julienne…or an explosion happens and Sister Monica Joan is too close and killed by shrapnel.

Dr Smug carefully mansplains that when things crash and go boom, objects fly at a high force than can severely injure or indeed kill someone as poor Sister Monica Joan found out

@Rosehugger

The set dressers seem to look at magazines from the period and furnish accordingly, with all the latest stuff, rather than mostly old fashioned, mismatched, with a few new things

I think you must have only watched one episode, as while some houses are bang up to date like The Turners, they are well off so you might expect it. Other houses of the older and poorer are frequently shown to have older decor. Also with fashion, Nurse Franklin is up to date, Nurse Crane isn't, which it what you'd expect.

Nope, I’ve watched from the start. The early seasons got it spot on. And I’m really talking about the houses of the patients.