Call the Midwife.

[Toddlerteaplease]

Anyone watching? Dr smug unfortunately appears fully recovered from the train crash.

Yes to this!

Urgh, too much vomming last night for me, but I agree with the PP who mentioned panicked faces!! I looked at that first baby's nappy and thought it looked like a normal newborn poo...

And why didn't they let the mums breastfeed? There are antibodies in breast milk. And surely bottle feeding would cause problems with milk supplies later on? The women had no choice, no autonomy.

Love Nurse Crane and SMJ. Excellent comment about all the men on the board being older than Nurse Crane!! Pompous buffoons.

And why didn't they let the mums breastfeed? There are antibodies in breast milk. And surely bottle feeding would cause problems with milk supplies later on? The women had no choice, no autonomy.

They were measuring how much fluid was going in (bottles) and coming out (weighing nappies), to keep a track on dehydration. Bottle feeding was not demonised in the 1960s as it is now! (I say that as someone who bottle fed 2 babies in the 2000s).

I know that SMJ isn't universally loved on here but she played a blinder yesterday evening.

She so did!!!

"She is the junior to you all!".

As a non SMJ fan, I agree.

With the mums not breastfeeding, they were expressing weren't they so the babies were getting their milk, just in a bottle to allow the weighing? That one mum made a comment of how she felt like a cow while Trixie took away a really not very full bottle. I'd presumed she'd been pumping.

SMJ comment about the babies she had seen who didn't live got to me. Its really not that long ago that a lot of children did die.

(If anyone is after a nice comforting watch in a similar vein... Itvx has all the old episodes of The Royal)

Matthew wouldn't go off with Nancy. She's far too common (as my Mum would have said). He would want a wife in keeping with his social status who would impress his business associates.

I looked at that first baby's nappy and thought it looked like a normal newborn poo...

I think they should still have been pooing meconium rather than that quantity of good old mustardy newborn poo. I imagine it looked and smelt wrong.

I don't think Nancy fancies Matthew, I think she sees him as more of a big brother figure.

Trixie doesn’t fit that bill either.

she’s a working woman, living in what is basically a staff hostel. She has a “polite” accent (that sounds a bit fake) , but she definitely isn’t posh and she doesn’t have her own money/trust fund - all the frocks are courtesy of her aunt.

the real posh nurse was Patsy. She was in a different league to Trixie.

i hate Matthews horrid , 100% unnatural fibres jumpers. You can just see the static building up.

does he have shares in Brylcreem?

Why was Mrs Turner allowed home when she got ill? That made a total nonsense of the quarantine, especially when she then infected all the kids.
Then, when she told Dr Turner not to come home as everyone was ill, that was ridiculous as clearly he'd already been exposed to that exact pathogen and was not ill.
If Dr Turner had used his amazing immunity from Quarantine to go home and look after his kids rather than send his spewing wife home to infect them, he'd have actually been useful.
As it was, he risked the community to have an unnecessary meeting with the council and run blood tests that could have waited a week.

My highlights of the episode:

1. Sheila saying they were all sick and thank goodness she had wipe clean flooring
2. Nurse Crane resisting the training made me think of the story of my Gran who, at having her EIGHTH baby was told by a young nurse that they were doing baby bathing lessons and it was recommended all mothers went to them. My Gran told her she'd had 7 babies previously and the nurse told her "things are changing all the time". My Gran's subsequent language will not be repeated here 😂

I think Nurse Crane highlighted something else... you can have all the innovation in the world but sometimes what you need most is a nurse that listens.

Also... why did Dr Turner need to watch the midwives deliver the twins. I know it was a breech but he just seems to be there sometimes rather than needed

My memory is that nurses- since its a hard physical job - could retire at 55. They would then work at something else til they were 58 when,having worked for 40 years (18-58) they got their well deserved pension.
Knew a wonderful woman who had trained as nurse and midwife (born 1917) who described delivering babies in Worlds End ,London after World War 2 by torchlight - no power. Sat the other children in the hall and delivered the next baby! I wish I'd taped her memories. She died just after Call the Midwife book came out - I was all set to go and read it to her since she was well nigh blind at the end.

I guess an unexpected twin delivery has higher risk of complications so it's better to have him right there rather than having to call him in later

does he have shares in Brylcreem?

It's entirely in keeping with the era. my dad always used Brylcreem in his hair in that time. It's one of my long lasting memories of him - I can almost smell it!

Linda Bassett, the actress who plays Nurse Crane is 72.

Sister Julienne must be a similar age to Nurse Crane..

Oh I remember 1968 well.

the super-greasy look was very old fashioned by then. Even Reggie has stopped using it.

my dad always splashed some au de cologne on his hands and ran them through his hair. He smelt gorgeous! There was a documentary about Scottish women who had married allied soldiers during the war, and one lady said, in tones of wonder “and they wore cologne!” To a girl in a wee mining village in Fife, this was clearly the last word in sophistication and glamour.

i wonder why Trixie wore cologne instead of eau de parfum? Cologne was more of a mens thing.

Jenny Agutter is 70. How can Bobby be 70???

she is still so beautiful.

I must be imagining my dad using it then.🤷🏻‍♀️

i wonder why Trixie wore cologne instead of eau de parfum? Cologne was more of a mens thing.

She didn't wear either, despite what she said - I recognised the bottle as being a bottle of M&S Eau de Toilette

e.g. www.marksandspencer.com/magnolia-eau-de-toilette-100ml/p/hbp60291961?prevPage=srp

Patsy, Chummy, Jenny - they were all the posh girls who went to experience nursing in the very poor East End. Trixie is part of that set but yes it does seem a bit different with her, even with the Portafino (?) aunt who she went to stay with to dry out, so to speak. She’s clearly very wealthy though in family terms.

It does feel like the current set of midwives are miles from the original series!