Call the Midwife.

[Toddlerteaplease]

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

If anyone is interested, the original series was showing on Drama yesterday afternoon. Trixie looked so young and round of face! And Jenny was just agonising over every little thing whilst SMJ went wandering around London in her nightie. That was when they first decided she might have dementia but it turned out to be pneumonia (presume the temperature caused her confusion) so not sure where the sparky elderly lady from last night came from! i did love the looks of understanding an appreciation that went between Phyllis and SMJ.

Its so shocking how much men had begun to control the way women gave birth and looked after babies in this era. I guess they always tried to interfere in the way NH was run but the three Bringers of Doom in last nights episode really personified that.

@blobby10 and Chummy delivered surprise triplets barely breaking into a sweat!

I must be imagining my dad using it then

I didn’t say that.

it’s a fact that Brylcreme started to go out of fashion in the early to mid 60s.
some people still used it, but sales declined as young men had different hairstyles - a more shaggy, natural look. So it’s incongruous to see Matthew with ultra greasy hair as if it was still the 1950s.

www.theguardian.com/fashion/fashion-blog/2012/apr/02/brief-history-of-brylcreem

It is of the era though! Of course Mr Matthew the Man would be taken more seriously getting rid of that reporter than an indignant nun, it's the late 60s. They are just keeping it real. If the 1960s authentic social constructs are pecked and pecked away at by 2020s sensibilities, the show would become a parody.

Personally I thought it was good to see him take charge effectively and make himself properly useful, in a situation which (for the times) a man's word would be more respected and he knew it. It's not his ego either, he just knew he could stop that nonsense because he's a man.

Although I'm not sure how he psychically knew it would be the reporter phoning. Surely it could have been a mother about to give birth.

@Waitingforcoffee “Of course Mr Matthew the Man would be taken more seriously getting rid of that reporter than an indignant nun, it's the late 60s.”

It’s not that I’m objecting too though. I’d think it was of the era if the nun delivered the exact same line and was ignored, then they showed Man saying the same words and being taken seriously. It’s that she just gets a bland “no comment” and he gets the combative legal argument.

Later in the episode we had SMJ pointing out the age of the male panel, we didn’t need Dr Turner for that killer line.

I am just biased against Matthew though. The character is dull, his acting is wooden, and the ridiculous Male Saviour partner has gone too far.

He is mid thirties. Not a "young man" with a shaggy hairstyle.

In some ways, his age makes the wearing of out of fashion hair styles more believable, doesn't it?

Like it was fashionable to use loads of Brylcreme when he was a teenager and he's never kicked the habit as he matured. A bit like how the Rachel hairstyle persisted with adults long after the kids had stopped bothering 😂

Fabulous series should never have been axed.

I think I’m rare in being a viewer who likes all the characters! I wouldn’t want to axe any of them.

TBH I don’t think that Trixie has had much chemistry with any male character. I think she’s very fond of Matthew but there’s very little passion there. That said, I suspect they’ll still be contentedly married 40 years down the line.

Thank you to the PP for the Twitter recommendation (the fashion historian). It’s an interesting account.

Laughing so hard at this 🤣. He's so, so fecking annoying! I do wonder if the writers read these threads and make him even more insufferable to piss us off?😆

I remember the sixties well, too, and for me, none of the hairstyles look right. So many young girls had long shoulder length hair with fringes in those days ( the Jane Asher look!) and most boys had long hair ( which their dads hated!) Most of the styles in this programme look like very early sixties to me.

Not disagreeing with you, but the nun (or nurse) was unlikely to come out with the combative legal argument as presumably she wouldn't have experience in that area, so it would have sounded odd if the script made her say that. Matthew knew that "No comment" might not be enough to put them off, even from a Man, whereas using his knowledge of legal jargon would.

Just catching up. Why is St Juilenne so resistant to the ventouse, when she attended a seminar on it at that conference she went too?

Completely agree. Absolutely not acceptable to have not heir up to date. We'd loose our registration if we I'd that and be sacked!

Yes, that's true now, but I am sure it wasn't then. I qualified in the 80s and the attitude to CPD, supervision, appraisal etc was very different to how it is now, especially for senior staff. Annual appraisal wasn't introduced for Consultants until 2001 and the first wave of Revalidation was, if my memory serves me right, 2005. I'm not certain when Revalidation started for nurses and midwives but I think it was a lot more recent.
When I think back to the longstanding Sisters I worked with as a junior doctor in the 80s, many of whom had probably been there sunce the 60s, I think their reaction to being told that they needed refresher training would have been very much like Phyllis's. No, come to think of it, they wouldn't have been anywhere near as measured as her, in fact i doubt anyone would have dared even suggest it! The NHS I joined then really was a different world to the one I retired from.

Revalidation was about 6 years ago. As I've only done it twice.

My mum and dad’s neighbour is one of the doctors in The Royal.

How old is Trixie supposed to be now? I've lost track of what year it started and what year we're up to. I always think she's younger than she probably is. Still of an age to have a baby or two of her own?

Am I the only one who can’t stand Nancy? I don’t know why but I want to skip forward every time she’s on. My dd enjoyed Sundays episode. She’s had a few nasty doses of d&v recently so she was pleased to see the children with the bowls but then recovering nicely 😂

So we're on series 12 in 1968, so I guess they started on 1954. Say Trixie was 21 then, she'd by 33 by now. Very old for a naice young lady to be unmarried then!!! DGM asked DM what was wrong with her when she was still unmarried at 25 in 1967.

Yes, quite. Trixie and Matthew are sensible and conventional as my parents were in the 60s. My dad never held with long hair - not that he ever had enough for it to grown long! The 60s were only swinging for a minority. My dad's generation all still did National Service in the forces and didn't hold with long-haired layabouts.

My parents are northern rather than Londoners and the few photos of their early courtship and engagement in the late 60s all show my dad clean shaven with short back and sides. He didn't embrace longer hair and a Zapata 'tache until the early-mid 70s.

I imagine Trixie was meant to be around 21 when we first met her in 1958(?) so by now she would be around 32.

My parents were married in 1962 but didn't have me until 1975 when my DM was nearly 36. It was unusual though.

Oh wow.