Call the Midwife.

[Toddlerteaplease]

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

I’ve been rewatching from the start. The early ones were so good. I’d forgotten how much I liked sister Evangelina and Chummy. The stories were much more complex and real.
I still enjoy it now, but I’m not as invested.

I also hated what they did with Cynthia. I always thought the nun storyline was badly done. It seemed to happen really quickly and I’m not sure the mother house would have sent her straight back to work as a nun with the young women who had been her friends. Eventually perhaps, but what a strain on the relationships.

Oh, I remember that. They walked to their new house in the middle of the countryside, pushing all their belongings on a single Silver Cross pram 😂
It was like a scene from the Sound of Music as they ran joyfully down the hillside hand in hand.
Mawkish nonsense.

Another one who would love to see the return of Chummy, Valerie, Cynthia and sisters Frances and Hilda.

i wouldn’t mind seeing Jenny come back either.

Lord Trixie just comes across as a condescending numpty with a bad temper. And his flat and furniture could easily be mistaken for one of the high-rise flats in Poplar.

Maybe they'd just walked from the station 😂. I grew up in a New Town and in the early 60s it was mainly mud and building sites but not a bad place to grow up.

Alas too far for me to go to panto. I saw her in Steel Magnolias on Saturday and have seen her in other productions. And she's so lovely and chatty. I just wish Shelagh could be more like the clever, witty Sr Bernadette and less like the stuffy housewife they've made her in to. Still my favourite though.

Agreed @CaptainMyCaptain. I've read all three books and lots of the stories were sugar coated and had happier endings in the TV series than what actually happened irl.

Having said that, there were two stories in the books which surprised me.

One was where a woman had had an affair with a black man and gave birth to a black baby. As the woman was white and her DH was white, the baby obviously had a different father and there was no way that anybody would be able to pass the baby off as his. The wife (and the midwife) were very anxious about how the father would re-act when he saw 'his' baby. To the midwife's amazement, the father (after a minute's hesitation where he obviously registered the baby's colour) appeared to dote on the baby and passed no remarks on the baby's colour. Iirc, the couple didn't have any other children, so maybe he thought this would be his only chance of fatherhood. Or maybe he loved his wife so much that he was able to forgive her transgression.

There was also a story which featured an elderly brother and sister living together as husband and wife. The midwife (Jennifer?) was horrified when she realized the implications of this i.e. incest. However, the nun she spoke to was quite accepting of the situation. That's not to say that the nun considered it a desirable situation. But she reckoned that the siblings (and the sister in particular) had been through such an ordeal in the workhouse that they were entitled to what ever happiness they could find in their post-workhouse lives.

@Johnnysgirl I think they were just having a day out in Harlow New town or wherever they ended up. The green fields being a contrast to the squalor they were in before.

I have also read all the books @Taytocrisps and that is why I'm not so surprised at the nuns being non judgemental as they have seen it all.

I remember that one. Didn't Sr Juilenne do that to baby in CTM? Though I was wondering when it was going to start fitting, from its hypoxic brain injury.

They were both shown in the series, I think the ex-workhouse siblings episode was quite early in the very first series when Jenny was still finding everything a shock.

I remember the accepting husband too, I think he was quite a bit older than his wife IIRC; there was also a contrasting storyline where the father wasn't accepting. The mother and the midwife (I want to say Trixie but may be wrong) had arranged that she would go somewhere else to deliver it and give it up for adoption, and they had a story ready where she was ill, needed special supervision and then would say the baby was stillborn, but she went into labour early and her husband came back from work, saw it and kicked off.

Wasn't there a Christmas special in which one of the midwives delivered a 'still born' that she was taking back to NH in the panier of her bike when it started crying? Or was that a cheese and port dream I had (I remember thinking it must be at least an hour since that baby was born when it started to cry).

That was a storyline, don't know if it was a Christmas special but it was snowing. Baby was born in a very cold caravan and the midwife took it back to Nonnatus in her bag. On the way home she heard a cry, clearly the baby warmed up enough in the closed environment of the bag.

The father had put a hot water bottle in the bag

I think though there is a significant difference to them being non-judgmental to the people they serve, with all their struggles and imperfections, and seemingly losing the content of their beliefs.

@BenCoopersSupportWren The midwife was Jenny. The woman, Doris, knew that the baby would be black and tried to leave when she went into labour but Jenny caught her and took her back home. Patrick and Shelagh took the baby for a few days until adoptive parents could be found.

Thanks for clearing up the details Rockbird, I remember now.

Didn't realise Patrick and Shelagh were already a couple when Jenny was still in it.

We adored the love story of Patrick and Shelagh.

it was so genuinely moving.

same with Barbara and Tom.

but Trixie’s relationship with Matthew just feels false and forced.

I remember someone posting that they went to a school run by Anglican nuns like the ones in CTMW and the school took pregnant teenagers and were nice to them.

Shelagh / Patrick and Tom / Barbara (whoa, had a Good Life flashback there 😄) felt more natural and organic. Little subtle touches like Sr Bernadette sewing on a missing button from Dr Turner's coat.

But with Matthew and Trixie, it felt signposted from the off. Matthew's wife may as well have been listed in the credits as "Woman to Be Killed Off So Trixie Can Marry Her Widower".

I miss the dentist! I always thought he was the best match for Trixie.

But with Matthew and Trixie, it felt signposted from the off. Matthew's wife may as well have been listed in the credits as "Woman to Be Killed Off So Trixie Can Marry Her Widower"

very true. There is zero chemistry between them. It’s like Trixie is so desperate to be married she will go for anyone.

Matthew just comes across as grumpy, with a tendency to prove his superiority by flashing his cash around.

Yes isn't she

And he is as dull as dishwater but wealthy ££

I'm ill and feeling sorry for myself so I've put series 1 episode 1 on. It really was so good at that time.

Sister Evangelina was brilliant.

The early Christmas episodes are great, before it became ridiculous and they traipsed all over the globe setting up clinics.