Call the Midwife 2.

[Toddlerteaplease]

First time I've ever had a thread that filled up!
@PaperwhiteTheGhost Can't believe I forgot AG, it's my most hated hymn ever!

I hope Timothy does something really naughty, he is too goody goody.
The Downton Abbey family had to deal with Lady Sybil marrying the Irish chauffeur. So Nancy and Whatsit could have worked.

I hope Timothy does something really naughty, he is too goody goody.
A shot gun wedding to a totally 'unsuitable' older woman who he knocked up during a drug filled orgy?

Just picked up last night's episode this evening.
Have to agree with everyone else, the whole crash /killed outright / baby delivered at the roadside / just nip home and get changed / still be there for the wedding 'story' was so poor.
Ditto the suddenly holding the impromptu Reception on the scene of the fatal crash.
I was also disappointed that none of the midwives Trixie had worked so closely with over 10 years were seemingly invited.
I a also amazed when they have 'an occasion' like this that no babies ever need delivering. Nobody left on duty, let alone actually delivering any babies.

Wish they'd let us all know how you can regulate these deliveries and timetable them around when it was convenient.

How realistic were “one-man” medical practices in the 1960s?

our local surgery had at least three doctors at that time, and there was another practice too. This was in a town with one high school, and three primaries. Wonder Doc appears to be the only medic in the whole of Poplar.

Dr Cringe’s attention seeking vibrato in For She’s a Jolly Good Fellow 😬

Yes! He was such a knob in that scene 🙄

Timmy must be mortified by his attention-seeking Pa.

Yes! I don't get it. He seems/seemed to do daily rounds (how many people can he possibly see in a couple of hours, even with a car? The list is neverending) as well as single-handedly running a busy practice and a maternity home 🤔

The midwives were forever saying 'we'll add you to doctor's rounds' in the early series and they still do it now. He gets called out all the time for emergency deliveries too.

They ought to have added a second doctor (preferably newly qualified and dashing!) for variety. Maybe the showrunner doesn't want the spotlight taken away from her husband, Dr.Turner 😁

I felt the student doctors staying at Nonnatus storyline had promise and they just axed it!

They ought to have added a second doctor (preferably newly qualified and female to show how times were changing.

He seems/seemed to do daily rounds (how many people can he possibly see in a couple of hours, even with a car? The list is neverending) as well as single-handedly running a busy practice and a maternity home

He's also popped up at the police station and prison as the rostered duty doctor. It's ridiculous.

I was going to say a female doctor for the sake of modernisation however the show's already so female-slanted with the nuns, nurses, midwives and mothers that I quite fancied a regular young male character. There's only so much of Turner and Fred I can take and I don't think anyone wants more Matthew 😬 Reggie and Cyril don't really feature much.

I miss the earlier episodes when the midwives were young and fancy-free (Trixie, Chummy, Cynthia, Jenny, Patsy, Delia, Barbara, Val...even Lucille) and all the fun storylines that were interspersed. Everyone seems to be prematurely middle-aged and married or a nun right now! Not forgetting Nurse Crane and Miss Higgins of course 😁
Nancy doesn't get up to much either zzz.

I don't know if a female doctor would socialise with the midwives much off-duty (?) and we've already had an enduring lesbian storyline with Patsy and Delia 💜
Not saying there couldn't be another but it would be fairly repetitive since they did the first one so well.
I want a flavour of the times changing and 20-somethings' experiences 🙂

I wondered if they might touch on the 'Hong Kong flu' pandemic of 1968-1970, especially with the international ships docking nearby.

This series finished towards the end of 1968 didn't it?

Ooh, I got Hong Kong Flu on New Years Eve 1968. I was fine when I left work k and got on the bus home. It hit while I was on the bus. I could barely stagger home at the end of the 30 minute journey.

Felt awful and took to my bed for a few days, but no one made much fuss and I soon bounced back.

IIRC in the books he wasn’t the only doctor in the area. It’s just not realistic that he’s the only doctor for the area.

I think it was common in the early 60s at least. We had The Doctor whose surgery was in his house and his wife was Receptionist. I also had a doctor like that in the early 70s although she was nearing retirement.

I remember doctors surgeries like that in the 70s & 80s - also in London but for a relatively small area. There was no appt system or receptionist- at my GP’s you’d rock up at surgery time and it was first come first served - you’d know when it was your turn! I think they had a couple of GPs there on a rotation basis when I left the practice in the early 90s - I moved out of area to a big practice w multiple GPs, a nurse, clinics etc - was a whole new world! Think that practice shut in the early 2000s.

My family doctor was like that in the 90s. His wife was a receptionist and dispensed medicines, I think she was a doctors assistent too. The surgery was at his house. He even delivered me without the presence of a midwife at 3 in the morning.

My grandfather was the Dr in a rural village though he would have passed away by the time of the current CTMW setting. From what I'm told he was always going around on house calls, being given presents of food and so on. He built a surgery next door to his home. However, this was a rural area nor a built up one and I do think it unrealistic that Dr T is the only Dr in Poplar. He's getting to be a bit Karl Kennedy.

I have just got the mental image of Dr Turner as Miss Rabbit in Peppa Pig!

but.. it is quite normal in TV for a very few people to be focused on.

I don't think they mean for Dr T to be the only doctor in Poplar. I think they just don't show any others and just try not to focus too much on how much of Poplar him and the midwives actually cover. He's just conveniently always the duty doctor on call for the police when anything happens.

I don't disagree that it is normal to just focus on the characters integral for the story but CTMW now does what a lot of other shows ended up doing and it makes it unrealistic. Eg at the start there were 3/4 other nuns you saw in prayer. Never named or spoken about but it means our brains accept them and slot them in so it seems reasonable that they cover a wide area and it seems reasonable when the main characters are all doing something together because the filler nuns would be covering the on call or the clinic. ER did the same (totally different program i know!), in early series there were other staff members in the background so it was reasonable to assume that you'd pick up the story with the character but others were staffing the place when the character wasn't there. Towards the end you just had the main characters and everything feels less believable.

Covid did for a lot of background bustle in TV!

I think Harold Shipman spelled the end for the one man practices. I remember them when I was little in. The 80's.

I've got round to watching the wedding episode. My goodness that brother is "camp as Christmas" as they used to say. Would he really be so obvious? I'm loving"of we can't get this girl to a health farm, the health farm will have to come to her"

There was some chemistry between Matthew and Nancy and they sang together. At least more than him and Trixie, which isn't saying much really. Though did Nancy accept the new job in the end? I don't remember.

I felt the tiara was possibly a way of shoehorning in a quick way to cover Mattthew's money and Trixie . Not very well done in my opinion.

I still like the more brusque Violet. Though I don't always like the way Sister Monica Joan is portrayed.

Thinking back over Nonnatus House Weddings:

Barbara and Tom
Chummy and Peter
Sheila and Patrick
Lucille and Cyril
Trixie and St Matt

which was your top favourite and which was your least favourite?

my fave was Barbara and Tom. It felt so genuine and sincere.

least fave is Trixie and Matt because everything seemed so fake and it dominated the whole ep. And because neither of them are sympathetic or realistic characters, so I just wasn’t invested