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 don't think we found out about Nancy's job. Although the actor was on tv a few weeks ago talking about filming schedule for next series.

Guiltily i did like the Turner wedding. Miraculous recovery from polio side I liked that Shelagh started out going to marry him in a bit of a rush and so shut off from her former sisters and colleagues to feeling more comfortable in her decision and starting to build different relationships eg with Jenny, Trixie and Cynthia doing hair and nails.

I really loved the whole Turner romance.
thought it was so well done and they seemed so in love

It always grated with me that poor Timothy was expected to called Shelagh 'Mother' from day one. I know it was the way of the world then (my Mum called my paternal grandparents e.g. her in-laws Mum & Dad) and the imposition of modern thought on 60's characters is one of the things that rankles me about the more recent series but it just feels so disrespectful to the poor (admittedly fictional) first Mrs T.

I don’t remember what happened to the first Mrs Dr Turner.

was Timmy old enough to remember her? Was it his choice or was he told to call her mother?

The first Mrs T had died and I think Timothy chose to call Shelagh mother.

I don't think we know what happened to the first Mrs T or how old Tim was (those that have watched the older series more recently might be able to shed some light). The Dr was a widower when he was introduced and I can't remember them giving us details (but my memory on a rubbish these days).

Again we have no idea if Timmy was told to call Shelagh Mum or not but I do know that it was very much the era of 'meet your new mother' when a widower remarried. Their courtship/engagement were pretty short (which was usual for the time) so I doubt a child would spontaneous come to view someone as 'Mum' in that time scale.

Again I know it is fairly accurate for the period it just always slightly took the gloss off their story for me. If he'd started calling her 'Aunty Shelagh' (as my childhood friend called her step-mother back in 1980) then asked if he could call her Mum later it would have been heart warming (especially at the point in the story arc when she thought she would never have children). It just always made me feel slightly uncomfortable, but I know it's a 'me' issue and actually reflects the attitudes of the time.

Tim would have been 8 or 9 at the beginning, apparently his mother dies a year or so before we met Timmy.

She did nurse him through Polio before they married... she wasn't exactly a stranger.

I suppose Trixie will be Mum to Jonty now!

Yes I'm sure she will and that will grate with me a bit too, but at least his poor mother still gets the occasional mention in passing and for all her faults I can picture Trixie telling Jonty about his mother as he grows up where as poor Mrs T the first seems to have been erased.

Again we have no idea if Timmy was told to call Shelagh Mum or not but I do know that it was very much the era of 'meet your new mother' when a widower remarried. Their courtship/engagement were pretty short (which was usual for the time) so I doubt a child would spontaneous come to view someone as 'Mum' in that time scale.

I was asked (by my mother) to call our new stepfather dad. I think I'd have been around 9. I didn't refuse but I didn't do it either. I didn't like him though, which wouldn't have helped.

I remember an episode where Tim finds an old camera of his dad's and develops the film in it to find a birthday photo of him with his mum and dad. He looked around 5 iirc. He doesn't tell his dad about the picture. He then also overhears a conversation where Shiela is telling someone that she lives Tim as if he was her child and he smiles and feels reassured. So I guess that was there way around it. It was quite subtly done - I only really remember because I binged watched them recently for the first time.

I think it was usual then to call the step parent "mum" or "dad" we see it in other families too, such as the one where the son comes back from America with the fiancée, he calls the man his father and the father mostly calls him his son but actually the father had "rescued" the mother and son from the streets and the relationship was quite abusive.

The first Christmas Dr T says it will be their first Christmas without Timothy's mother so it can't have been long before we first met Dr T that she died.

People really did marry quickly didn't they. Chummy and Peter met, went on a couple of dates and married. These days we reckon perks hardly know each other unless they've been dating a few years and living together for 3 or 4. Then they can think they might know each other well enough to commit and have children.

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.
As a very young girl, I well remember our local doctor in the 70s, small Wiltshire village with large Secondary school. Single doctor (female! ) with a tiny waiting room, and tiny consulting room with just a bench and a desk. She was a hobby painter, and the waiting room and consult rooms were jampacked with (bad) paintings all over the walls.

I don;t think she would have been delivering babies/saving lives in accidents/ sorting out Polio vaccines etc. She was AFAIK 'just' a village GP.

I think it was usual then to call the step parent "mum" or "dad" we see it in other families too

As I've said I know it was normal then, it just makes me feel a bit uncomfortable.
When William calls 'Mr Tom' Dad for the first time it is one of my favourite moments in film (I see you Violet Buckle, I know what you did to that poor lad and his baby sister) it is clearly child led and joyous where as poor Tim has always felt a bit 'you have a new mother now so you can forget about the old one' to me. I always longed for teen Tim to go off the rails a bit and yell 'you ain't my muvver' at Shelagh.

Yes Tim is very definitely too meek and mild. Every time you think he might get a bit stroppy they come back together as a lovely happy family of grins and simpering.

Really? I thought she always brought Cyril down. He's so smiley and cheery, but she was always so uptight and sucked the fun out of everything Even when they first met and he was whisking her off in his sidecar she was all sniffy about it

She reminds me of the Hortense character from Small Island.

Well to do and thinking herself a cut above while in Jamaica, but the culture shock of being looked down on for being black, all the while having the hoity -toity "proper" airs and graces

I thought Tim did ask to call her mum? Or at least came up with it himself as I have dim memories of it. Didn't he ask her to marry Dr Turner, I also remember a joint proposal.

I agree with Gareth some younger midwives would bring fresh blood and could showcase the culture changes of the time better than Trixie & Collette who doesn't count as young despite her relative inexperience.

I love Sheila and Trixie's clothes but where are the students and newly qualified MW with their Carnaby St finds? And why is the nun the only one with a moped? And why hasn't Tim got a mini?

Bring in students with new ideas from St Cuthberts, let Phyllis harumph at them then teach them a thing or too.

They had a scooter in series 2, there was the episode where Fred was teaching them to ride it on chairs because he didn't want to admit he didn't know how himself and then sister Evangelina realised and took him for a spin.

Ah Sr Evangelina, how we miss you.

Yes, I think they've mentioned other practices in the area before, patients joining from other practices, having to take over another practices patients as the doctor is retiring etc

Shelagh and Patrick for me. Partly because, controversially, I love them. But also I liked the storyline of Shelagh getting over her guilt at leaving the nuns when Tim was sick and changing her mind about having a tiny wedding, eventually getting help with the prep from the midwives and nuns. It was a lovely storyline about being loved by your family no matter what. The nuns still loved her even after she realised she wanted a family.

Least favourite Trixie and Matt because of the ridiculous contrived disasters and the "oh well let's have the reception at home". She deserved her society wedding.

He did call her "Auntie Shelagh" for a bit, they just never made a thing of him calling her mum.

He was very much for the marriage if i remember rightly, he insisted he went with Dr T to find her when she tried to get a bus from the sanatorium and got lost. He also wrote to her when she was there and wrote her a note asking her to marry his dad. I think its conceivable that he just loved her.

Also I believe the late Mrs T had passed away 2 years before episode one, Dr T and Tim sit in the car having a chat about how they're getting on without her.