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!

Obviously don't know the circumstances but I think the actress was doing a play last year, which would explain her absence if the timings overlapped. Maybe she was intending to return, so they wrote the storyline they did, but then she changed her mind, which leaves the writers with a bit of a problem.

Sadly I think they only thing they can do, to be in keeping with the characters, would be for her to die off screen... car accident in Jamaica perhaps 😪

I think they need to go backwards instead of forwards now.

So midwifery during the blitz and stuff like that.

Maybe they will bring back Lucille with a new head?

I would love to see Chummy return

I think this one example where a change of actress might be acceptable. Or at least it might be the least bad option.

I was disappointed with the last episode and agree with you all re the car crash being ridiculous, the car was only pottering along at about 10 miles an hour, goes around the corner, bang and the poor mum instantly dies but not to worry as SuperDr is here to perform an emergency C-section on the side of the road 🙄🙄🙄

Give me strength.

Then a quick clean up and a new suit and off they go to a posh wedding.

They could have let Trixie have her day, hanging out in the street would have been a rubbish reception! I did like that Trixie looked so happy though, she's waited a long time for someone to put a ring on it!!

I was a bridesmaid as a child during this period, as well as going to loads of family and friends weddings. No-one would have dreamt of wearing green even as a guest, let alone having bridesmaids in green, as it was considered unlucky.

Stephen McGann's wife!

Is it normal for actors to have that degree of other commitments during the filming of a 'flagship' series? Barring real life pregnancy 😁

I find it odd that the BBC/scriptwriters were fine with one of their main characters taking on clashing, non-BBC projects which compromised the CtM script. I think it's happened before I think, maybe with the actress who played Barbara?

The actors must have a fair amount of empty calendar months in between filming, can't they fit their other commitments in then?! Surely CtM pays quite generously too. Maybe I'm being too harsh but I thought their contracts would've stipulated no other commitments during filming periods. I appreciate much-wanted projects are going to clash but that's life!

I'd like to see Val return, too. I thought her leaving when she did was a bit odd and I swear I read rumours at the time that it was contentious and she'd actually been due to return. Right up until the start of filming the new season. Something along the lines of a pay/terms/storyline dispute.

Of course now I can't find any evidence and it's PR compliments all round!

She left during COVID which was an awful time for acting opportunities what with everything closing/on hold and I'm not sure she's had that much work since. I don't think she took a break to have kids. I spotted this article from October 2022. I'd love to see her back for the next series:

www.google.com/amp/s/www.mylondon.news/news/tv/bbc-call-midwife-star-jennifer-25129301.amp

@GarethSouthgatesWaistcoat I guess it depends on timing, So many projects may have been delayed by pandemic and then subsequent availability of lead actors, crew, locations etc determine rescheduling that there are bound to be clashes. Chummy was temporarily written out in season to enable Miranda Hart to do other things. Helen George's theatre tour is finishing at end of April presumably to tie in with resuming CTM, Whether Lucille's decision was contractural or entirely voluntary is unclear.

That's a good explanation, thanks!

"One should never trust a yellow bellied colonial imperialist."

Sister Monica Jones. Series 3 episode 4.

Playing Cluedo. Fabulous.

Omg!!
How did I not know this. Explains the time devoted to Dr. Turners darting eyes and simpering empathic grinning......

I’m rewatching it all from the beginning and I was pondering some things

When was it more acceptable for young women to give birth out of wedlock, or as single mothers?

When was it “acceptable” for teens to give birth without bringing shame to the family?

When was it accepted that those same teenage mothers got to choose if they wanted to keep their baby, rather than the parents making the decision for you?

I was working in England in the 1980s. About 1986 a colleague had a baby, and was really well supported in work. She was allowed to use a staff room for a nap each day, her job was held open for a year. And she went on to have a relationship with another colleague. That was my first experience of a single mother being properly looked after.
In the next couple of years two separate couples I knew in Ireland had shotgun weddings.
By the time I had my first baby in the early nineties, midwives talked about partners and birth partners.

I remember in the 80s eyebrows still being raised if a woman in the public eye had a baby out of wedlock.
And god forbid a woman have two kids with two different fathers! I remember my mum's friend getting comments, although she wasn't discriminated against at work as far as I know.

Another one. Stillborn babies. When were they given the right to have their own funeral, rather than placed into a coffin of someone recently passed?

and actually acknowledged. It seems in CTM, stillborn babies were kept quiet, almost as if ashamed of them

I’ve actually done a thread separate from this

Can you do a link?

My pregnant 18 year old cousin got married in 1996 to avoid being shame on the family… (‘respectable’ working class)

I was a teen in the 90s and know quite a few girls who had babies as teenagers, no shame whatsoever.

link

I think by the 90s it was definitely different - I had a baby in 1997 and there was no pressure or even indication that I should get married because of it.

Yep! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heidi_Thomas Does explain a lot doesn't it. We're never getting rid of the Turners 😂