Call The Midwife Christmas Special

[PinkFrogss]

Anyone watching? Apologies if I’ve missed the thread.

😆😆

One of the posts answered a question re why is Dr T spoken of in such a way and episode 1 series 1 was mentioned

Its all on Netflix as I have watched some old ones on and off over the Year

Jennifer Worth wasn't a perfect person but she shone a light into a world most of us can't even imagine. Maybe she expressed opinions about patients which seem rude but it's clear she treated her patients with dignity and empathy. I have never forgotten story of the old man who lived in his own and who she eventually formed a bond with after being initially shocked by his living conditions. He was cruelly forced to end his days in a badly run council care home. Hopefully the kindness shown by JW in the last days of his life made some difference.
My dm was also a nurse (in the 70s and 80s) and she maintained nursing standards have fallen. I have heard that from other family members who worked in the profession too.

It’s been removed from Netflix!! I don’t know why but it’s no longer on there. One of the reasons I bought a tv licence was so I could watch it on bbc catch up. They are all on there

@RosaMoline

I like the Turners too!

I feel a kind of loyalty for Laura Main, she comes from the same place as me, and her school drama teacher is a good friend of mine.

I’ve finally got around to watching, was so looking forward to it and by the end I was mindlessly scrolling my phone. The dialogue was excruciating. The monologues were monotonous! Sister MJ has lived past her expiry date, the Turners are saccharine sweet, Nancy is annoying, the new nun is pointless and I can’t believe poor bloody Trixie might endure yet another heartbreak.

Perhaps the writers could give the audience a little bit of credit instead of making the Turners do all our thinking for us with their social commentary.

When did attitudes change towards unwed women and babies?

I’ve been rewatching them all and it gets me how young teen mothers had their babies forcibly taken off them to be put up for adoption. When did it change that young mothers had rights over their own babies rather than her parents?

Other posters will know more about social history than I do but I think it was the 1980s. I’m an early 1970s kid and I knew a handful of children my age at school who’d been adopted in that decade, but by the early 1990s, the half a dozen or so of my peers who were falling pregnant accidentally at 17-18 were not being forced to give up their babies and whilst there might have been dismay about their youth, their unwed status wasn’t so problematic. This was on the south coast, mixed socioeconomic group for context.

When I got pregnant unmarried in 2002 I had a few relatives who’d been born in around 1918 and they didn’t bat an eyelid. They might’ve done in 1972 if my mum and dad hadn’t been married when I arrived though!

I think the turning point was in the 80s too. Attitudes had been changing up to then but I think the 80s is when it became acceptable.

But also the wider availability of contraception, especially the pill, and the legalisation of abortion, hugely reduced adoptions as a whole. Very, very few babies have been given up for adoption at birth without any social services involvement for decades now.

Adoption of babies peaked in UK in 1969 then steadily dropped

Are we going to continue on this thread when the new series starts this evening, or start a new thread?

Is it this evening? I didn’t realise!!

Yep it’s this evening. I’ll watch it because I’ve watched the rest, but I do think it needs retiring now and a prequel started instead

I’m quite glad it’s on this eve even though I know it’s past its best. I saw in the RT that there are two new midwives joining the ranks so maybe that will spice things up a bit!

Bring back Patsy and Valerie!

I would say roundabout the early eighties. More and more people just lived together and had kids . I can remember shotgun weddings right up until the late 1970s

I'm enjoying it so far... Rosie Jones is great.
Hope they don't hook Cyril up with one of the pupil midwives. That will be too obvious.

Does anyone know what year we're in?

It does look rather like the nurse from Trinidad has been brought in for Cyril.

DH, who of course doesn’t watch, has noted that the teal is changing to browns, oranges and golden beige.

The actress who is playing the girl in the wheelchair - is she acting the part or is she disabled in real life?
If she's not disabled she's an extremely competent actress.

Rosie Jones is the actress. She has cerebral palsy. She's also a stand up comedian.

She is a comedian /actress Rosie Jones

Thank you.

I predict there will be a new series that covers the work of the midwives during the blitz called ‘Call the Midwife - Neptune Street’.