Call The Midwife Christmas Special

[PinkFrogss]

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

I completely disagree. Nurses need certain qualities and to have a caring nature to do their job. But it’s a job not a vocation. The “vocation” label needs dropped. The Nonatus nuns are following a vocation. Nurses and midwives are following a career path and deserve better conditions and pay.

Why is it that for some jobs (prime ministers, heads of banks) you ensure you get the best people by paying more money, while for other jobs (nurses, teachers) you get the best people by paying less money?

Not enough St Turner preaching this week - from any of them 😂

I’m still perplexed as to why Matthew is so sweaty in every episode regardless of the season/weather?

The shame of not being as supremely wonderful as Dr Turner. He's a barrister and might have saved Nonatus House a couple of times but he isn't the parent of WonderTim and he's not solved any medical mysteries

😂

I thought it was quite interesting that the issues with the quality of tower block build were brought to the fore highlighting the fact that slums were replaced not only with new slums but ones that stripped community out of hard lives. A friend of mine went to Queen Mary College on the Mile End Road in 1978. She lived in a tower block, converted to halls because the "experiment" had quickly flopped, and indeed across London leaves us with a gang culture.

I think there were Matthews and Trixies in the East End and other deprived areas. Look up Lord and Lady Soper. Health visiting has its roots in well bred, educated women taking an interest in the deprived to improve living conditions and public health.

I'm probably the same age as Colette. I remember learning poems by heart at primary school but not the dressing up. I thought she was quite cute tbh although progressed too quickly from being unable to learn her lines to a polished professional.

I also liked the parallel with nurses campaigning for more money and a recruitment crisis then and now.

progressed too quickly from being unable to learn her lines to a polished professional.

I think there was a significant time lapse between the main story and the summing up at the end. I got the impression Trixie could drive in that summing up which I think is more miraculous than Colette learning the poem! I thought they were going to have her buying driving shoes from the shoe selling couple given they keep showing her foot on the clutch in her little heels.

@RosesAndHellebores if you ever watched ‘our friends in the north’ the issues of the mouldy second-rate construction of the tower blocks was a major theme. Worth a watch if you have never seen it.

Yes In noticed they kept showing her foot.

Is it foreshadowing? Will will see the foot press the gas instead of the clutch with tragic results?

They are (again with the subtlety of a hammer) letting us fall in love with plucky and enchanting Colette so it is sadder when she dies a tragic death-agree with posters above-the nosebleeds can only mean one thing...

And Governments love women with this attitude as it means we're cheap and constantly undervalued.

I liked last nights episode, but I love CTM even though it's twee as it's like a lovely warm comfort blanket.

I thought a lot of last nights issues are still issues now, terrible housing, lack of support from the state, having to work right up till you give birth as money is so tight as well as the piss poor pay nurses get.

I'm a nurse of 20 years now and money remains as tight as ever. I think if nurses have a husband or partner (so it's a second wage) you're probably alright, if you're a single parent (like me) it's unbelievably tight.

By the time you take off tax, insurance and pension I earn around £14 an hour and I'm a band 6!

By the time you take off tax, insurance and pension I earn around £14 an hour and I'm a band 6!

But everyone earns significantly less per hour when you take off all the stuff that needs taking off.

Yes but not everyone is doing what a nurse does! The line between senior nurse and junior Dr is now almost indistinguishable.

No, some people do far more for far less and with worse pensions.

@Name854 I was financially worse off when I did a band 6 secondment, by about £200 a month. I couldn't work out why. I absolutely hated being a band 6 though, so was glad not to extend the secondment.

It's not a race to the bottom. Those people should probably also be better paid.

Yes they should, but I get annoyed with the whining from nurses and teachers at times.

If you don't want the responsibility of the higher bands don't expect their pay packets.

At the risk of deviating from the thread, I'm a midwife. To say we are whining is really very insulting.

The issue really is that the pay scales don't accurately represent what nurses and midwives do as there is no provision for recognising seniority and expertise in a clinical setting. The only way of progressing in pay is to move away from clinical work in to management and strategic roles. If you remain clinical, no matter how expert you are your pay will stagnate and can drop as specialist clinical roles are often without the antisocial hours so you lose enhancements. My pay reduced quite dramatically when I moved to a speciality!

We need pay scales that can recognise the importance of clinical speciality, after all it is better for services users to be treated by a specialist in their area isn't it?

The whole vocation thing.... Can it not be true that nursing and midwifery are vocational careers AND that their pay needs to recognise their skill in a world where they need to pay rent or the mortgage, being up children etc rather than being lodged in nursing accommodation?

I guess this is the conflict between Phyllis and the younger ones. She had grown up where nursing was a vocation and about one of the only fairly respectable things an unmarried woman could do, she was conditioned by society to think that a roof over her head and enough food were all that she could expect without a man. The younger ones are growing up in a more open society where women are continuing to work, to be independent, consumer culture and therefore needing disposable income is increasing and they are not necessarily expecting to be kept by a man and don't think that having the bare necessities is enough any more.

she was conditioned by society to think that a roof over her head and enough food were all that she could expect

And that the food and roof would have been provided by her employer. At the stage the series is at it still was for trainees, but there would have been more of an expectation of moving out once qualified than when Phyllis was at that stage. And now almost nowhere provides it.

(Also, a few series ago it was shown that Phyllis had almost no savings, barely any pension, and was terrified about not being able to afford living costs when she could no longer work. They seem to have forgotten that.)

Also, a few series ago it was shown that Phyllis had almost no savings, barely any pension, and was terrified about not being able to afford living costs when she could no longer work. They seem to have forgotten that.

She won a fair amount on the Pools didn't she?

That's a spiteful comment.

When did Nurses homes stop being a "thing"?

They had nurses' homes in the Angels TV series which ended in 1983.

I believe she did, but she should still remenber the terror of poverty.

There were still a few nurses' homes left in the early 90s for the big training hospitals. But only really as student accommodation and they were busy selling them off.

Thinking about it, from what my mother has told me she kived in some sort of Boarding house for young office workers in London when she moved there in the 70s. Definitely had communal meals. Must have been a similar sort of thing.

Anyone find the background music over bearing and over used? Totally unsubtle