Call The Midwife Christmas Special

[PinkFrogss]

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

Boarding houses were common enough, but the difference for nurses was that it was provided as part of the salary.

London Hostels Association?

I loved Angels! Big part of my childhood.

Also... 6 weeks training to be a social worker. It seems so little!

I think Phyllis has framed her poverty as a Necessary and Noble Sacrifice. If it wasn't that, and she could/should have been asking for better, does that make the lifelong struggle pointless, and her own fault? So she's invested in keeping the status quo.

I think we have to remember that Phyllis would have been born in the early 1900s!

I agree entirely @MrsMitford3 And I've also thought Colette has been noticeably stage school.

I can understand and agree with the 'nursing ought to be a vocation' attitude, but it's not the same as a religious vocation, and still needs to be fairly paid. I know of people with the opinion, of nursing needing to be a vocation, but also members of COHSE and joining in with the strikes at the time.

I also think Phyllis comes to all this as an illegitimate child who would have been ashamed and possibly shunned.

The honour of the profession gives her a veneer of shiny goodness and nobility that washes away her past.
There were not many things she could have done to so successfully erase her background.

For her-if it is just another job then it doesn't have quite the same redeeming qualities so I think she is clinging on to it emotionally versus sensibly-and probably knows it.

Me too!

''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.''

God forbid we dare ask for more, who the hell do we think we are.

I'll just keep struggling and delivering specialist care for my patients and remember my place 🙄

The vast majority of nurses are band 5 and 6, working shifts, weekends, bank holidays. They will spend their whole careers doing direct patient care on low wages

Some will make it to band 7, even less 8a or above. While these are paid £40k + it's after years of study and experience and they have a LOT more responsibility.

Whining is a dreadful insult.

@PuttingDownRoots

Perhaps this’ll be part of Cyril’s exit storyline. After the training, he’ll be posted to another part of London or the UK.
I’m still annoyed they haven’t wrapped up Lucille MIA. It just doesn’t make sense!

Before the 1900s, I think. Wasn't she made to do the update training last season because she'd turned 70? So she'd have been born in 1898 and first qualified during WWI.

I agree and apologise for using the word Whining, that was wrong of me.

What I don't understand is a number of nurses don't want to get to these upper bands - one has posted on this thread saying as much. How would you differentiate between the band 5/6 staff and their work and those with added responsibility and qualifications at 7/8? It feels to me (a non nurse) that what's wanted is the 7/8 salaries for 5/6 work.

She's just vanished and Cyril has gone on like she never existed!

I've always been puzzled why Phyllis didn't end up as a ward sister or matron somewhere. In those days someone with her experience would not stay junior for long.

Is there any chance we can stop derailing the thread please & get back to discussing CTM?

I think the current episode may just explain it, for me: she sees nursing/midwifery as a calling (and doesn't much rate hospitals over home care). Therefore, maybe she just never wanted to do anything but what she is doing.

What I don't understand is a number of nurses don't want to get to these upper bands - one has posted on this thread saying as much. How would you differentiate between the band 5/6 staff and their work and those with added responsibility and qualifications at 7/8? It feels to me (a non nurse) that what's wanted is the 7/8 salaries for 5/6 work.

Addressing the last point first, it's incredibly common for people to be working above their band - doing band 7 work on a band 6 salary, or even band 5 work on a band 3 salary. A lot of things that used to be the job of band 5 nurses are now give to HCAs.

Then there are the many who would like to progress but can't - the number of available posts drops dramatically for the higher bands. There might be 50 nurses at the top of band 6 wanting to move up, but only 1 band 7 job.

And then there is the problem of there being no way to recognise skill and experience other than promotion to a higher band. If someone wants to stay doing hands-on patient care, rather than move into management, they stop at the top of band 6. They may have 30 years experience and a lot of additional specialist skills, but on paper are doing the same job as someone with 8 years experience and without the specialist knowledge - so they are paid the same.

And yes, I am also annoyed Lucille just vanished!

I feel like there must have been time to write something better - or even to recast the role, if not.

Even if there wasn't time to write in an ending before the actress left, it would have been easy enough to give the character closure offscreen. Lots of hurricanes in the Caribbean.

Vocation is just an excuse to treat traditionally women’s jobs like shit. See also teaching.
Being a doctor, surgeon or professor is never talked about as a vocation.

(sorry if this has been said, I’m behind on the thread)

"lots of hurricanes in the Carribbean"

I love the way your mind works!

Even just inventing an excuse for a prolonged absence... nursing a sick mother would be very believable. And slowly writing Cyril out.

There was a nurses home in my street in London when I was growing up in the 1970s & 80s. I don't think it was still there when we moved out in the late 80s. I imagine it served Westminster Hospital.

I loved seeing the nurses in their cloaks.