Call The Midwife Christmas Special

[PinkFrogss]

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

But also, Fred taught all the midwives how to drive the scooter that we never see anymore (do we?)

here...

Oh yes I'd forgotten about the scooter. And yes Trixie would totally have been nipping around Portofino or wherever with her godmother in a nice convertible.

Is the girl playing Collette actually related to Heidi Thomas in some way?

No, she is (astonishingly) a member of the Cusack acting dynasty.

OhLittleBoreOfWhabylon
That's Nancy, her mum, isn't it?

Yes, Collette is played by Francesca Fullilove

Sorry, yes, I was thinking of Nancy

I would expect Collette to be a bit more "stage school" than the others as she was cast as a child instead of a baby like May, Angela and Teddy

Collette (the character- wouldn't dream of criticising a child actor!) is a bit pert and unlikeable. She doesn't seem very reflective or vulnerable or anything really. Not sure why she's being shoehorned into this series so much. If it's with the aim of causing a tearjerker, well I think they might need to try harder!

You often had books in the house full of general facts like that. We had a dictionary from the 60s that also had conversations tables, lists of countries and capitals and examples of different alphabets around the world, as well as a lot of other stuff. It also had baby names and their meanings. We used to use that bit to name the cats!

Sister Veronica conned them into providing her with a scooter when she arrived and we've seen that one. I don't remember the one in your photo but it must have vanished given they needed to get a new one.

We always had a Pears Cycolpaedia which had loads of different information in it. The one I have to hand (1988) doesn't have baby names but I'm sure I knew what my name meant so I must have looked it up somewhere.

I have a memory of the old scooter getting damaged in a storm or building collapse but can't find any evidence of it

That's true about fact books - I have quite an unusual name and knew what it meant when I was growing up so must have read it somewhere because I told my Mum & Dad what it meant (my Dad knew someone with my name so had heard it there).

I remember all sort of books lying about when I was a child, with collections of facts - you used to read them and be amazed at the world

True re fact books I guess. I'm suppose I was wondering whether these were still typical in your average struggling poplar households.

The student who wants to be a matron has got me wondering now how district services that were not nun led were arranged. These days we do have matrons for community services but it doesn't seem to be a thing on CTM. There was that brief period in the Jenny days when she was made sister (which is not matron level.of course) but otherwise it is all just Sister Julienne with no other kind of governance unless they need a story line.

My mum named me because of the meaning of the name. I don't know how she knew it though.

Meant to say that was 1975

Name books were quite popular, and well known, especially around 1800s; Bardsley, Yonge, etc. Then the Oxford Christian Names books, of which several editions were published in the last century. So plenty of reference available.

Sorry, name changed as it's an area of interest!

It's also likely they'd have been more familiar with saints names and their history and meanings. Saints name books were often given as gifts, too.

What happened to Sister Hilda and Sister Winifred? (I had to Google their names).

Sister Hilda was "called away to work at the Mother House". It looks like the actress wanted to leave to do other stuff.

Sister Winifred wanted "to stay at the Mother House and work with the children at the orphanage"

I vaguely remembered the latter one (I think it was when May was at the orphanage maybe?) but had to google the first - I think she basically just vanished between series.

Sister Winifred left because the actresses was in Fantastic Beasts IIRC.

Before the internet we had lots more books on hand! Expectant couples often had something like these. Very common in book shops, libraries and midwife clinic waiting rooms!

I miss Sr Frances, she was a character who actually had growth. She grew into the epitome of the iron fist in the velvet glove.

Again I'm out of step about Trixie. I don't think there's a problem with her wanting to carry on working even though she's married into money. She does appear to see midwifery as a calling - I remember her impassioned speech to a local board or panel or council meeting, and her unease at the disparity between what was available to rich women while at the Lady Emily, and her usual poorer patients. Staying on at the LE would have been a much cushier number for her, but she chose to go back to Poplar. Matthew appears quite happy with her continuing to work rather than becoming a trophy wife doing 'the Season' and there have to be some outliers to the 'marry - give up work - have kids' norm for women (like Phyllis) or nothing would have ever changed.

In fairness, the season had more or less disappeared by 1969 and, in any event, Trixie is in her thirties so not of an age to be going to dubutante balls to meet a husband.

Re the disappearance of Sr Hilda, she was played by the wonderful Fenella Woodgar who was woefully underused and given very few storylines. I'm not surprised she decided to leave. It was quite insulting, really, how little she was used given her pedigree as an actress.