Call The Midwife Christmas Special

[PinkFrogss]

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

I'm guessing he had a massive inheritance tax bill... wasn't that a common problem for minor aristocracy in the fifties and sixties?

Edited to add... according to Wikipedia it could have been ad much as 85%!

I love Call the Midwife but I spent last night's episode going 'oh come off it!'. Everything had a happy ending. It needs to bring back some grit, otherwise there's no genuine tension.

And the bloke standing for mayor was so hysterically one dimensional ("hello, I'm here to say something sexist, bye now!"). Violet should have lost despite how hard she tried. Would have been more realistic and moving if despite her incredible speech, the men just looked at her stoney faced and voted for the bad guy. If I'd been writing it, I would have made his wife appear snooty but come up to Violet afterwards and whisper 'for what it's worth, I thought your speech was marvelous' and hint that at least it had some impact.

And yes, I am over invested 😂

Violet should have lost despite how hard she tried.

I agree with this. I looked around that voting panel and thought, there's no way they would have gone for the housewife option. But, this isn't the first time we've seen an impassioned speech change the stony hearts of middle age, middle class men in CTM - so it is in keeping with the programme, at least.

And it did lead to me to this page which is filled with bad ass women, so I'm grateful for that.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_first_women_mayors_(20th_century)

I agree that many of the storylines now have lost the grit of the past. Too often, it's a swift change of heart or a visit from St Turner or a blank cheque from Banker Aylward and all is well again.

@MarilynBoo you're right, sadly.
That touch with the wife would have been brilliant.

I was thinking maybe everyone knew what a shit her opposition was?

And Sir Matthew def having money worries as he flinched as the cheque for the Heals sofa being written.

Which will have a knock on for Nonatus House as he is propping them up.
The more he mentions business affairs etc the more trouble he is in.
I assume that's how they will write him out and why Lady Aylward will go back to midwifery. I agree they have done trixie dirty here-taken all her growth away and made her a glossy characture.

Hope they don't kill him off-just wrong. Can't be prison as then there would need to be a (boring) trial. Leaving to seek his fortune?

And I just realised-what happened to her brother? Wasn't he living at Nonatus?
And it was nice to see less of Nancy and Colette-they are so jarring.

And again-one bloody birth. No longer Call The Midwife-more Eastenders (literally)

Even ordinary women going about their daily business (maybe of a certain age) still wore hats as standard in the 60s and 70s even just for grocery shopping etc in the village. A woolen beret, a felt hat type thing. A hat was not seen as a fashion accessory, it was as normal as putting on a coat then.

The nurses still wore hats etc. As a child I had a nurses dress-up, it was a pinstripe blue dress, white apron, white hat and blue cloak and this wasn't seen as quaint, it was a proper nurses uniform.

I think the nurses hats added an air of authority rather than being for fashion. I believe (but not sure) that hats varied depending on nursing role, ie a ward nurses, sisters and matrons had slightly different ones.

Violet's outfits (and the colours) are definitely of the period. The late 60s/early 70s was really quite out there in terms of colours and patterns (and collars!)

Violet winning so easily was definitely unrealistic.
Maybe Sir Matthew swung it more than her speech... he had made it clear which candidate he preferred!!

Her outfits remind me very much of photos of both my dgms from family weddings in those days.

Would Trixie really have been able to get the shop opened specially for her?

Yes they did wear hats, and two piece suits or ‘costumes’ as my mother called them. Long sleeved dresses with a matching sleeveless edge to edge knee length gilet.
The colours and styles are very much of the era. I was a fashion student and made my mother outfits like Mrs Buckle wears. She always wore a hat if going out, although not as fancy as Mrs B’s.

I think the nurses hats added an air of authority rather than being for fashion. I believe (but not sure) that hats varied depending on nursing role, ie a ward nurses, sisters and matrons had slightly different ones.

Yes, wasn't there a scene with Jenny making a bit of a 'thing' of arranging her new, more authoritative cap in place when she was made Sister over Trixie?

Great article here covering the removal of nurses hats, among other uniform changes, back in 1968...

https://www.lincolnshireworld.com/heritage-and-retro/retro/let-our-nurses-keep-a-hint-of-glamour-ex-nurse-speaks-out-over-proposed-national-uniform-in-1968-4195507

I am old fashioned but do think respect for the role has diminished now that nurses often don't look professional. The last time I visited A&E I was triaged by a nurse in fraying black trousers and doc martens, with pink hair, a nose piercing and chewing gum. I despair and yet I'd have been slammed had I complained.

What would Phylis or Sister Juliana have said I wonder.

Does anyone know what Matthew Aylwards title is meant to be? If his father was just "Sir" Matthew then I don't think that is something you inherit, is it?

If he was a Duke, Marquis or Earl. Or a Viscount or a Baron or something then he would be Lord Matthew I think.

Just confused about what rank of aristocracy he is meant to be, if any.

Oh it wouldn't surprise me.

I was born in 1962 so by 1969 I was 7. I don't ever remember using imperial measurements at school. For sure I was familiar with the inch, the ounce and the pint from home, but at school it was the centimetre, the gram and the litre.

I imagine that a lot of scientific based professions started using metric measurements earlier than most and the new student midwives might well have been trained in them.

Heck my Dad was a bricklayer and even he was having to start using metric measurements by the early 1970s.

You can inherit an baronetcy.

Thanks. I forgot about baronets. Aren't they below the peerage but above Knights? But still with the Sir title. That must be what he is then.

I am old and a retired midwife,I trained in 1973 and we used centimetres then when assessing dilation.I trained from 1966-1969 as a General Nurse in London,I just treat Call the Midwife as fiction,otherwise I sit picking holes in it.it bears no resemblance to the reality of how it was back then.

My mum was a district nurse and she wore the dress, felt pillbox hat and gabardine coat mentioned in that article right up till she retired in 1997!

Proposed removal. Those suggested changes didn't go through, and nurses were still wearing hats well into the 1980s (although by then I think all of 1 style - there may have been stripes to indicate rank).

Doesn’t always work like that. Someone can have gambled the money away. (Bitter experience here)

I was trying to work out last night who Violet’s opponent was for Mayor. He looked familiar. Without checking, I think he used to be in EastEnders (years ago… when I used to watch)
He played an abusive husband to a character called Carmel (IIRC)
I also saw him not long after in a West End production of Oliver! as Bill Sykes (perfect casting!)
Off to double check if I’m right.

Yes it’s him. Steven Hartley is the actor’s name.

Yes and a horror of a policeman in The Bill. Tom Chandler

I seem to remember him mentioning last night about tying up his father’s estate

Yes, but he mentioned that the 'tying up' involved a lot of expense and selling businesses. That suggests the estate was more 'pile of debt' rather than 'pile of cash'.