Call the midwife

[TwinklyFawn]

The call the midwife christmas special is on bbc 1 in 2 parts. The first part will be shown on christmas day at 20:00. The second part will be shown at 19:30 on boxing day. Series 14 will start on 5th January. I am suprised that it has not been renamed as the doctor Turner show.

just caught up with both episodes
i enjoyed it

i was quite emotional when the lady with the downs syndrome child found reggie although with the police report i wondered if they would say downs or mongol although wiki tells me that it changed in 1965

Your thinking of Humphrey Appleby who was keen on the quiet lady assistant at Nonatus House. Jason Watkins played.him.

It took a long time to be widely adopted though. I was born in the mid 60s and my parents had friends whose daughter had Down Syndrome and who were heavily involved in campaigning for rights for disabled people. Correct terminology was one of the things they were always working for. Certainly in the 70s people the term mongolism was still in common use. I grew up knowing that Down Syndrome was the proper term but to be honest I think that is only because of our friends. I suspect most of the other kids in my class wouldn't have been aware.
Whether the police/media would have used the correct medical term then or not I don't know. Realistically, I doubt that many working class people in the East End would have known what Down Syndrome meant in 1969, given the term was only adopted by the international medical community 5 years earlier. Given the aim was for people to be able to recognise Reggie I think they would probably have used the term in common use, even if they personally knew the correct term. But obviously the BBC can't do that in 2024.
One of the things that annoys me most about CTM is how they gloss over the challenges and prejudice that Reggie, his adoptive parents and the other disabled people that appear in the show would have faced. The good folk of Poplar seem to be very accepting even by modern standards! It really wouldn't have been like that, in fact I am not sure it is even now.

the nun making the chutney looks like she has a wish to leave the order

MrsL my sister was born with Down's in 1969 and my doctor father and indeed my mother I remember going on about never saying mongol and that that was awful and out of date so I think Down's syndrome was definitely used by then (always Down's syndrome, never just Down's). My mother's diary (the saddest bit of it I ever read - the baby lived 21 days, went to a specialist baby hospital, was in an incubator but died so quickly) referred to "chromosomal abnormality" - the baby died of a big heart problems)

On the chutney nun,. I agree - it sounded like she wanted to leave.

Your poor parents. Bless them.

Agree. I think Vanessa Redgrave sounds about 150. Her voice is so shaky.

The Dr Turner but that annoyed me was when he mansplained to sister julienne about the effects jaundice. She has decades of experience as a midwife and had already diagnosed it within minutes of seeing the baby!

I enjoyed the first book, but the second was so irritating. About half the book about the workhouse brother and sister, and so much detail that she couldn't possibly have known from a few conversations. I haven't read the third, even though I do have it.

Just caught up. It’s definitely had its day.

Really scraping the bottom of the barrel with the car keys in the Blue Peter parcel. How ridiculous 😂😂😂

The characters all seem so boring now with no decent storylines.

i loved Barbara, Valerie, Trixie’s antics. It’s all so bland now and also with hardly any nuns.

the Christmas Special was always a real treat and this was just flat.

Agreed, it’s not as good as earlier seasons and there are so many annoying plot holes (Lucille leaving and Cyril just being left in limbo for one aaaaaggghhh) and questionable decisions/acting but I still watch it and will continue cos it’s just so comforting overall! A bit like Bovril

Won’t be too sad if they don’t renew it though when the time comes, especially if it frees up airtime for something new

The midwives don't seem to be as keen on doling out Horlicks as they used to be.
I daresay it's because Valium et al have now been invented.

when is the new series?

Starts this Sunday (5th)

I can remember stories from the earlier series too. I can remember some children who were neglected by their mother. The baby girl was adopted but the other children were sent to Australia.

I think that vicar appeared in series 2. I just wanted him to shut up. He also accompanied Jane on her rounds. I think that Jane married the vicar in the books but Jane and the vicar left abbruptly in the tv series.

I'm not surprised that Jason Watkins didn't want to be associated with CTM for any longer than necessary.

Exactly.

OP the one from the novels that haunts me is the mother that enters the workhouse. She literally had nothing left to sell after her hair and teeth. She is taken from her children after one night and they die one by one. Failure to thrive.

It's the episode when the woman is taken ti the unmarked grave of her children in the snow.

Here's the sickly sweet words again...

I've already decided I'm not going to enjoy this series.

Now watching!

Why has she not gone back to her flat???

Didn't they sell it?

How is she affording all this travel when they're so poor they had to write Ollie Rix out?