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.

When i was younger my neighbour had a C section when she had her first baby. It really traumatised her. She did have her second baby naturally.

Yes, there are quite a lot of us still involved and we complete questionnaires, have routine medicals and give quite a bit of information. I think everyone involved is quite honoured to be a part of such a long running study and the feedback we receive is fascinating.

Watched it but think it’s almost become a caricature of itself. What happened to Phyllis!

He says he's nearly 30 and his mother says you are 27 and 8 months

My mum got engaged really quickly. She got married in 1988. I was born 10 months later.

My parents met at a Christmas party and got engaged in the February and married in June the following year (1968). They were 18 and 20 and still married 56 years later.

It’s the “Uncle Roger” thing that’s jarring for me. Nothing wrong with two childfree adults getting engaged quickly though, if they’re confident about the relationship.

Around 1973-4 I had "sex education" at primary school in the form of two episodes of Merry Go Round (I think) and a science lesson in class linked to the content. When I presented my parents with the consent form, my mother said, "I expect you to be more grown up and less silly if I let you watch that." I had no idea what she meant, I was just curious about seeing a baby being born. It covered the anatomy and mechanics of sex and it showed a baby being born. I didn't connect the two things straight away and came away still unaware that you needed to do that to have a baby.

The speed of the relationship is not the unrealistic bit to me. It’s Roger’s mother being won over to her son marrying a Catholic single mother after one quick chat with Miss Higgins.

Thank you for replying! Really good news that it's still ongoing. What an important longitudinal study. And well done to all of you still involved!

That's the Nonnatus House magic, though, isn't it! At least Roger's mother did make a brief reference to the situation back in NI. That was a constant feature of the early evening news on the BBC all through the 70s, as I recall.

I last saw Esther Noble, Roger's mother, wearing police uniform in Blue Lights (assistant chief constable, Jen's mother). Women reaching senior ranks in the NI police force and wearing (gasp) trousers at work is probably not something Esther Noble would have expected to happen in her lifetime! (Andrea Irvine is the actor's name.)

Miss Higgins, the new Mo Mowlam.

My parents got engaged after 9 months, then married after another 9 months in the 1970s and I always thought that was incredibly quick! Clearly not from all your posts.

I think you are right and the frowning on sex before marriage and living together made people rush into marriage. Actually, my friends at the Christian Union at Uni used to get engaged very quickly and very young too...

Made me laugh out loud. But I had also thought if only Miss Higgins could just have sat down with both sides in 73, we could have avoided a whole lot of trouble.

Indeed! A good friend of mine who is Catholic, from Belfast, married a Protestant in the late 90s and it took a long time before it was accepted by either family. And I'd only go as far as saying tolerated in fact, not really accepted. I would imagine that it was even worse in 1970.
But it's par for the course for CTM. The standard character arc seems to be nasty minor character demonstrates prejudice of writer's choice but under the influence of saintly long standing character, sees the error of their ways and joins the rest of the Poplar community in goodness and tolerance by the end of the episode. If only!

My parents were engaged after 6 weeks! (1975)

When Gail married Bryan Tilsley in Coronation Street, there were hundreds of letters of complaint because she was CofE and he was "Roman Catholic" and it was therefore seen as an interfaith marriage. They mentioned it on one of them Corrie clip shows

Eight weeks here! Married 18 months later, still married 40+ years on.

I find that surprising for the time @AgeingDoc. 'Mixed marriages' became more common in the 90s. I know of one Catholic family in Belfast where every single one of the six children married a Protestant!

Yet in my own family my grandmother's brother was not allowed to marry his girlfriend during the 'first' Troubles (the 1920s). Both families were vehemently opposed. I daresay they had valid reasons as horrible as it sounds. It was really very hard for working class couples back then, the man might have struggled to find work if they had settled in a 'Catholic' area of Belfast, while they might have been attacked and had to flee their home if they had lived in a 'Protestant' district. All very grim and I'm glad that in some respects society has changed for the better, though it's still risky for couples in social housing here, most estates are still 'one or the other', unbelievably.

I watched ep 1 yesterday. I did enjoy it. It always strikes me how clean everyone is and how nice the clothes are both for 1969 or 1970 (which I remember) and for 2024 but I suppose that's TV for you. The 2024 views put into that time is always wrong - even the mixed marriage given the mother is from Northern Ireland. It was different in England. in 1930 my Catholic granny married a non conformist protestant in England. In 1953 my Catholic mother married my C of E father and I did the same. It is was not a big deal in England between English couples but it would have been for someone from N Ireland. and the conversation with Miss Higgins would not have been enough - indeed were I the mother with that upbringing to hear Miss Higgins had had sex outside marriage in India breaking God's commandments and having a b astard child in reality the mother would probably have come anyway thinking Higgins and her son's finance were morally very corrupt. That is not my view but it would have been a common view of someone like that of that time

Anyway I adore babies and do like the programme.

The 13 year old who got pregnant I thought was well done although again it was forcing 2024 BBC propaganda down our throats rather than presenting 1970 values when talking about sex education I felt a bit too much.

On the C section, my friend's mother at school had had one so was told for her n ext in 1961 it must also be C section as once a C section always a C section as they said then - which is no longer the case, not least because they do better and smaller C section incisions in 2024 so less to come apart.

fairly sure that lower section c secs did not start to be routinely used by the NHS till later in the 1970s. A vertical incision can still be used. think of very premature infants where the uterus is not as developed as it would be towards term or if the mothers health warrants an urgent intervention to try to save both lives. In the 1970s roughly 5% of deliveries were c secs as it was considered a greater risk method of delivery over other then possible medical interventions.
(my first was a preterm cat 1 c sec…the consultant did not mince his words about all future deliveries needing to be on a labour ward with access to theatres. I took him seriously as I nearly died and my son was not so good either)
Thank All that is good for ongoing medical progress it helps reduce the risks and improve outcomes for mothers and babies.

This is a great idea! I worked out I'm the same age as May & Angela and loved punk rock & the fashion associated with it. Sadly I don't think CtM will extend to '76-'77.

Big up Bryony Hannah (Cynthia Miller/Sister Mary Cynthia) who plays a very different character in Rivals (Dierdre Kilpatrick).

We have a family friend that when she announced to her Catholic parents she was marrying a Protestant in 1991 both parents wept and her dad asked where they’d gone wrong. The priest at the wedding told the Protestant groom and best man to step back so he didn’t waste any holy water on them. Unsurprisingly they moved to Scotland very soon after!

That sounds dire. I went to two interdenominational marriages in NI in the early 90s and the services were lovely, the priests actively welcomed the Protestant guests to the church and I remember that one of them told the couple to make sure they brought any children of the marriage to both churches to honour the two traditions. This priest you describe sounds like something from Father Ted!