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.

My husbands the same age as her, 74, and still very fit and active but he too has started to look frailer and a bit slighted this last 8 months.

How on earth do you know that!"

Im the same as you and I was once told your mind is full of useless information 🤣

It was meant as a compliment during a quiz night.

I love East is East, there was a part where I couldn’t speak for laughing, (I’ll just say it was when the son bought home something he’d made at school!) and some parts when I wanted to cry.

Am I the only person on this thread who has never liked Phylis? Never heard of the actress who plays her either.

We used to watch and enjoy 'Lark Rise to Candleford' a good few years ago, and Linda Bassett played Queenie Turrill, one of the main characters in that. Always came across as very likeable , and we've been fans of hers ever since.

I believe she was also in the 'Calendar Girls' film.

I'm thinking of the episode of Long Lost Family on last night about the Spanish baby scandal, and the nuns who were telling new mums that their child had died in order to have them adopted into more 'suitable' families.

Obviously this would not have been going on at Nonatus House but the whole of this period in the UK was when single women pregnant outside marriage were having social services take their kids off them. So a family giving up a child with a condition like Spina Bifida was the very least of it

I love Phyllis! I could have done with her patting me on the shoulder and calling me 'lass' when I was in labour.

I watched about the Spanish Baby Scandal

Horrifying and Heartbreaking for All.

Mrs B was the cake maker.
The lady who had the incestuous relationship with her brother and killed herself was the cleaner at one point.

I LOVE Phyllis and her lovely car and independent lifestyle! She's my favourite CTM character.

Me too!

I hope she has a small house in weatherfield to retire to, and can spend her days in the Rovers and Roy's. They need a childminder since Emily went to Peru.

I agree. I was born in the mid 60s so grew up in the 70s/early 80s and even then there was plenty of stigma regarding unmarried mothers - certainly in my year at school there were girls who "disappeared" once obviously pregnant but returned without a baby, and one of my friends discovered when we were about 12 that her "mum" was in fact her grandma and her " big sister" was her real mother.
By the time I went to medical school in the early 80s there were still a lot of children with disabilities who were in full time residential care too. I don't think a couple giving up a baby with spina bifida in 1970 would have been particularly unusual or shocking so for once, Dr Turner et al not going to great lengths to persuade the parents of the error of their ways was probably fairly realistic. I mean of course plenty of families did keep their babies whatever the circumstances, but far less common than now and the state "help" was, I think, more geared to taking the problem away than to providing meaningful support for parents at home.
I used to volunteer at a residential home for disabled children when I was a student and many of the children had loving parents who visited regularly. The children were not unwanted but the parents either couldn't cope or had been told it was in their children's best interests to be looked after by professionals.

I thought that she was better in the crown. The horrible sister from series 6 was in the first series of the crown. She played churchil's wife.

So do i.

She didn't come across well at the start but i love her now. She was in east is east and west is west.

Yes. She was the organist.
And one of the naked ladies.

love East is East, there was a part where I couldn’t speak for laughing, (I’ll just say it was when the son bought home something he’d made at school!) and some parts when I wanted to cry

I’ve lost count of the times I’ve watched both films and they still have me laughing and crying each time. And I know which part you mean. I can be driving down the road and I’ll suddenly think of it randomly, that and the part where she’s ushering the would be outlaws out of the house and she yells something like - and take the ugly sisters with you.

Im in a cross cultural marriage dating back to the 70’s and there is so much in the films I can relate to. The scene with the husband asking for a half cup of tea - oh my goodness. That kills me everytime. Even my daughters.

Am I the only person on this thread who has never liked Phylis? Never heard of the actress who plays her either

in the show the part she plays is a woman who’s obviously lived a life and hasn’t forgotten it. She’s sound and a very good champion of women and nothing would shock her.

Really like Linda Bassett as Phyllis (also as Queenie in Lark Rise) and Georgie Glen as Miss Higgins.

I think the soaps went a bit off beam when the emphasis seemed to shift to younger, more overtly glamourous characters and melodramatic storylines from eg Ena Sharples cabal in the snug of the Rovers, the likes of Hilda Ogden, Ethel in Eastenders, long list really. I know some of these were a long time ago but there are modern equivalents.

They were strong women who had sometimes had very difficult lives but overcame pretty much everything thrown at them and survived. I think Phyllis and Millicent are in that mould and are a strength of CTM.

I stopped watching the soaps years ago.

The soaps often need the services of an experienced midwife!

There was a cleaner who made a brief appearance in series 1. She grew up in the work house with her brother. She killed herself shortly after her brother died of cancer. A cook was mentioned in the earlier series. We never saw the cook on screen though.

I wouldn't put anything past the turners. I could see them setting up a children's home if call the midwife continues.

I was quite convinced the Turners would take on little June but glad in some ways it was shown more realistically.