Call the midwife

[NimbleHiker]

The Christmas special of call the midwife is on bbc 1 in 2 parts again. The first part is on at 20:15 on Christmas day and the second part is on at 20:30 on boxing day. I am not a fan of the Christmas special been in 2 parts. I wonder how doctor Turner and his simpering wife will save the world.

I don't think Geoffrey is out out but I don't think he hides it either.
I expect it's an everyone knows but no one says anything about it.

I remember watching about the change to decimal they were interviewing various people. There were two old ladies complaining that they didn’t understand it and how complicated it was. They both said ‘why don’t they wait for all us old people to die before they change it?’

I liked when Fred said the money made sense but why are we still selling things in inches.
Not much has changed 55 years later. The UK is very "bilingual" when it comes to weights and measurements.

I remember that too! Hilarious! I took my O Levels in 1971 so the maths course was totally geared up to Decimal money. I was so glad, I dont think I'd have passed if I'd had to work out compound interest in pound shillings and pence which we'd had to do before.

It makes no difference whether it's yards or metres it's the price per unit that matters. I worked in a fabric department the summer after leaving school and we measured by the yard but used decimal currency (1973). It wasn't an issue at all.

I was 9 when the currency changed and I remember it very clearly.
We had a card game game called snip snap.
Played just like snap but with pictures of coins or coin combinations in either 'old' money or 'new pence'. You were looking to match the same total. If the total was the same and both cards showed old money you shouted snip. And if the totals were the same and the pictures were new pence you shouted snap and if the total was the same but one old and one new currency you shouted snip snap. (I may have got the snips and snaps the wrong way round but you get idea!
I also remember my grandparents giving us coin sets of new currency in plastic wallets.
And on D day, I was given a pound note to spend on a toffee crisps to get all the new coins in my change 😄 Given my pocket money would have been either sixpence or a shilling, that was a good day!

I wondered why the kids were not taken sooner too.

I thought the comment about Teddy not doing chores was deliberate, to demonstrate how deeply ingrained inequality was and set the scene forthe rest of the epidode. That seemed very realistic to me, but the sudden switch to Shelagh joining in the bra burning and Dr T supporting it was ridiculous and totally out of character. I doubt very much that most of the older women would have participated in fact, or that the men would have been so supportive. Though I was surprised that they had Phyllis as reluctant as I would have thought that if any of them would have been in favour it would have been her.

I've just found a picture. In a museum collection. 😄
I couldn't have told you what the pattern on the cards was but looking at them it's so familiar!
Maybe I should start making a collection of vintage games for when my short term memory goes!

SNAP!! As per my post at 10:51 I had that game too!

Did you also get the BBC Radio programme at school hosted by Ed "Stewpot" Stewart which explained decimal currency? I remember every programme ended with a game of Decimal Bingo.

I can still remember some of the songs and jingles that were about (by The Scaffold?). To the tune of Twelve Days of Christmas:

On the 15th day of February 1971
There will be
Decimal currency
With a hundred pennies in a pound.

I forgot the pics 🤣

We did! 🤣 Ed Stewpot Stewart 😄
I didn't see your post as I haven't watched the episode but the last comment was on decimal currency so I posted.
Powerful memories aren't they?

You can buy that card game on Ebay and etsy.

I think he was making a comment on how imperial measurements are just as complicated as old money - 12 inches to a foot, 3 feet to a yard etc.

My cousin’s twins were born at 28 weeks, almost in their 30’s now! I was 6 when decimalisation came in. I thought we were being cheated until my mum told me it was new money. Shame I don’t remember ‘old money’.

But in practice, selling yards of fabric, it made no difference. You ask for 3 ½ yards or 3.5 metres as required on your pattern. Patterns still quote both measures, for the American market, although shops sell it in metres now and it's priced accordingly.

Thanks. I might get it.

I know it doesn't make a difference really with selling (I used to still be able to buy a "quarter" of sweets in the 90s) but it's odd that one form of counting was changed but not the other.
We are a strange country.
Medical records for height/weight are always written down in centimetres, kilogrammes etc but if anyone asks a newborn babies weight it's always said in pounds (and people just seem to know that a 4 pound baby is teeny tiny and a 10 pound one is massive).
Ask any adult how tall they are and it's always in feet.
We travel in miles but all other measurements are cms/metres.
It's like we couldn't make up our mind which system to use 🤣

I've gone down a rabbit hole! I've found the exact set of happy families (Chad valley) we had and the set of Beat Your Neighbour. I need to find the right set of Old Maid, Donkey and snap and I'll be as happy as Larry in my dotage 😂

I assume it’s because she is now Lady Aylward and has moved up in society (but still a nurse?). I also thought this when she was bossing sister julianne around about budgets for NH and the NHS employment news. I do love her though but the new accent is getting abit too much 😅

Trixie's accent has definitely become even more exaggerated RP/posh as the years have progressed. As I have mentioned before, I've been binge-watching from the beginning, and it is especially noticeable when viewing so much is a short period of time. As an American, I find her accent sometimes unintelligible, and I have lived in the UK and consume a lot of British media. I never have issues understanding anyone else, but some of her vowels, in particular, are very OTT.

I have gone down a rabbit hole too.

I cant stand her. I wish she'd stayed in New York.

I remember decimalisation being heralded in by a TV show called "Decimal Five" which had lots of repetitive interactions and catchy jingles. "One pound is a hundred new pennies, a hundred new pence to the pound." I was six, rising seven, and therefore at an age when it was very easy to adapt to thinking in two currencies. I'll bet Sister Monica Joan is glued to that show every evening.

I was rather surprised that the woman with hyperemesis was managed at home rather than being admitted to hospital. She must have been hideously dehydrated and ketotic. And Dr Turner actually got something wrong when he declared that there would never be another medication for hyperemesis after thalidomide.

I still go in our local butcher and ask for a pound of mince or stewing steak! So do most other customers. And yes, most of us still talk about miles to walk, and people weighing stones....