call the midwife part 2

[NimbleHiker]

I am setting up the next thread before i forget.

I thought that was a lovely ending.

Re Linda Bassett. I’ll never ever forget her in East is East and West is West. She touched my soul in both films.

I hoped they’d have a lavender marriage and adopt a baby.

Ah - that makes sense.

I thought it was a lovely ending and very well done.

On Beryl at the bar, I thought her sitting there looking a bit awkward was referencing her earlier speech about liking a party but always being on the edges? The night out was meant to be her not being on the edges but at the final moment she was still an outsider watching everyone else dance. I think that made her realise that if she left the order, given it's too late to have kids, she would still be on the outside in normal life. Whereas in the order she has a place and a purpose.

I absolutely loved Sister Evangeline coming back. I wondered initially if it was CGI trickery but then realised it was Pam Ferris and that was just perfect.

and in Geoff's social circle, she definitely would have been always on the outside.

Yes I’ve really liked the past couple of years, the furniture and clothes I remember as a small child.

I’m wondering what the point of the Christopher storyline was. If Beryl didn’t end up adopting him. He just vanished back to HK and that was that.

I confess to bawling through most of it, have had to rewatch today as I think I missed a lot due to emotion.

Loved Pam Ferris, it was perfect, so glad she did it having retired from acting. A shame Chummy and some of the others were missing but it is probably a big ask to get loads of working actors who've moved on to other things together to shoot stuff.

It had passed me by that there is a volume in existence called 'Dr Turner's Casebook' about...Dr Turner's cases on the show. TBH I've got a longstanding soft spot for the McGann Brothers and he seems a decent guy but the Turner clan really were too much of a focus in later series, which I think is a generally held belief!

Another fun fact though is that a McGann Bros great uncle survived Titanic sinking (crew, down in the boiler room I think)

That episode made me sob like the early ones did. The first few series I cried every week. Not so much in the later ones. But this week made me proper ugly cry!

Ironically he took her there so she could feel included. Had he misread her feelings and assumed she was gay? Did such bars really exist in plain sight in the early70s? I felt she returned to her former life as it was a more comfortable option than remaining on the outside. I thought she had more of a health visitor role and presumably even that was no longer available to her with the break up of Nonnatus house. Were the others going to continue to board there in the short term?

I never saw the point of Geoffrey - it felt as if he was there to show how accepting and inclusive the nuns were. I found myself actually liking him in the storyline with Beryl/Sister Veronica.

I was surprised how little Jenny Aguter appeared in the episode, but if her husband was ill it makes sense.

I'd rather like a five years on one off episode where we catch up with everyone. The Turner children are in full teenage rebellion, there would be a lot of debate about the 1978 election, Cyril and Rosalind would have two or three children and Trixie would still be in a loveless marriage. I can imagine Sister Veronica uncovering a scandal like the Barnardos children sent to Australia etc or forced adoptions, and working hard to help the survivors.

I don't think the bar was meant to be in plain sight. They would have existed but you'd have to know it was there. I've been listening to a podcast about Lesbian & Gay Switchboard, which started a bit later in the 70s I think, and there's lots of people phoning to ask where to find clubs and they describe them as having blacked out windows/being in basements or attics/etc so it's all there but also hidden.

Yes I’d like that as well!

Im worried about Geoffrey being effected by the AIDs crisis in a few years though. I thought he had a man friend? He definitely went on holiday with someone, would have thought he’d have introduced him to Beryl.

DH doesn’t like Call The Midwife but will always stay in the room when it’s on…. He must have got something in his eye when Sr MJ died.

yes gay bars were around but not in "plain" plain sight as in massive advertising. At least they were around in London, as were gay pubs. I knew of a gay pub in Bath too. They were not advertised as such but just like people still know what kind of pub a pub is, we knew what kind of pub or bar it was. I was more of a pub person. Its possible where Geoff took Beryl was a private club, again loads around, each with their clientele, I was never a member of any of them. I don't think he thought she was gay. I was in my early 20's in the early 70's and yes there was still "queer bashing" but remember being in a gay relationship for over 21's was legalised in 1967 and it was set at 21 in 1967 because that was the legal age of majority then. I think Geoff took Beryl to that bar because he didn't really consider it would be a problem. She knew he was gay, like we all knew Edward Heath was gay. It was where he went to meet his social circle and that was all there was to it. i do think though that (as i said) it was her choosing point. She would have to start keeping people's secrets for one thing. Additionally of course even to keep her health visiting role she would have had to give up the habit and the Rule and become an NHS employee.

Sr Juilenne’s absence seems completely reasonable if she’d just lost her husband. It would be cruel to make her do a fake death bed scene.

Funny, my DH is the same. Wears headphones and listens to music but keeps a keen eye on the subtitles. He was definitely sniffing a bit when Sr Evangelina apoeared.

I’ve just been rewatching ‘ER’ on Netflix and was delighted to see Sister MJ playing Elizabeth Corday’s rather haughty but then fun mother. Series 6, Episode 13 if anyone wants to see it! She was a very strong and handsome middle aged woman.

Oh that would be brilliant

Judy Parfitt said last year she'd like to be a Dame. I say they ought to do so in the birthday honours. She's been a bloody good actress on stage and screen for 70 years and I can think of others that were awarded it at a much younger age and perhaps less deserving. To still be working at such a high standard at 90 is fantastic.

Maybe that's what Sister Veronica would end up doing - mothering some of those poor men who died abandonned by their families and shunned by society.

Another one who totally didn't understand the Beryl storyline. Is it about accepting sacrifice - in which case it was an odd tone to strike for the final episode? Or was she very naive and thought Geoffrey was an eligible bachelor? But surely if so, she wouldn't have lodged with him, for decorum's sake. Would single parent adoption have been allowed in the 1970s? It felt like a very odd storyline to put in the final episode. A kind of "oh well, what can you do, I guess I'll just live the rest of my life unfulfilled, but at least I don't have periods anymore" shrug.

I think Beryl temporarily left the order to hopefully have a child. Then she realised she didn't really "fit in" in the outside world. Plus menopause had started. I think it took her leaving (for a short time) to realise her calling was to be in the order.
Or at least she fitted in more there than she did in the outside world. Lesser of 2 evils maybe.

I agree. I don’t know why the storyline played on my mind so much (I may be slightly too invested 🤣) but her grief about being broody is imo not the kind of thing you just get over. The 60s-70s were also a time when fewer women were joining religious orders for various reasons so it was quite an interesting storyline that she chose to leave.