Call the Midwife

Thank goodness you arrived safely crimson. How distressing for your mum, and amazing that she was able to have you x

I'm not sure, but I think not. She lost a lot of them quite early on in the pregnancy, although one little boy survived for a short while. I don't think she ever got over it, mentally. I fear that, in tonights programme the balance between comedy and pathos wasn't quite right.

Oh crimson, what some of these women went through. Did your mum have more babies after you were born?

I found it depressing also. I remember as a student having to monitor a patient with pre eclampsia! It was frightening all through the night. Fortunately all was ok!

My mum had @ 8 miscarriages before she had me. Sometimes it really hits home what she must have gone through, and I wish I'd discussed it with her.

Me too! Such sad times for those mums.

Found tonights episode rather depressing.

Tonight's closing scene of Call The Midwife (close up of the girls heads lying on the floor listening to music) - WE HAD THAT CARPET !!! I can't remember whether that was in the 50's or early 60's. probably the latter, but what a deja vu feeling!

I have just read the description of Mrs Jenkins going into the workhouse with her poor children and I just wept! This is a book with hidden depths.The section on mixed-race babies also showed three very different attitudes - of course TV showed the most positive one.

Thank you gracesmum, I will look for "Can any Mother help me."It sounds interesting- I have read "Wartime women" which is an anthology of mass- observation womens experience of war edited by Dorothy Sheridan.
I think that I will buy the other Jenny Worth books too. These books all make me realise just how lucky we are today!

Yes; I likened gransnet to CAMHM when it first started. I saw an article about the book in The Observer and, quite a while afterwards bought it [I'm terrible for keeping 'interesting' articles from newsapapers!]. I think it reminded me of Housewife 42 [?] that I'd seen on the telly. Enjoyed the first three quarters of the book, but felt the subject matter died out towards the end, along with the people in the book. It reminded me of the sense of isolation I had when my children were young. I didn't know it had been adapted for the stage, and would love to have seen it. Unlike the internet, these women had to wait ages for the next 'instalment' didn't they! A testament to the bonds that women have once they have become mothers. A fascinating read.

Mr Collett's death did in fact come from the second book "Shadow of the Workhouse" Nonny.

Oh woe is me and my Amazon habit - I have just downloaded the books (note the S) on to my Kindle.!

Do you know crimson you are the ONLY person I have come across who has read it apart from DD2 who designed it for Foursight and recommended it to me! Did you get to see it too? I think it was so like what we are writing on today.

I`ve now ordered Call the Midwife from Amazon. If I like it, and I don`t see any reason why I wouldn`t, I`ll get the other 2 books in the trilogy.

I loved 'Can Any mother Help Me'. I'm sure there's a television series to be made out of it one day. The bit about a German plane coming down near to one woman's home was particularly poignant.

I love 'Call the Midwife' and I thought Miranda was particularly good last night. I didn't watch 'Birdsong' but, as my husband was watching it in the same room, I caught bits of it. I thought Firebrace deserved an award for the sheer "humanness" he portrayed and I could have cried when he died, although I wasn't watching it!

Annobel you are not alone! I really am not keen on "Birdsong" and have resisted the TV version so far, though it has been recorded. I much preferred the Pat Barker "Regeneration" trilogy.

Jenna Bailey is the author/editor - it is made up of extracts from letters and a narrative by the author. Very very moving in the same way that many posts on GN are moving as the writers completely open up their hearts to these "strangers" who are also their close friends.

If you enjoyed Nella Last you might like "Can Any Mother Help Me" based on that Social Observation project and a ladies'/housewives' correspondence circle - a forerunner of GN and other social networks. It gives an amazing insight into life in the first half of the 20th C, how hard it was for women isolated at home with perhaps their first child (or not - after all many had had to give up work when they married) to share their views with other women. It was also made into a play about 3 years ago which toured with a company called Foursight. We saw it at Birmingham Rep but I know it was also in Hereford, Oxford, Newcastle and other regional theatres. As usual can't remember the author, but it'll come back to me!

I have been enjoying "Call the Midwife " so much that I decided to read the book and really loved it. The series seems to be staying quite true to the book. Was last nights story line with Roy Hudd, in one of Jennifer Worth's other books.
I love books about social history, diaries and memoirs. The books by Nella Last were also really touching. I haven't watched Birdsong. I read it for the Book group I used to go to several years ago. It was a very moving but I haven't been able to bring myslf to watch it.

I'm really enjoying "Call the Midwife" and also (mostly) "Birdsong". I thought last night it was a little confusing, but I loved Firebrace. I don't know the actor's name but I think he has a very lovable face.

Call the Midwife really is true to the book, isn't it? Did anyone notice, though, the electric fire with the wooden fire surround in the house where the middle-aged lady was going to have her baby? These fires didn't come about until the early 70's, I'm sure? Doesn't matter one jot, however! The series is so very good!
I really enjoyed Birdsong. I didn't read the book, and perhaps I would have felt the same as Annobel if I had. We visited the Somme last year and learned so much about what the tunnellers did. The bleakness of the battlefield was portrayed so well in the programme, too.

The TV series is faithful to the book numberplease I could recognise all the characters and practically recite the dialogue.
Very true to life.

I thought to-nights episode very moving and the kleenex came in handy for a minute or two,i have tried to get into Birdsong,I watched last weeks episode and tried again on replay but cannot get into it,will try again during the week I think.

I haven't watched Birdsong because I must be the only person I know of who really disliked the book - because of Faulks's portrayal of and attitude to women.