Call the Midwife 2015

I have only just comeback to this thread (had to go out) and am vey interested to read all the posts. Of course the East End really took a hammering during the war and it must have taken years to replace all the damaged and destroyed houses. We had some bombing in Wandsworth where I lived but the docks in the East End were a prime target. Wandsworth is now very gentrified, there was a Marco Pierre White restaurant there - don't know if there still is.

I can assure you that that poverty did exist. My Nans road is featured in one of the opening shots, the road with the ship at the end of it.
It was the King George V dock. The biggest in the world at the time. It's now the London City Airport.
You very rarely saw that kind of poverty close to the docks because a lot of men who worked there had some nice little sidelines, nudge nudge, wink wink.

It was not just the bombing though was it - it was the very poor quality housing that was thrown up in the 19th and early 20th c as London expanded very rapidly.

Brum was the same - the back-to-back houses were appalling. I used to go and decorate old ladies' houses when I was a student and the walls would crumble away before your eyes as you put the paint on.

Not just in London. We were married in 1963, we rented an old terraced cottage, the toilets were a row of 3 across the yard, shared between 5 houses and a shop, and the only way out through the back was down the steps and through the cellar to the back door. And we only had cold running water, and just one fireplace, in the front room. And the front door key looked like a dungeon key in fairy story books, it was so large and heavy! So yes, Call the Midwife really is evocative of the time.

numberplease my nan lived in cottage just like that in 60's

I met DH in '73 he lived near Highbury tube at the time and there was a cul-de-sac of five story tenements near there which were rundown and grimey as you see on the programme. They were pulled down in '75 and a mix of new LA houses and flats built. DH's cousin moved into a 3 bed terrace there when it was brand new.

And the rent was £1 a week, a lot when between us we earned £15 a week.

Hi number - times were tough in many areas weren't they I was talking to someone recently who had a council house on Anglesey in the 1950s with no running water. She had a young family and had to trudge outside and use a shared tap for every drop.

Love this series. I agree the acting is some of the best.

I was born in 1954 and watching the fashions and amenities of the early '60s makes me realised how lucky we are today. We were just an average family. Our only heating was from a coal stove in the kitchen and a small gas fire in the lounge. The rest of the house had none at all. I wonder how some of the 'MumsNetetters' would cope and if they actually could experience living then, would they be so quick to say our generation had it easy.