Call the Midwife 2015

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Yes my sister was a London student in the 70s and shared a ramshackle house without a bathroom and stables (with horses) in the yard. Used the public baths. Huge numbers of terraced houses across the country had government grants to give them proper bathrooms and kitchens.

My grandmother lived in that area after the war because that was where her OH worked, although they were very middle class she did have lots of local friends because of the babies bringing them all together at the clinics just like the ones portrayed. She remembered it as a very happy time, but was appalled by the living conditions of some of her friends. She said she had bath and tea afternoons for some of her friends.

When I got married in 1967 I went to view a flat, it was one room with an oven in a cupboard and bathroom facilities on the next landing down. My parents lived in a modest semi but it was a palace compared to the flat.

My 'happy days' was tongue in cheek by the way, just in case anyone thinks I was being flippant. It was bad enough as a student but awful to see how families had to live.

Many multi occupied houses in Hackney in the early 70s. Families living in two rooms sharing toilet facilities.
Poor cooking facilites and paraffin stoves for heating, which caused dreadful damp. Poorly insulated council flats with no heating. It was bad.

Living in London in the 60's could certainly be as is portrayed, we lived in a house with 5 families, no bathroom and one toilet was shared between 3 families , we were 5 children sharing one large bedroom with a coal fire in the living room. The kitchen was a butler sink, a gas stove and one pantry cupboard, it was extremely basic.. so yes things were like this for some..

Conditions in the East End were that bad right into the 70's daffydil. As a student in London I lived I some very grim places but the ultimate was a tenement block which was given? to the University of London students as the flats had been declared unfit for habitation. The families were very gradually being moved out but many were still there when we left in 1975. No proper kitchen, no bathroom, two rooms to double as living room/ bedrooms housing whole families. Happy days!

Yes I think they were grim daffydil - in her sequels Worth describes them in some detail - tenements with a row of shared toilets in the yard etc. I was also surprised as housing in S Wales was nothing like as bad at that time.

Was it not just before the building of the high rise flats which were erected to get families out of appalling living conditions ?

I watched this from the start (having already read Jennifer Worth's book) and agree it has maintained a very high standard of story line and acting. I am a Pam Ferris fan but all the cast is first class.
However, were living conditions in the East End really as grim as that in the early 60s? I was a young mother with a baby in 1960 and, although I was not living in London, my parents lived in south west London and I visited regularly. We were a working class family and our lives were certainly not like that.

It is now in the era of our (that's me and him - known each other for about 55 years) of our early youth, so the soundtrack is evoking memories - it was "Only the lonely" at one point. And I am remembering the fashions, and the make up too.

We both commented on the austerity of the hospitals, compared to the warm, bright places which we have visited recently..

I can understand that I can't watch any hospital dramas they have usually got so many things wrong- I know I know its fiction!!!

DD and I both love it. My friend who is currently working as a midwife can't watch it as she spends a lot if time moaning at the TV

Oh no this is not for me- I watched the first two series but after that I cant possibly go through another labour I didn't enjoy midwifery as a nursing student.

They all had great teeth in Wolf Hall

Maybe they all use my grandma`s teeth cleaning method, soot and salt, she swore by it for lovely white teeth!