Call the midwife

I thought it was Vanessa Redgrave.

I loved it too. The new baby taking her first breath after a worrying wait was lovely. Cried at that as well as the sick wife dying. I remember the snow in London thst year too.
By the way Jane10 the “sickly” voiceover is Glenda Jackson, I think. I quite like hearing those comments at the start and finish of the episode.

I remember ice on the inside of the windows - it made lovely patterns and we got dressed underneath the bedclothes.

I've just watched last night's episode and did enjoy it despite the fake-looking snow.

Just watched it now as recorded it. Read all the books and was delighted when series started. However, though I still enjoy it, I think it’s become a bit formulaic. Also, I found last night’s episode, and the Christmas one, not convincing in conveying the cold. You couldn’t see anyone’s breath outside or in. When I was growing up without central heating, I could see my breath in the bedroom. The piles of fake snow didn’t convince me!

I recorded last night` s episode and haven't seen it yet, but am looking forward to it, as 1963 was the year I got married and had my first baby, see if it brings any memories back.

I have a little paraffin Kelly lamp on my kitchen shelf which is the one I used to take out to the toilet with me as a child. It used to flare up alarmingly, like yours, nigglynellie - I can't imagine calmly handing it over to one of the DGS! Mind you, I also had a toy tin kitchen range with a working oven and hob, powered by methylated spirits. I must have been 6 or 7. How times have changed (probably just as well!).

I can remember my mother putting a paraffin heater in the loo to stop the water freezing!!, we had one or two of these, one called a Rippingil?!! I can remember this being particularly dangerous as it would flare if turned up too high!!! I doubt you can buy them now!!! We also had an open fire, and an Ideal Boiler in the kitchen (coke)!! so downstairs was fairly ok. Upstairs was like a freezer!!!
A year later I was married in Feb, and it was a beautiful spring day, having been an exceptionally mild winter! What a difference a year made!!

I was 15 in 1963 and don't remember power cuts either but I do remember the snow. My Grandparents came to stay for a couple of days and stayed for 2+ weeks because the roads were blocked. I also remember going out to a lorry in the road to collect water. Luckily we had gas cooking and oil heaters and a real fire so we managed to keep warm - at least downstairs!!!

I'm afraid I'm not too keen on Call the Midwife. I saw last night's episode which was interesting but it can be a bit sugary for my taste

I was 20 in 1963, and I don't remember any power cuts, there could have been though, I still lived at home and things like that didn't really bother me! In the winter of discontent some ten years and two small children later, it certainly did!!!

I also don't remember pre-arranged power cuts. Were there any and I was too young to notice, or was that poetic licence?

The only thing I don't like as Jane10 said, is the voiceover at the beginning and end. This series is way past the period covered by the books so "the voice of Jenny" is no longer really relevant is it?

I think more true to life than that programme The Crown

Luckygirl

I cannot afford all these tissues - enough, enough!

I love this prog, and the winter of 1962/3 certainly brings back lots of frozen memories! I mainly remember how VERY cold it was! No central heating, Jack frost windows and bedroom walls, buses running, amazingly, but always late as everything was frozen solid! trains ditto. It was just SO cold!!! You could skate on the Thames at Oxford for weeks on end!

I enjoy it, too. Shirleyw, I was thinking the same about the Sergeant and Nurse Crane. I think it may develop!
It's such an easy to follow, uplifting type of program, perfect for a Sunday evening.

We really enjoyed the start of the new series. The original books are excellent. I remember the Winter of 1963 and the snow piled three feet high in the gutters in London. Us children used to balance on top and try to walk along.We only had one coal fire in our terraced house, and an outside loo.

In 1963 we were without water for what seemed ages, had to go down three floors with a bucket and out in the freezing cold to the standpipe in the road. I was a student in London at the time.

I wonder if eventually there will be a little love interest between nurse crane and the sergeant? Hope so lol...

It's not a documentary it's a feelgood Sunday evening drama.

Great to see all the familiar characters back again. I do find the doctor and his wife a bit soppy and I'm not sure I trust Trixie's man but the others make up for that.

Yes, I enjoyed it for an easy Sunday evening to watch. But they do sentamalise so much. Even back then, would a GP really be able to spend so much of his time with one dying patient, as well as a highly qualified nurse? I have strong memories of that year. My engagement party was held on the 6th January. Although I can remember the snow piled up high in London for weeks and weeks, do not remember it continuing to actually fall. It was just frozen. I and all my family and friends went to work exactly as normal the whole time. Cannot remember arranged leccie cuts - surely that was a decade later during the 'winter of discontent'.
The mourning prayers - why was not the chief mourner, the husband part of it. He should have been, and why held outside - should have been in the house with daughter and hubbie sitting 'shiva' on low chairs.
To be an unmarried mother back then would have caused a stir, cannot see many parents allowing their precious children to attend a dancing class run by one such!!!
Never mind, it is virtually entirely fiction - and easy to watch, but no documentary on the times, etc.

It's that sickly voiceover at the start that sets my teeth on edge. The stories from the book were all used several series ago. Judging by the various 'feelgood' cliche characters and situations created by cynical writers it feels like they set out to manipulate our emotions. I dislike being manipulated!

I love it. I cried during at least half of it. Yes, Phyllis Crane was great at persuading the policeman. I loved the Jewish mourning ceremony, and the working class solidarity was expressed by a man wearing a Muslim's headgear among the mourners.

Read the book so knew I would love the series. I worked through that snowy winter, leaving the house at an ungodly hour to catch the bus to the hospital. The fashions and the music bring back happy memories.

Well said Annie, yes it was like that. The very term "family doctor" seems to be a thing of the past nowadays - our practice has recently merged with three others in the area and the GPs never know from one week to the next which surgery they'll be working from. They certainly wouldn't have a cat in hell's chance of knowing all the patients on their books.