Is it time to stop calling the midwife?

I do love it but feel it’s becoming a bit miserable and myself still working like a bit of light relief on a Sunday night.

Back in 1974, the office junior at the bank where I worked found out she was pregnant and unmarried. Her mother came in to see the manager and tell him, she was graciously allowed to keep working. She soon married her boyfriend, but they later divorced.

How times change.

Also We also do Call the Midwife tours
And coming out of lockdown we’re getting fully booked
Again, so many do like and appreciate a very well made series
Very Nice cast and crew too ...

Think it’s going a bit longer as I live at one of their locations
And their just starting filming another series here this and next week
Can’t understand anyone stupid enough to watch something
They don’t enjoy?
Bit like eating something you hate ...

I still love to watch it,and the series never seems long enough.It will have to come to an end,but not yet I hope.There are only about 7 episodes and a Christmas special in a year,not really enough for us fans,but they are able to keep the quality of the stories by not having too many.There are always new characters to keep it fresh too.

It’s not as good as it used to be but I still enjoy it.

Maggiemaybe

^In the late 60s I was at a very posh Anglican school and a girl in the year above me was pregnant, attended school until almost the birth, and was treated with the utmost compassion.^

That was completely different to what happened at my (state grammar) school, Grannycool52. The one or two girls I know of who became pregnant were hustled out quicker than their feet could touch the floor. One of my best friends was in this position in 1970 and was out of the door the day the school heard about it.

One of my friends got pregnant at age 15 and had an abortion. The school didn't know and she stayed on for 6th form and did A levels. However another girl in my year who was pregnant managed to hide it for quite a while but when the school found out she was made to leave. A couple of years later when I was in the 6th form a girl lower down the school was allowed to take her O levels while heavily pregnant. That was in the early 70's so attitudes were changing a great deal at that time.

I absolutely love Call the Midwife.

It’s a lovely bit of nostalgia and I can relate to all of it.

I feel happy and sad whilst watching it.
No other programme moves me in the same way.

I hope they carry on with another series, but not sure how far they can take it.

I think the series started in around 55, so had sister Monica Jone might have only been in her 70s then so maybe only 87 during this series
Things were so very different back then, it wasn't so long before that a married woman was not able to work in many jobs, my father's cousin had to remain Miss X all her working life to keep her good office job. Starting work in the civil service in the late 70s/early 80s there was the occasional 'single mother', one elderly lady abandoned by her husband had had her baby and been allowed to stay on but there was little maternity leave, she just had had to put up with it as few other places would have taken her on.
I like to think that many midwives were kind and woman-centred, and I'm sure that many of them were, but there were those who were real bitches, maybe they were the ones who ended up in mother and baby homes as they were hard enough to rip babies out of their mothers' arms.
It was extremely shameful to be an unmarried mother, and I'm afraid that probably Sister Julienne's remarks were pretty much of the period.
I remember hearing, many years later, when some old pictures and newspaper cuttings emerged, of the wedding of the daughter of some friends of my parents. I'd not known, but mum said that she had told her parents after the wedding, literally just afterwards, that she was pregnant, and they went ballistic, everyone would know when the baby was born that she had been pregnant when she married
There were people who campaigned for lots of things we now take for granted, things like contraception for all women, not just married women, homosexuality to be made legal, maternity rights, etc there must have been some who were more liberal underneath, yet had to comply with the law, but many people were dead against such things.
The 60s were not that swinging for many people.
I don't think people would enjoy the series so much were things portrayed as they really were
The first series or 2 were based on Jennifer worth's books, so we know that those were true to life
It's raising a lot of awareness of issues that young folk nowadays know little about.

Stopped watching ages ago. Always seemed to be a repeat of the same stories with different characters.

I think the guy who plays the doc is such a wooden actor. I recently found out he is the writer’s husband!

I love this series ,it shows a time of innocence, things to be discovered , but also how society did not accept or treat individuals or certain groups in society correctly. Things to learn about our pasts I think.

homefarm

Never watched it, bar a couple of episodes, utter rubbish and not true to life at all. I remember the 50s and 60s very clearly.

Everyone in the UK had the same experience as you in the 50’s and 60’s?

My mum had good birth experiences in the 50’s, particularly with her second, born at home (I was born in hospital as I was expected to be tiny. I tipped the scales at 9+lbs ). The midwife and the home helps became good friends to my mum.

I like watching it, but then I would say that.

I’ve enjoyed the previous series but I am not enjoying this one as much. Dr. Turner is so 21st century politically correct in the sixties. Also the Christmas special when Nurse Crane ended up on a trapeze rather stretched the boundaries of credulity.

Never watched it, bar a couple of episodes, utter rubbish and not true to life at all. I remember the 50s and 60s very clearly.

The Turners look so anguished - both of them - for most of the time. Mrs. Turner seems to manage to smile but still have anguish lines in her forehead! Trixie does seem to have a very tight face now - which is a pity as she was pretty at the beginning. However, it is innocent, and relays the politics and social views of the times pretty well. No complaints!

I used to watch it but it got too sugary and quite frankly
not true in my eyes.
At one end of my Nana's street was a Nunnery and after we
had sat on their orchard wall trying to nick an apple from an
overhanging branch, the Nun came a knocking and told my
Nana we needed a good beating, she politely refused.
At the other end of the street was the 'unmarried women's
home',they looked miserable and my Mum said it was a terrible
place.
Nuns were far from kind in the 60's

I do wonder how much longer it can keep going we're already up to 1966 (they had the world cup episode). In 1970 it was recommended that 100% of births should take place in hospital, so the Nonnatus midwives transitioning to that would seem a natural ending place.

I love it and find it both emotional & relaxing to watch. I much prefer CTM to all the repetitive depressing soaps I gave up watching long ago.

I don't think it time to give up on it yet . Maybe have a spin off along side .

I still absolutely love it. It’s the only programme I watch live and look forward to. I honestly think it could go on forever, taking us through the decades. I would love that. Midwives were still involved in the community when I had my youngest in 1991, although didn’t attend many births. There could still be good storytelling.

I watched a bout 10 mins of the first one & decided then & there that it was not for me!
I think they often plough on with old shows when they should look for better ones. Soaps are OK as they bring in new people all the time. I cannot even begin to work out how long I have been addicted to Corrie- can't stand Eastenders though.

My friend now dead was a district nurse I the East End. She had often to cut children out of their vests/Liberty bodices. A hot bath was a stranger to many homes. Infestation was rife.
Does anyone recall the purple (genson violet?) liquid for impetigo?
Rickets? Sand shoes/plimsoles in winter.
Sad depressed times.

I certainly lived through these times and could put faces to these characters.
The corner shop owners. Taking ‘tic’
The sisters changing to modernise their habits post Vatican 2 (although Nunatis House is CofE.
The non white faces arriving.
Midwives on bicycles.
Alcohol addiction. Vermin and extreme poverty.
Home births and kitchen sink abortions.
Boys in balaclavas. Orange juice and vitamins.
Then thalidomide.
The NHS arriving by the Labour Party.
I enjoy watching - lest we forget.
My irritation is when Dr Turner puts today’s moral code on life then. These were very different times and we didn’t have today’s head directing us then. So please Dr Turner let it be without your present day Political Correctness. This is not how we thought or acted then. My favourite character is the medical secretary. Yes that’s how people were then.