Original subtitles

Midwives have this amazing ability to have so much empathy and yet do the job

that they are there to do These women, the connection that they have with

mothers

It's one of the most perfect expressions of care we have in our society.

Yeah, I really admire them.

Someone who can really help and guide and make a big difference to where a

child's born.

And it should be a very celebrated job.

And they just do it again and again and again.

Respect.

Twelve years ago, maybe a little more, I wrote an article for the Royal College

of Midwives Journal that was looking at aspects of the midwife in literature,

which had been part of a master's degree that I'd been doing. It got a lot of

response. It was very gratifying that I'd seemed to have struck a chord with

midwives. Midwives seemed to appreciate that somebody'd noticed that midwives

weren't in books.

lots of midwives wrote to me. Amongst the people who wrote to me was a woman

called Jennifer Worth who'd just taken retirement.

She'd been a music teacher before retirement and before that she'd been a

and a midwife and she said that I had inspired her to write a memoir which was

lovely and lots of the other letters were lovely but I didn't expect anything

come of it.

About 18 months later Jennifer wrote to me again and said that she'd written her

memoirs and asked me if I'd like to read them and of course I said yes.

The next thing was really unexpected.

I got a manuscript of handwritten notes, a great wodge on odd sizes of paper all

held together with treasury tags and the whole thing was handwritten.

It was just an absolute delight.

I sat at the kitchen table when I should have been marking student surveys.

And I read through the manuscript and I nearly forgot to pick my children up

from school. The stories were just wonderful. They just leapt off the page.

But because she'd been practicing for a maximum of seven years in the late 50s

and early 60s, there were some parts of it that she'd misremembered. There were

some aspects of clinical practice that were just wrong.

So I telephoned her the next day and asked if she would mind if I...

corrected some of the clinical mistakes for her. And that started a 12, 13 -year

relationship. We were sent the first book, called The Midwife, in manuscript

Jennifer Worth's agent.

And within, I think, six months of that first reading, the book had gone to

number one in the bestseller charts.

Simply, on word of mouth, you know, it didn't have a big advertising campaign.

It was one of those books that people...

and its popularity just mushroomed almost overnight.

Pippa Harris, who is my fellow executive producer, said to me, I've found these

amazing books and I want you to read them because I think they'll be right up

your street.

And when she told me that they were set in the 1950s...

and that the author was still alive.

I said, nope, not my cup of tea, it's the wrong century, and I don't adapt the

work of living authors.

And I've known Pippa for many years, and she said to me, look, she said, I know

you, and I know you will not be able to put these books down.

So on her recommendation, I took delivery of the books, and she was

right. I started reading at 9, 10 o 'clock at night, thinking I'll give it

an hour and then I'll go to bed.

And at 3 o 'clock in the morning, I was still there turning the pages.

crying my eyes out. I just thought they were brilliant, compelling, emotionally

engaging, truthful, unique, funny books and I was on board from there on in

really. Jennifer was tall, elegant, bespectacled,

fiercely clever, very musical, rather frightening and

completely inspirational.

Jennifer had a very fixed idea about what she wanted and

i was lucky enough to get on the right side of her and be able to correct some

of the things that she'd misremembered so that her stories remained intact and

the integrity of her practice remained intact without ever ruffling any

i hope jennifer worth herself was an absolutely wonderful woman and i felt

privileged because

Early on, after we'd optioned the books, I got in touch with her and we started

a working dialogue.

So she was involved in the development of the show right from the beginning.

The great tragedy was that just before we started production, she phoned up to

say she had backache. She was going to come and show us around the East End,

actually, and show us the real locations.

And within a week of that phone call, she phoned again to say she'd been

diagnosed with throat cancer. And she died very soon afterwards before we

started filming.

And it was really shocking and very upsetting for all of us because I

we'd all assumed she was with us for the whole journey.

I did go to visit her about a month before she died, and at that point I

we had just cast Jessica Raine, because I can remember her looking at the

photograph, stroking it in a rather approving sort of way, because Jessica

actually very pretty and doesn't look dissimilar to Jennifer as a young woman.

There's an elfin quality to their features, and it was nice to let her

that was in hand.

And this was the young lady who was going to carry the torch forward.

I wanted to meet this incredible woman that had documented the lives of

midwives, something that had never been documented before.

I thought she was a really special woman. I'd read the books before.

I'd even gone in for the audition years before. So it was just incredibly sad

that I didn't get to meet her.

We looked at a lot of directors' work and the person who was top of the list

Philippa Lothorp. When we met her, she absolutely responded to Heidi's scripts

and found all the humour and the human gems, if you like, the little

nuances of character that make the story so very special.

It's a beautiful, beautiful image.

Philippa comes from a documentary background, and so I think in terms of

at the authenticity of that world, which we were really concerned to do, to make

that world real and get in there and tell, because it's a story of real

lives. So I think we wanted somebody who had that approach to it, which Philippa

definitely did. We wanted to be absolutely authentic, so we did masses

masses of research. When I'm directing, I usually look for visual references,

either... using film or photographs or painting.

I also used a lot of wonderful street photographers like Roger Mayne and

at their photographs of the time. Using those reference photographs is very,

very important to me.

We got some slightly snide comments from critics saying that it was all too

clean and there was no litter.

go and look at those images, you know, there was no litter on the streets

because although they were very poor communities, they took immense pride,

know, it was an era of polishing the front step kind of thing, but also there

was no rubbish, there weren't takeaways and people lived quite frugal lives and

there wasn't plastics everywhere.

So, you know, we really tried to be as authentic as we could and get a kind of

very truthful portrayal of that world.

The smoking, he called the midwife, as a non -smoker, was one of my favourite

things. It was suggested by Philippa Lothal, the director.

And she asked me, she said, look,

you know, do you mind smoking?

I just think it would be right.

And as I say, as a non -smoker, I leapt on it. I smoked many, many years ago.

It's a filthy habit.

But at the time, everybody smoked.

And there's something fantastic and real about seeing a beautiful baby.

About seeing a mother laid down in his perfect seat, and then suddenly she

sticks a fag in her mouth. And you are transported back to a whole different

mindset. It's one of the strongest indicators of period that I can think

And it just feels so naughty as well.

You know, you can't smoke anywhere in Great Britain now, but here I am smoking

away on set. It's just the most fantastically naughty thing to do.

Call the Midwife is so of its era.

It's just simply the colours, the red of our jerseys and our lovely maroon hats

and things and the bicycles.

When you get on set, because Steve Stewart's done such a fantastic job with

of the sets, the colours and the tones, the muted tones that they had in the

50s, it really sort of...

pulls you back in there straight away. You don't really have to act that much

because, you know, you have old packets of baked beans and hovis and, you know,

all of those things that were 50s -led.

They're making my bedroom at the moment and Bev just showed me the theatre

programmes and we've had a chat about what photographs I would have in there.

And all those things make it really real and you can really invest as an actor

in your character and in the environment.

It reminds me of when I was a kid as well, you know, because you don't see

playing in the street anymore, but in this, you know, there's just a tide of

kids running everywhere with footballs and hoops and, you know, prams and

dollies and there's just hundreds of them.

You know, that's really nice to see again.

And it's a shame that we don't see that anymore, you know, but there was less

traffic and less people around, I suppose.

When we first started the project, we found this building, which was a

So we tried to make it work as an artist's house where the nuns actually

in the East End and give them the brick and its history and the lovely long

cloisters that represented, you know, very good kind of religious motifs we

thought it was brilliant to work with.

Having trained in theatre, I realised that it's very...

helpful to an actor if they can completely immerse themselves in that

so I think my job is to really surround them in a bubble of belief so if they're

in the 1950s like they are now then I would make sure that they really felt

were in the 1950s down to probably being cold or Mrs Jenkins being in a stinky

old little hovel and damp I think it's really important that that existence

a bit method probably but It does seem to really help.

Everything's kind of, I don't know, sort of big and hefty and simple.

I can't explain it. It's just sort of, mm.

Hello, I'm a fridge.

I haven't got little ice things in front of me and, you know,

adjustments of temperatures. I'm just a, look at that scent.

Mm.

Yeah, I love it when we get the detail of a lunch or tea and there's doilies

loads of cups and sauces and the china.

It really does suspend you into another world, which is so useful. And all the

things like, look,

Paddy's Soap Flakes.

Hi, I'm Chummy and this is Paddy's Soap Flakes. They get out any stains in under

15 seconds.

Padded soap flakes.

The wonder washer.

The wonder washer. That's genius.

It's so much cycling.

And often when we're in Chatham, we do all those exterior scenes and the

cobbles, they're pretty deep cobbles with very deep grooves in. So if

front wheel gets caught in one of them, it is a nightmare and you've just got to

battle along.

And also, when I'm cycling on cobbles, I'm, you know, going along and all I'm

thinking is like, you know when you see people go at high speed, their skin goes

all like weird.

I'm going, am I just like... And everyone is just like, no, no, it looks

And I'm like, basically that's all I'm thinking when I'm cycling my bike.

I haven't toppled off yet.

But every time I get on that bike, I think it could be today.

I was nervous going down that hill. My bike was going to get icy.

And then you get off again. But you know it's because I'm staying a moment.

So I have cycled from John O 'Groats, the tippity -topity of Scotland, to land

then in Cornwall, England, which is our entire nation.

So, yes, that's what I have achieved. Thank you. Thank you, everyone.

But chummy, of course.

I couldn't ride a bicycle.

So I was thinking, well, this is going to be some acting.

How on earth am I going to do this?

But it turns out that you need to be able to be very good at cycling to do

the wobbling and falling.

So it worked out well.

Whereas some of the other girls, name me no names, Helen George, who plays

Trixie, are rubbish.

In the late 50s, we're at a point where women lot were to wash nappies and have

children. It was, you know, a period where women didn't work. They just went

and got married. So the fact that they chose this as a vocation and gave their

life to these women to help them was incredible.

There's newspaper under here.

Well, saved on laundry.

Let the mattress live another day.

You're not in hospital now with cupboards full of spotless linen.

The era that called midwife was certainly in that part of London a much,

tougher world. People lived in incredible poverty.

They didn't have good sanitation.

They had huge families. They lived in tiny families of 15 people in two rooms.

look back and I think, God, this is more like 500 years ago, not 50 years ago. I

mean, you can't comprehend the way life has advanced since then.

Looking how far we've come and things that we all take for granted in terms of

our health care, which in the 50s were just not possible.

Simple things like the lack of pain relief during birth, which is

when you think my mother would have given birth with no pain relief at all.

I want gas.

Dr Turner's got some in his boot. He said so when he was at the clinic.

One big change for Dr Turner, one he absolutely adores, is gas in the air.

This had just started to come in in the late 50s. It wasn't perfected at that

time, but he loves his new gas and air machine.

And if you imagine, for the women who've had to cope with appalling pain in

childbirth, this stuff is a miracle.

Suddenly the women can give birth and feel hardly any pain.

We know this is normal now, but back then, when he brings this in in Series

the women see this and... catered it like wildfire and it caused them a lot

trouble and it's quite funny i was spreading the news about that gas how

write it they'll all be wanting it a lot of my friends are having children at

the moment and it's interesting watching throughout their eyes how it works now

it's that's the choice that you have this file that you can fill in your

birthing plan and you can say what sort of cow shed candle you'd like and what

sort of drink you'd like to be served whilst you're giving birth I mean that

didn't happen you just had hot water and towels and that was about it so then

quite a considerable change we're so lucky now well I mean I think that then

had much more one -to -one care personal care and and and they would follow

through with the same midwife I think now

Technically, there are strengths in advance, but certainly you don't get the

attention, I don't think.

Also, because there are so many more people now, they haven't got the time,

unfortunately.

Particularly in the 50s, it was important for nurses and midwives to

them, to have conversations, and having a cup of tea with their patient rather

than just going in there and giving them some medicine, you know. So it was

about strong care within the community.

The job of a midwife, I believe, is to make people feel safe and secure as soon

as you meet them. Have them believing that they can trust you to deliver their

baby safely.

I think the changes in midwifery have been subtle and very

gentle over the years. This book is Miles' Midwifery.

It's a textbook for midwives.

I bring this because it just shows that...

Most of the things that we do now are not really an awful lot different.

The babies still come out exactly the same way. And I think sometimes it's

helpful for the actresses to see a textbook that would have been available

them to use as midwives.

Now I think women are much more encouraged to do whatever's comfortable

And you've got all of the water birth, you've got a hell of a lot more drugs.

they didn't have any drugs the

1950s

midwife would have to have carried almost like her you know her house on

back this would have had to have traveled with her everywhere and she

been away from her base most of the day and this would have had to have sorted

everything out the midwife instruments for delivery, kept in this cloth bag,

she would have taken them out clean, sterile, every day.

And they're almost identical to the instruments that we carry now.

What she would have is two clamps for the cord, a pair of cord scissors,

these are dressing forceps which we wouldn't normally carry, and a pair of

episiotomy scissors.

Rectal tube.

Class.

and second rectal tube until the first one breaks. A glass rectal examiner.

It's quite shocking, right?

We think of the potential disasters there.

Here's an exclusive for you. Pam Ferris on our second day of filming did break

said rectal examiner.

And there wasn't another one, and there was all sorts of hilarious showbiz

shenanigans.

It's so much fun here.

When it actually came to the playing scene where I had to deal with

I was thrown in the deep end. It was in the beginning of the second series.

We arrived with this woman giving birth on a laboratory.

She's been caught out, and so I get to deliver this baby.

And we spent the entire day, because the birth scenes take quite a long time to

do, they're quite difficult to do, because of working with a real child and

working with prosthetics and working, you know, trying to get the shots and

things that make something real. So we spent this entire day crammed into a

lavatory with a camera, with this poor woman sitting on the edge of it, who is

the young woman. And I just thought, this is completely absurd.

You know, here I am, kneeling all day, just grabbing onto this.

child coming out. The scene itself is really quite a moving scene with all the

women outside the laboratory all kind of cheering.

I did rely a lot on our on -set midwife, Terry, who

was just incredible and would just be there right in the act and, you know,

kneeling down with you and saying, you'd have your hands here like this and she

was invaluable.

This doll is used to practice birth simulation, and then we use the very

expensive prosthetic doll, which costs about £5 ,000 a time, so we don't pull

that through practice deliveries.

We've used a couple of prosthetic babies. One is a very newborn one, which

really scary.

It's really tiny. It's got a little tube in it and you can blow in it out of

shot and it breathes and it's really spooky.

And then we've got another one that's been made, but they're weighted and

they're made so realistically that even if you're the most hardened prop man

bringing it to set, you can't just carry it like a prop. They all created it

like a little baby.

He's Nick if he's a boy and Nicola if he's a girl.

That bit is detachable, so our babies can be girls or boys, depending on the

story. Suppose we use the prosthetics quite a lot for the tricky manoeuvres.

When the babies are actually being born, it's much easier and kinder to do that

with a prosthetic. We wouldn't use a real baby for that.

And then because we've got a midwife on set... she makes the decisions about

things like that. So we use them as much as we can, probably more for the

birthing scenes.

If we can have the real baby, that's normally what the director would prefer,

because then you can do a tight close -up on the baby's face.

But they can also be used if they've got little hats and they're wrapped in

blankets. You can use them quite close up.

But I suppose they're used mainly for the birthing scenes, the actual delivery

bit. They're a silicon base.

and they're hand -coloured and then all of the hair is put in individually, each

strand, so it makes them look much more realistic.

The babies are quite good because they're actually quite heavy and their

flop and their legs move and their little heads wobble and that's why

quite useful for the actresses as well because we have to hold them like a

proper baby.

There he is.

tend not to be there for the birth scenes because we like to keep as few

on set as possible just to help the actors really and to keep it quiet for

babies. But Terry is always, always there.

And normally we know exactly before we start filming what the ramifications of

that scene are, but she would call me if there was a problem.

So I'm always very confident that we are spot on with our deliveries.

In fact, I could probably, probably deliver a baby now in the 1950s manner.

At work, I wear scrubs.

Here, I wear anything that's not going to show the muck. This is not a

job.

And for delivery, I get wet here because the props

provide me with lots of water.

Makeup provides me with lots of fake blood and oil.

And I oil up the babies, and if I don't wear this, I'm wet down to my underwear

within half an hour of practicing a delivery.

So, yeah, this has been wonderful.

In the birthing scene, there's different stages of how we achieve the realistic

effects of birth.

There's a time in certain shots when you're able to do it essentially with a

doll. When you get closer, then they have a prosthetic baby.

And they look incredibly realistic, but of course it's still a doll, it's still

a model.

And so you're able to draw in and at a certain distance, it still looks

amazingly lifelike.

But then this wonderful moment happens where eventually it just won't do.

And then everybody has to go really quiet.

And they have a beautiful baby there, which usually, because Terry's a genius,

is usually sleeping soundly. And then they bring this newborn, this child,

the room.

Everyone goes very, very quiet, like a library, and it's very sepulchral.

And this little baby usually does the best acting in the whole scene because

it's just wonderful. One take, fantastic.

The other day we had a five -day -old baby filming the birth scene, and you

think, what if this little tiny person is there?

And it's very, very special, actually.

Although that little baby did a wee all over the actress who's pretending to

give birth.

But no matter, we carried on.

I see a camera, I'm off.

I'm so camera shy.

A lot of dramatists argue out a problem and they'll create characters.

But they're often not completely or fully fleshed because they're aspects of

person. When you sort of read the script, sometimes you can't quite

that... you know, these stories actually happened. And I think that gives an

added element of kind of authenticity.

And I think that's, in a way, what works.

It's not just an observation of what it was like in the 50s, but it does come

from these wonderful memoirs of Jennifer Worth.

I think I feel a sense of loyalty knowing that there was a sister of

And I want to do her justice because I know she's real.

So it's an extra sense of responsibility, probably.

The thing that struck me about playing a real person was I was just getting on

with the job and it wasn't until the day that Philip, Jennifer's husband, came

in to watch and Jennifer's grandchildren and daughter. Seeing Philip be really

moved by what he was seeing and specifically being moved by seeing me on

evoked such memories for him.

that I was really humbled and it didn't make me feel any pressure. I didn't ever

feel that because I just thought I can only do what I do and trust the director

and the writing.

But I certainly felt a certain responsibility to do a good job on this.

Call the Midwife is a reminder.

of why we care about each other.

One of the most fantastic things about this drama is it makes us feel better to

all be together.

There is a common theme. The more I read the books and the more we worked on

developing the other stories, I realised that what Jennifer was writing about

was the triumph of love.

I'm just delighted that people are seeing what midwives do. People are

midwives supporting women.

and seeing them all the way through to a nice, normal, healthy delivery.

And they're seeing strong women coping at home with no pain relief.

They're not seeing midwifery idealized and in a sanitized unit. They're seeing

people give birth, which is a really natural process, and they're seeing

at home. They're seeing birth in a really natural surrounding.

They're seeing midwives cope with very little, and they're seeing mothers cope

with very little, but they're seeing the power of community, they're seeing the

power of support and they're seeing what women can truly achieve.

I think they're life -enhancing stories and I think that's why the public have

responded to it in a way. One of the things that attracts me to Call the

is its incredible number of contradictions.

The struggle and dirt and grime of daily life with the fantastic pop music of

the time.

The love and excitement of the new baby with the pain and

sometimes loss of bereavement or violence at home.

The extraordinary worldliness of sharing in people's lives when you're a nun and

then coming back to Nanata's house and singing playing songs.

The blood and guts.

and the spirituality.

It's the most extraordinary conjunction of opposites and that I love.