Call The Midwife, in case anyone has failed to notice, is a fictional television show from the 2010s. It’s first few seasons were based fairly closely on Jennifer Lee Worth’s actual memoirs of her work as a midwife in Poplar in the 1950s. They, too, were written towards the end of her life, basically 50 years after the events in question, and were bestsellers in England a decade ago. The TV series departed from its grounding in the memoirs long ago. It should surprise no one that what the show provides is far from a documentary record of nursing in the 1950s and 1960s, and really more a contemporary fantasy about important and meaningful work then.
In other shocking news, Sister Monica Joan’s acute, inspiring voiceovers the past few seasons are difficult to square with her obvious dementia in the early seasons.