I was a schoolchild in London in 1957, so I watched this programme expecting to see the London I remember recreated. I had to go to school on the tube and underground. I was from north London, but quite a few of my school friends came from East London. When I went to tea with them after school, their homes were clean and perfectly respectable. One thing I do remember though, was the warehouses and the docks were strictly out of bounds, although we could, and did, play on the bomb sites. I still have friends who were brought up in East London in the 1950s. I think this series is based on the exceptional cases rather than the normal ones. Certainly there were homes in the area, which had survived the bombing and had outside toilets and tin baths. In my experience, my friends' Mums kept their flats immaculately clean inside. The, houses, warehouses and the dock walls were all blackened with soot from the railways. 1957 was before the clean air act and fogs and smogs were common. It was good to see people getting about by bicycle, cars were few in the 1950s and mostly black saloons. I don't remember meeting or seeing any exceptionally large families. All the friends and family I had and now have, who were born and brought up in east London, are either only children, or have one or two siblings. I will watch the rest of the series with interest.
Review of Call the Midwife
