Читать книгу The Life and Times of Call the Midwife: The Official Companion to Series One and Two - Heidi Thomas - Страница 6

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‘I DON’T WANT AN ENEMA. IT’S NOT DIGNIFIED!’

MURIEL

‘IF YOU WERE THAT KEEN ON YOUR DIGNITY, YOU WOULDN’T BE HERE NOW.’

MRS HAWKES

Everybody has a birth story, whether it is known to them or not. I was – by coincidence – brought into the world by nuns, in a small private hospital in Liverpool. The delivery was notable only for its speed. But whenever a woman visits a newly delivered relative or friend, the talk swiftly shifts from the baby to the labour: ‘How was it?’ we whisper. And the details are divulged and sympathised with – and will be told, and told again, in years to come. Tales such as these – ordinary, homespun, heartfelt – are the lifeblood of every Call the Midwife episode. And that is as it should be, for each arrival in this world is totally enthralling, a repeat beat of the greatest story ever told.

Many of the births we feature are unusual by definition. In the first series, for example, we saw the birth of triplets to an unmarried mother living in a derelict flat. Lacking even a blanket for the third child, Chummy, played by Miranda Hart, stripped down to her petticoat and wrapped him in her nurse’s uniform. In another episode, she carried out a breech delivery alone, coaxing a petrified mother through the slow, controlled descent of the infant’s feet and legs.

But we wanted our first birth to be an ordinary one – raw, uncomplicated, intimate, exhilarating. We wanted the fifties’ trappings of the enema and shave, and the regulation left-hand-side delivery position. Above all else, however, we wanted to make it timeless, immediate and real. And so, in the opening episode of the series, ordinary unexceptional Muriel, attended by her mother, Sister Evangelina and newcomer Jenny Lee, gave birth to a boy without any complications or much fuss. It was a birth like hundreds of thousands before it, and hundreds of thousands to come – and therein lies its power.

As Pippa Harris, executive producer of Call the Midwife, comments, ‘There is something completely universal about birth; it touches us all. You don’t have to be a mother or even a woman to engage with it. All humans are drawn to it, time and again.’ Mulling over the huge success of the series, she adds, ‘The stakes are just so high; at any point the outcome can switch from one of joy to terrible sadness. Birth is inherently dramatic.’

No one who works on the show is more acutely tuned to the miracle of birth than Terri Coates, a midwife and lecturer of some thirty years standing. Terri, our peerless consultant midwife, has been involved with Call the Midwife from the start.

Terri first encountered Jennifer Worth after publishing an article in a midwifery magazine a dozen years ago, lamenting that midwives were ‘almost invisible’ in literature. ‘Maybe,’ wrote Terri, ‘there is a midwife somewhere who can do for midwifery what James Herriot did for veterinary practice?’

Among many responses, Terri received a letter from retired nurse Jennifer, who said the article had inspired her to write her memoirs. Some 18 months later, she wrote again, having completed them. Terri offered to read the manuscript and was duly sent it – to her surprise, it had been written by hand on an odd assortment of pages, which she describes as being ‘rather difficult to keep in order.’

‘It was a lovely story about women, and for women, and it was very powerful.’ Terri suggested to Jennifer that she might be able to correct some clinical errors in the text, and Jennifer – who had practised long ago and for only seven years – accepted the offer. A long and collaborative relationship ensued and, once I began to write the series, I too turned to Terri for support.

Hailed as a ‘baby whisperer’ by awestruck technicians, Terri is modest about her talents.

‘I don’t think babies are at all fazed by being on set. If you hold a newborn confidently they tend to relax and calm down very quickly.’

In fact, Terri admits she is more likely to cry than the babies, having been routinely reduced to weeping during filming. What’s more, she isn’t alone.

Philippa Lowthorpe, principal director of Call the Midwife, confesses: ‘When we filmed our first birth scene – the traumatic arrival of Conchita Warren’s desperately premature baby – it was such an intense experience. The film crew, Terri and I were moved to tears.’ For male and female witnesses alike, all birthing scenes have proved emotional. Philippa adds, ‘I have two children myself, so I should be used to it, but there is something so powerful and profound about showing a new life coming into the world, often in difficult circumstances. And, of course, these women gave birth at home, with virtually no pain relief.’

Sometimes it seems the only people on set who aren’t crying in the birth scenes are the babies. Tenderly nursed by Terri, and with everyone walking on tiptoe, they often sleep deeply throughout their time on camera – which isn’t necessarily what the script requires!

In real life most healthy babies are wakeful at the point of birth, and it’s great to capture open eyes and flailing, starfish hands. However, we would never, ever do anything to unsettle a contented babe and the crew are adept at working round unscheduled naps. Terri occasionally sanctions gently blowing on a dozing baby’s cheek, or softly tickling their feet, but if this doesn’t work shots are angled so the face cannot be seen. The sound of crying – carefully recorded when it spontaneously occurs – can then be dubbed on afterwards. In addition, I usually have some emergency dialogue scribbled down so that if I am phoned from the set with the panicky message, ‘It’s absolutely FAST asleep!’, I can supply one of the adult actors with some explanatory lines.

Newborn babies tend not to be on the books of modelling agencies, so we recruit them direct from the maternity wings of local hospitals. During the first series, Call the Midwife was unknown to the masses, and we sometimes struggled to explain what we were up to. Second time around we have been bombarded, with some expectant mothers calling us direct and e-mailing photographs. Nobody has actually sent us their scan pictures yet, but it’s only a matter of time.

The younger the infant, the better. In an ideal world, our babies would not be more than four days old, when they still have the glazed and curled-up look of the newly born. However, they must be licensed by their local council before they can appear on screen, and this protective procedure takes at least a week. Second assistant director, Ben Rogers, and his team try to get one step ahead by booking babies in advance of their due date, but Mother Nature has no respect for filming schedules. We are often undone by them arriving early or too late.

Despite the nightmarish booking process, the presence of a baby brings about a tingling hush that makes the day’s work special. As Pam Ferris, who plays Sister Evangelina, observes, ‘It changes the atmosphere completely, you can sense something extraordinary in the air.’

Babies can ‘work’ for no more than twenty minutes at a time. There is more leeway with twins, who can be used alternately, but these are seldom available to us. Terri ensures that the tiny stars are held properly, kept warm and that the surroundings are clean and hazard free. She is often contorted – out of sight of the cameras – beneath or behind the bed so as to stay within instant reach of the baby.

Natalie Hannington signed up her tiny daughter Santana – her sixth child – after seeing one of our leaflets in her maternity clinic. An eight-pound baby, Santana arrived via Caesarean section. Natalie, who is 31, describes her as ‘just perfect’, and was happy to share her baby with the nation on the screen.

Before appearing on camera Santana, like all performers, made a visit to make-up. There, she was massaged with pure grapeseed oil and ‘bloodied’ with a sugar-based red colouring so that she looked fresh from the womb. Many babies are also born with a coating of vernix – the white fatty substance that protects their skin in utero – and if this is required, a paste of Sudocreme and oil is carefully applied.

Christine Walmesley-Cotham, hair and make-up designer, supervises all of these preparations. Responsible for many blood-and-gore effects across the series, she is deeply involved in making pregnancy and birth look real on camera.

Christine says she is grateful that, since the advent of silicone, medical prosthetics are of a universally high quality. This lightweight malleable material offers a durability and level of detail that was not possible with latex. Silicone is used to create bumps for ‘mums-to-be’, which can be padded to suit the stage of a fictional pregnancy, and coloured to match the skin tone of the actress. My own favourite prostheses, however, are the exquisitely delicate umbilical cords – small coiled masterpieces of palest mauve. It seems at once odd and entirely right that they should be kept in the make-up store, alongside the lipsticks and lacquer. For these are props from the world of women, things that are stored in the vault of all we share.

When it was time to film Santana’s scene, real-life mum Natalie watched proceedings on a monitor. The baby murmured only briefly, when she was first carried into the bright light of the set, but settled within moments. Helen George, who plays Trixie, handed her to the actress playing her mother, who cradled her lovingly, and after Philippa called ‘Cut!’ there was the usual sound of all the male technicians clearing their throats and blowing their noses.

‘It was weird to see her handed to someone else,’ admits Natalie. ‘But it’s lovely just looking at her. It would have been fantastic to have done the same with all the other children,’ she says. Like every mother who has taken part in the show, she will keep a recording of Santana’s TV debut for the young star to see when she is older.

While Terri’s first concern on set is always for the wellbeing of the baby, her presence is vital to the adult actors too. Some weeks before a birthing scene is filmed, the script is rehearsed in detail. Terri uses a wonderful old shabby-chic doll, which she has had throughout her career, to demonstrate the delivery moves to the actors. This is especially important when the birth is complicated. She is also careful to point out how the mother’s modesty would have been preserved, and to explain key clinical phrases so that the nuns, midwives and doctors can say them with an air of confidence. She also provides crucial guidance to the actresses playing the labouring mothers. In the fifties, girls married and gave birth young, and this is reflected in the age of our performers. Very few have given birth in real life and they rely on Terri to ensure that their on-screen labour is as life-like as possible.

Terri believes that too many on-screen births are melodramatic and overly vocal. ‘A lot of women are centred and calm in labour, not at all like you see in soap operas. They are focused and often very wrapped up in themselves,’ she explains. In the opinion of Pam Ferris, this approach is key to the success of the birth scenes in Call the Midwife. ‘We’ve had fabulous actresses doing the birthing, making really believable noises. The emotional temperature in the room is really high when we’re doing those sequences,’ says Pam. ‘It’s very, very powerful stuff. You don’t get much more fundamental than that really. The anxiety and the joy combined make them very, very highly charged moments for everybody. Although we’re sometimes only giving birth to a little bit of plastic, you still get excited.’

These ‘little bits of plastic’ are actually prosthetic babies, which appear in almost every episode. They take the place of real babies in the more technically complex delivery shots.

The detailed small figures have the dimensions of a six-and-a-half-pound infant, but weigh rather more, and have a wipe-clean silicone skin that can be dressed with oils, gels and creams.

In Episode One, Jenny is given her first case to handle alone: Conchita Warren – played by Carolina Validés – who is pregnant with her 25th child.

Terri Coates, Consultant Midwife, on set tending to a newborn.

Amy Roberts, Costume Designer, has a range of pregnancy padding to hand, which actors delight in trying on.

Top right: Terri Coates, Consultant Midwife, demonstrating delivery moves. Below: Helen George (Trixie) at the maternity clinic.

(Top left © Popperfoto/Getty/Courtesy of Tower Hamlets Archive)

(Top right © We Are Laura)

Christine Walmesley-Cotham, Hair and Make-up Designer, with one of the life-like prosthetic babies.

(Left © Tower Hamlets Archives)

(Right © We Are Laura)

THE MEDICAL BAG

BEING A FIFTIES’ MIDWIFE REQUIRED COMPASSION, MEDICAL KNOW-HOW AND MUSCLE-POWER. THE BROWN LEATHER CASE TAKEN TO EVERY DELIVERY BY THE MIDWIVES WEIGHED AT LEAST AS MUCH AS A LUSTY NEWBORN. SO WHAT WAS INSIDE WEIGHING IT DOWN?

FIGURE 1 – OPEN MIDWIFE’S MEDICAL BAG I. There was a length of rubber tubing with which to give an enema. At the time the midwives and nuns were switching from old-style and easily smashed glass to rubber. Back then every woman in labour was given an enema but they are no longer deemed necessary during childbirth. — II. Dettol was a well-known antiseptic. Today its function has largely been replaced by plain water after fears that strong antiseptics kill good bacteria as well as bad. — III. There was a nursery thermometer for testing bath water – now mostly usurped by an elbow or a wrist – as well as one to register body temperature. — IV. The urine in a test tube held by clamps was warmed to see if there was any evidence of protein. If the heated urine produced a frothy substance resembling cooked egg white then it indicated a possible infection or even the threat of pre-eclampsia, a condition that can be fatal to mums and babies. Nowadays strips are used to carry out the same test. A spirit lamp – a bottle with a wick running through it – was lit for urine testing, which explains why midwives carried a box of matches with them.

FIGURE 2 – CONTENTS OF A MIDWIFE’S MEDICAL BAG I. Carbolic soap helped the shaving process, and was also used for handwashing. — II. Tweezers were used to remove dirty dressings, which were duly dropped into an enamel bowl. — III. Enamel bowls were carried to hold solutions or waste items. — IV. The horn-shaped Pinard, a foetal heart monitor, has been standard equipment for decades. — V. A vicious-looking stainless steel razor was used to prepare women for delivery. — VI. Scissors used to cut the umbilical cord are shaped like a parrot’s beak. — VII. Midwives carried a sphygmomanometer or blood pressure measuring device with a fabric cuff and the dial encased in leather. — VIII. This hypochlorite solution was used as a steriliser. — IX. This ergometrine oxytocic was injected to stop bleeding after childbirth by encouraging the uterus to contract. — X. Syringes were used to administer the ergometrine. — XI. Gauze was used to tie off the umbilical cord. It was replaced first by rubber bands and then by plastic clips. — XII. Midwives carried a tube of Lanolin for women preparing to breastfeed, to prevent sore nipples. — XIII. A stethoscope – invented in France at the beginning of the 19th century.

The oils, gels and creams are used to match the actual babies used in close-ups. Disconcertingly, the prosthetic babies have interchangeable male and female genitalia, though these are never seen. Robust enough for repeated, long-term use, the handmade dolls cost £5,000 apiece and are treated with the utmost care.

Terri’s expertise provides an essential link between past and present on the show. Having qualified in 1982, she worked alongside many midwives who would have been Jenny Lee’s contemporaries. From them, she learned about the methods in use decades previously. Perhaps surprisingly, relatively little has altered.

‘Babies still come out in exactly the same way,’ smiles Terri, mulling over the small but distinct changes in practice that have occurred down the years. ‘For example, in the fifties, midwives always wore masks. It isn’t that long ago we stopped wearing them, but we don’t use them in the show because masks don’t make for good television!’ She adds, ‘Although we probably have more disposable items now, much of the equipment is largely the same.’

Terri herself still uses the same wooden Pinard – a horn-shaped foetal heart monitor – she bought when she first qualified as a midwife thirty years ago.

Some aspects of childbirth have changed beyond all recognition. As Terri says, ‘Women in the fifties expected to give birth at home, with only very basic pain relief, and as a result they coped.’

In fact, in Series One of Call the Midwife, the women were offered no help with pain at all. I had queried this with Jennifer Worth, after reading the original books. She replied that it had been impossible for the midwives to transport cylinders of gas-and-air on their bicycles. Even the ‘portable’ units were packed into heavy cases, and the only space on the bike was taken by the midwife’s bag.

Further research revealed that in the fifties a furore was brewing regarding pain relief in labour – almost one hundred years after it was introduced. The numbing qualities of ether and chloroform (chemicals that had to be inhaled) were discovered in the middle of the 19th century. They were swiftly pressed into use for all types of surgery, and it wasn’t long before their potential for use in childbirth was spotted.

The first woman anaesthetised during labour in the United States was Fanny Longfellow, the wife of poet and abolitionist Henry, in 1847. She later called ether ‘the greatest blessing of our age’. Meanwhile, in England, the anaesthetic power of chloroform found an illustrious fan. Queen Victoria enjoyed a happy marriage to Prince Albert, but it came at a high price – one pregnancy after another. Her labours were torture to her, and indeed she suffered so greatly that when her eldest child, the Crown Princess of Prussia, wrote to say she was expecting her own first baby, the Queen wrote back offering not congratulations but the tart comment, ‘This is HORRID news.’

The Queen’s doctors debated the value of pain relief at length before deciding to use it for her eighth delivery. Her Majesty gave birth to Prince Leopold George Duncan Albert on 7 April 1853, after inhaling chloroform from a handkerchief for 52 minutes. She described the relief this gave her as ‘delightful beyond measure’, and allowed her use of anaesthesia to be made public. Thereafter, this particular method was known as ‘Chloroform à La Reine’.

By the fifties ether and chloroform had been replaced by Trilene and gas-and-air, which was inhaled during contractions through special apparatus. Trilene, which was blue, smelled like dry-cleaning fluid. However, the kit it required was relatively light, and the assumption was that bicycle-riding midwives could transport it easily.

At the end of 1955, 259 Trilene sets were in use in the UK, and by the end of 1956 this had risen to roughly 900 sets. In 1957, an estimated 1,259 sets were being pedalled around the country by district midwives. Unfortunately, that still only represented one set of equipment for every six midwives. This caused such anger that questions were asked in Parliament – the inhalers were simply not being manufactured in sufficient numbers.

Gas-and-air, which both mothers and midwives preferred, remained too cumbersome for transportation by bike. In Parliament in 1959, the Minister of Health was quizzed by the MP representing Stoke-on-Trent. When, he demanded, was the Government going to provide midwives with motor vehicles so that they could transport gas-and-air to their patients? The Minister for Health sidestepped this rather nimbly, saying it was a ‘question for the local authorities’.

Pain relief was, of course, available in hospitals and in the small GP-led units on offer in certain areas. Very slowly, the tide began to turn against home births. In the minds of many women, a hospital birth meant a safe birth. For countless generations, being ‘brought to bed’ had been such a risky business that the church offered a special service called the Thanksgiving For Women After Childbirth in which mothers could kneel at the altar and give thanks for their survival.

Even in the fifties, as in the present day, there were some complications that could not be overcome. The first series of Call the Midwife includes one of the saddest stories from the books, that of the young and beautiful young Margaret Jones, recently married to a man rather older than herself. At the happiest point of their life together, she collapses with eclampsia, an acute complication of pregnancy. Despite the emergency delivery of her stillborn premature daughter – the only cure for the condition – Margaret dies, leaving her husband bereft. Margaret’s illness was sudden and severe. Had symptoms developed more slowly, the threat to her life might have been diagnosed and averted. In almost every episode of Call the Midwife, we see the midwives boiling urine in test tubes over spirit lamps: it was to test for the presence of protein in the water. Along with high blood pressure and fluid retention, protein in the urine indicates pre-eclampsia. In the fifities, medical professionals believed that the condition could be held at bay with bed-rest, sedation and a special diet. Today, drugs are used to help control the blood pressure, and the baby’s condition is carefully monitored. The mother can survive, and her baby be safely delivered.

A 1959 government enquiry into maternity services carefully weighed up the pros and cons of home versus hospital deliveries, but was uncompromising in its admiration of one thing: midwives. It remarked, ‘The midwife’s three assets of time, skill and attitude of mind are of immense value to her patient,’ but was also forced to state, ‘Even if the financial resources were available to provide hospital beds for all confinements there would appear to be little prospect of finding enough midwives to staff them.’

More than sixty years on, it seems not much has changed. In July 2012, 25 midwifery students – dressed like Chummy and Jenny in blue dresses and red cardigans – rode vintage bikes to the Houses of Parliament. There, they served cake to MPs in a bid to persuade them to invest in training midwives. There are, insist the students, not enough to go around.

As they cycled through Westminster shouting, ‘Call for more midwives!’ I felt utterly humbled by their passion for their craft. For this is what midwives do – they live and breathe the beauty of their calling. It inspires and sustains them, just as they inspire and sustain the women they support.

The rewards of their vocation are life-long. Terri once said, ‘Birth amazes me. And if it ever stops amazing me then I will know it is time to give up and get out of the profession. I’m still awed by every birth I attend.’

The midwives would unpack and lay out essential items such as scissors, bowls and gloves, on a chest of drawers or bedside table, within arm’s reach.

Pam Ferris (Sister Evangelina) and Jessica Raine (Jenny) with Emma Noakes, who played Shirley Redmond in Episode Four.

Miranda Hart (Chummy Browne) and Tina O’Brien, who played Cathy Powell in Episode Six.

(Poster © Reproduced with permission from library and archive material from the collections of the Royal College of Midwives/The Royal College of Midwives)

(Photo © We Are Laura)

INTRODUCING

THE NURSES

PROFILE

JENNY

Jennifer Worth expressed very little interest in who would eventually play her. When we used to play at putting an imaginary cast together, she would change the subject when it came to the character of Jenny. Apart from expressing an entirely natural desire that the girl we hired should be good looking, she claimed to have no opinion at all. She didn’t fictionalise ‘Jenny Lee’ in her Call the Midwife books – she used her own name, and set herself upon the page quite plainly. I often wondered if she regretted this.

What Jennifer was always very clear about, however, was that she would like the series to give young, unknown performers a chance to shine. Our casting director, Andy Pryor, is a tremendous spotter of new talent, and his first trawl of ‘Jennys’ was fantastic. Most of them were unknown to me and I knew this would please Jennifer. By this stage, she was acutely ill and, although I knew we couldn’t rush the process, I was desperate to cast the part before she died. For all she feigned indifference, I had a gut feeling that she actually DID want to know who was going to play the part.

Every girl who auditioned for the part had something brilliant to commend her, but a lot of them were just a bit too modern. But then I saw Jessica Raine’s audition tape and suddenly sat up straight. Here was someone with cut-glass pronunciation that didn’t sound like a parody, and an inner strength that didn’t seem too bold: Jessica Raine. She had come close to being overlooked, but was invited to the next round of auditions and Philippa Lowthorpe, the director, e-mailed me excitedly: ‘We got Jessica back – she was fantastic!!’ That was it – we offered her the job.

With the success of the first series, Jessica became a star overnight. But no success – especially in show business – is ever truly instant. Like many a performer, she worked long and hard to achieve her aims.

Jessica grew up on a farm in rural Herefordshire. Her heart was set on acting from childhood. ‘I knew I wanted to act but I didn’t say so for years, because it seemed unattainable as a career,’ she reveals.

‘I did A level Theatre Studies and had an incredibly inspirational teacher. That’s what makes teaching so vital. He touched a lot of people’s lives.’

Jessica went on to study drama at University of the West of England, then waitressed while seeking roles in local plays. It strikes me that Jennifer would have had every sympathy with Jessica’s early deliberations, for she too took time to find her feet professionally. Leaving school in her mid-teens, she learned shorthand and typing, working in a boys’ grammar school before applying to train as a nurse.

Jessica’s path to drama school in the capital was similarly vexed, but, like the woman she went on to immortalise on screen, she refused to be daunted. Despite being turned down by RADA, she moved to London and worked in a call centre while building up to having another go. Further rejections from other drama schools followed, but she persisted and applied to RADA once again. This time, she succeeded.

‘By this time I felt there was no possibility I was going to get in, but there was nothing to lose. And as soon as I relaxed and stopped trying to impress people, the real me came out. That was a lesson for life.’

After graduating from RADA, Jessica appeared in a number of National Theatre productions, often playing angry young women with a lot to say. ‘I got a lot off my chest when I was doing that!’ she laughs.

Jessica finds a great deal to interest her in the role of Jenny, who is so different to the rebellious youngsters she has previously played. ‘She has so much empathy, she is young, not particularly innocent, but she looks at things with such new eyes.’

Jessica is in awe of what young midwives such as Jenny, Trixie and Cynthia accomplished in the course of their daily work. ‘It is that sense of command and calm that is really important. You have got to be in control; you are dealing with a woman going through a lot of pain and she could be really terrified.’

By the time Jessica was cast, Jennifer was too ill to meet her. However we were able to show her photographs. She looked at the pictures of the young actress for a long time, stroking the black and white shadows on the paper. And she pronounced herself satisfied. That was all that mattered.

Jessica Raine and I picked up our scripts and set off into the future.

Q&A

What is your favourite outfit?

A cream New Look style coat I had tailor-made. I had to save up for ages, but it was worth the wait.

Where do you go on holiday?

I spent six months in Paris after leaving school. I’ve been back three times, and never tire of it.

Who is your dream date and where would you go?

I’m a classically trained pianist, so I’d love to go back in time and meet one of the great musicians, such as Frederic Chopin. He would give me a piano lesson, and then we would go out to dinner, perhaps on a mountainside, or with a view of a lake. That would be perfect.

What is your favourite record and film?

Mario Lanza singing ‘Be My Love’, and Brief Encounter. They both remind me of someone very dear to me, and a situation that we could not change.

What is your most treasured memory?

Opening the letter telling me I had been accepted to train as a nurse.

Your favourite meal?

Escalopes of veal, followed by Peach Melba.

What do you do in your spare time?

I’m a member of a music club, and I although I don’t drink much alcohol, I also love to visit the pubs of the East End with my friends. The Prospect of Whitby, down by the river, is a great favourite with all of us.

What’s your secret vice?

It’s not actually that secret – bright red lipstick!

And your most shining virtue?

I never give in to tiredness.

Where would you like to be in five years’ time?

Making my way up the medical ladder. Perhaps as a ward sister in a London teaching hospital.

PROFILE

CYNTHIA

Cynthia Miller and Jennifer met on the latter’s first day in Poplar, and a connection evolved that lasted until Cynthia’s death from cancer in 2006. Indeed, the final volume of the Call the Midwife trilogy, Farewell To The East End, carries the dedication, ‘To Cynthia, for a lifetime of friendship’. Her name remained unaltered in the series, at Jennifer’s insistence, and I was intrigued by their special connection, and very respectful of it. However, though Jennifer wanted Cynthia enshrined, as a memorial to the affection they had shared, she would not speak of her in any great detail. Then, on my very last visit to Jennifer, she went to great pains to get out her wedding album in order to show me a photo of her friend. It depicted Cynthia at the end of a row of guests. In a hat and belted coat, she looked shy and slightly out of things. ‘She was always so very unassuming,’ sighed Jennifer, closing the album.

When I settled down to work on the character of Cynthia, I decided the best approach was to treat her as special, but not unique. The world is full of young Cynthias – shy, quiet girls who feel things deeply, yet can be funny and playful in the company of friends. Weaving the scripts, I inched forward delicately, hoping to balance respect for Cynthia’s memory with the need to write a role that would interest an actor. Somewhere along the way, things must have clicked into place a little, because when Bryony Hannah read the script she wanted the job. ‘I was just really delighted by it. You know when you read a character if it is something you feel you are able to do, and you just hope you are the right person for it,’ she explains.

We cast Bryony without hesitation. Fresh from huge West End success in the play The Children’s Hour, we had no doubts about her talent, or that she could project the goodness and sincerity that Cynthia required.

‘I feel Cynthia is a younger person than me, and a little more naive than I am now. Her profession is totally alien to me but she is very kind and generous. She is giving, yet there is anxiety beneath that sometimes. It makes her a more rounded character.’

In the course of the role, Bryony has become adept at handling newborns. ‘The baby scenes are very humbling – you have a great responsibility, obviously,’ she says. But handling the infants has stirred up deeper feelings. ‘I was broody beforehand. It hasn’t made it worse, but it has compounded it.’

The birth scenes are always very intense, to the point where they can take an actual, physical toll. ‘It is so tense, and you get so involved,’ explains Bryony. The delivery of Winnie Lawson’s mixed-race baby in Series One was a case in point. ‘I got to the end of it all and found I was hardly breathing.

‘With my role I am trying to be as honest as I can, to allow the inner character to seep through. When playing emotional scenes I just want to be able to do the writing justice.’

Bryony first made up her mind to be an actor as a child, after watching black and white movies starring Fred Astaire and John Wayne.

‘Whenever I thought I wanted to be something else, it was only ever because of a film! I thought about chasing tornadoes after seeing Twister. I wanted to be a marine biologist after Free Willy.’

Nevertheless, it took time to see that dream become reality. She worked in pubs in her home town of Portsmouth, and sought roles in fringe theatre before getting into RADA at the fourth attempt. This enforced delay rather pleases her, with hindsight.

‘I don’t think I could have coped at eighteen. Twenty-one, the age I finally went there, is still young. I also looked at the year groups that came before me and I knew I wouldn’t have fitted in.’ As it happened, she attended the school at the same time as Jessica Raine, and with the success of Call the Midwife, their fortunes remain entwined.

At present, Bryony’s life is consumed by work, to the point where even her spare time is spent at the theatre.

‘I am writing a list of exciting things to do before I’m 30,’ she confides. ‘But, with the exception of jet skiing it’s looking woefully empty!’

One suspects that the shadowy, real-life Cynthia might have rather approved …

Q&A

What is your favourite outfit?

My floral dressing gown. My grandmother made it for me from a bedspread, not long after the War.

Where do you go on holiday?

I’m quite keen on Youth Hostelling, and last year I took my bike and cycled all over Derbyshire.

Who is your dream date and where would you go?

I think I’d be too nervous to enjoy an actual date, unless it was with someone I’d known for a long time. I’d quite like a penfriend – maybe someone living in America or Australia.

What is your favourite record and film?

I love the song ‘I’m Always Chasing Rainbows’ – it’s been recorded so many times, but I never mind who’s singing it. And I adored Walt Disney’s Lady and the Tramp.

What is your most treasured memory?

As a student nurse, I looked after a little boy who was desperately ill with polio. He was in an iron lung to begin with, but eventually walked out of the hospital under his own steam. As he left, he turned round and said, ‘Thank you’.

Your favourite meal?

Roast chicken, with all the trimmings. And rhubarb fool. I love rhubarb.

What do you do in your spare time?

Chummy’s been teaching me how to use the sewing machine. And I help out with Girls’ Brigade.

What’s your secret vice?

Emergency Ward 10. I sometimes time my housecalls so that when it’s on I’ll be at a house with a television set. And then I look at Dr Dawson over the patient’s shoulder.

And your most shining virtue?

I don’t think I have one. But I try to be kind.

Where would you like to be in five years’ time?

In the right place. And I’m not sure where that is yet.

PROFILE

CHUMMY

There has been some debate as to whether ‘Chummy’ ever actually existed. Her full name – Camilla Fortescue-Cholmondely-Browne – seems implausible enough to be a pseudonym. In the original book, she was described as the daughter of a Governor of Rajahstan, but when the script team looked into this, it raised immediate questions. Rajahstan did not exist until after partition in 1947, whereafter all Governors were Indian. On two separate occasions, Jennifer Worth gave Pippa and I different names for her, but by then she was ill, and they did not tally. On our final visit to her she also showed us a photograph of a tall and mannish nurse, who she said was Chummy, but it passed through our hands but briefly, and the trail went cold. If Chummy is a fiction, perhaps it doesn’t matter. Miranda Hart was captivated from the off.

‘I was in the middle of writing my own series and I thought, “I’m too busy to read this”. But after I read the first chapter I fell in love with the Chummy in the book. And when I read the scripts I thought, “These are brilliant”.’

Pippa invited Miranda to lunch at Neal Street Production headquarters. As we tucked in to our sandwiches, we were told that Sam Mendes – director of the latest Bond film – was auditioning girls in the room across the corridor. Peering through the glass door, we watched them trooping in and out of his office. ‘Why doesn’t he ask us?’ said Miranda, ‘We’d be much better.’ The three of us laughed a lot that day, which seemed to seal the deal – ironically, perhaps, as this would be Miranda’s first straight role. She was keen to stretch herself dramatically after the success of her eponymous sitcom. Since it was first aired on TV in 2009, Miranda has won her an army of fans and a mantelshelf full of awards.

‘Not having to get a laugh is a nice change,’ she admits. ‘Having done two series of my situation comedy, it was marvellous to do something a bit more real.’ In addition, as the writer, star and executive producer of her series, she enjoys the chance to simply focus on performance. ‘It is a huge pressure off, acting rather than writing. The writing is the hard pressure to me,’ she says ruefully, half way through writing the third series of the sit-com.

Other pleasures include being able to take her Shih-Tzu Peggy to work with her – St Joseph’s, the disused seminary where we film, has thirty acres of dog-friendly grounds – and the company of her fellow actors. There is a genuine chemistry between them all. ‘It really shows on camera, and it works off camera as well. The cast is a great mix of women who just all gelled. I love them all. It’s been lovely to work with them again, making the second series.’

Miranda does take working with tiny infants very seriously. ‘The responsibility of working with babies is great. You are holding this priceless newborn, just terrified you are going to drop them.’ She adds, ‘And they do things like wee in your glove.’

In the final episode of Series One, I wrote a line for Miranda that, when she read it in rehearsal, actually made her punch the air. Told by her mother, Lady Browne, that she must wear white for her forthcoming wedding, Chummy retorts, ‘Sorry. No longer entitled.’

She cites this as one of the best things about her role in Call the Midwife.

‘Getting the man! Now, that was a first.’

Q&A

What is your favourite outfit?

Last year I made myself a Crimplene skirt suit that I like to wear in church. There’s plenty of stretch around the derriere, so it’s frightfully comfy, even during quite long sermons.

Where do you go on holiday?

When I was a child in India, I thought there could be no more exotic place on earth than Blackpool, and I still have a soft spot for the seaside. Give me a 99 and a donkey ride, and my heart could burst with joy.

Who is your dream date and where would you go?

Am I allowed to say my husband? And we’re both sneakingly fond of a good brass band, so we’d go to Hyde Park bandstand and sit in deckchairs and have tea.

What is your favourite record and film?

It sounds awfully frivolous, but I could listen to Jim Reeves singing ‘Chapel In The Moonlight’ till the cows come home. And I do love High Society, it was the first film Peter and I ever went to together.

What is your most treasured memory?

I slept in the street the night before the Coronation, and got a grandstand view of the procession. Her Majesty waved at me as her carriage went by, I still get a wee bit teary when I think of it.

Your favourite meal?

I do rather relish half a pint of whelks, with bread and butter.

What do you do in your spare time?

Now that I’m married, the ironing.

What’s your secret vice?

I sometimes buy a sherbet fountain and guzzle the whole thing without stopping. I suck the sherbet through the liquorice stick and everything. In private, obviously.

And your most shining virtue?

I have unusually warm extremities. My patients like this, and so does my husband.

Where would you like to be in five years’ time?

Here. I have never been happier.

PROFILE

TRIXIE

In late May 2012, Pippa, Hugh, Philippa and I met for lunch at a restaurant on Piccadilly in London. Our rather special guest was slightly late and we sat craning our necks, with our eyes trained on the door. We wondered if we would recognise her when she arrived. Moments later, there she was – blonde, trim and exquisitely turned out in pink and grey, with a toning hat to top off the ensemble. She looked around, spotted us and gave a confident wave. Any doubt evaporated. It was the real Trixie.

Soon after Call the Midwife was broadcast and after Jennifer’s death, Pippa had been contacted by Michael Bruce, a British ex-pat living in Switzerland. He revealed that his wife, Antonia, had nursed with Jennifer Worth in Poplar in the late fifties and they believed she had been the inspiration for the character of Trixie. Pippa immediately responded and it was agreed that we would meet when Antonia came to England in the summer.

At first, we were rather nervous. The onscreen Trixie is a little more vampish and colourful than the girl presented in the book, and though Jennifer never objected, it was always possible that Antonia might. But she was, in fact, extremely cordial, clearly understanding the demands of drama, and she said how much she’d liked Helen George’s performance.

We were all curious to hear more about Antonia’s time ‘on the district’. Initially, she said she wasn’t sure how much she could remember – her Poplar days were, after all, some fifty years ago. Nevertheless, she had brought with her a leather file containing case notes and photographs from her training days. There were no snaps of Jennifer, but many of Antonia, including one of her looking radiant, fresh-faced – and distinctively blonde – on a tennis court, posing with some other midwives. It seems extraordinary that they had any energy for sport as their working days were so long and punishing – Antonia once attended three separate deliveries in a single night. In fact, one of her strongest memories is of the sheer grinding hardness of the work. But there is also much that she recalls with joy, including sitting in chapel, listening to the nuns at prayer. Another legacy was a lifetime’s friendship with Cynthia, who remained her link to Jennifer after they both married and Antonia had moved abroad.

For actress Helen George, Call the Midwife has been all about the formation of close bonds. ‘It is a really tight cast and crew who work well together,’ she explains. ‘I love the scenes when I’m with all the girls – Miranda, Bryony and Jessica – and the delivery scenes are fantastic because there is such a chemistry between us. Then when the nurses relax together, they all eat cake in the Nonnatus House kitchen and Trixie lights up a fag.’

This is perhaps the worst aspect of the job for non-smoker Helen. ‘They are herbal cigarettes and they smell awful. No fun at all when you’re going for the hundredth take.’

Q&A

What is your favourite outfit?

I think it all begins with the foundations. I couldn’t live without my circle-stitched brassiere and boned suspender belt.

Where do you go on holiday?

I have a wonderfully indulgent godmother who lives near Portofino; I try to visit her once a year.

Who is your dream date and where would you go?

I’d find it hard to resist David Niven – older men are so much more polished. And who could say no to supper and dancing at the Savoy?

What is your favourite record and film?

I have a Peggy Lee LP that we sometimes play in the parlour when the nuns have gone to bed. And I’ve seen Love is a Many Splendoured Thing five times – there’s something so compelling about a weepie.

What is your most treasured memory?

When I was eight, our cat Blossom had kittens in my doll’s cot. It was the first time I’d witnessed the miracle of birth – seeds were definitely sown that day.

Your favourite meal?

Anything eaten in an Italian restaurant, with a red-checked tablecloth and the company of friends.

What do you do in your spare time?

Mend my stockings and touch up my hair. And sometimes I sit at the back of the chapel during Compline and listen to the nuns as they sing their evening prayers. It touches me in a way I can’t describe.

What’s your secret vice?

I read the problem pages in magazines, and give really rude advice in my head.

And your most shining virtue?

I never show fear.

Where would you like to be in five years’ time?

Having fittings for a wedding dress.

The Life and Times of Call the Midwife: The Official Companion to Series One and Two

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