CALLTHE REAL MIDWIVES

Stephen McGann, Dr Turner in Call The Midwife, tracks down some of the people who inspired the show in a heartwarming documentary to usher in series six

Fans of Call The Midwife already know there’s so much more to the show than chocolate-box nostalgia. Now, in a one-off precursor to the sixth series which starts next week, Stephen McGann – better known as GP Dr Patrick Turner – takes us behind the scenes to look at the real-life stories behind some of its most heartwarming and difficult storylines. ‘One of the things I love about the show is that while our stories are fictional, at their core they’re based on the lives and stories of real people,’ says Stephen, who’s married to the show’s key writer and executive producer Heidi Thomas.

Stephen, who himself was delivered by a bike-riding midwife at his family’s small Liverpool home, starts where it all began at the Mission House in Poplar, east London, the inspiration for Nonnatus House in the show, where a group of midwives worked with nuns in the impoverished community in the 1950s. He meets former midwife Antonia Bruce, who worked with Jennifer Worth, on whose memoirs Call The Midwife is based. ‘The Mission House was a wonderful place with a lovely ambiance,’ recalls Antonia. ‘There was a religious background to the place and it often felt like the outside world just disappeared. We met our ladies when they were pregnant, we were with them during labour and for 14 days afterwards. Unless there was a medical emergency the best place for delivery was at home.’

Stephen also meets former nun and midwife Eleanor Stewart who, like Dr Turner’s fictional wife Shelagh, left the order to get married and have a child of her own. ‘I still dream about the awful decision I had to make,’ recalls Eleanor, ‘but I’ll never forget what my Mother Superior said to me when I left: “I know you want to have a baby but do find a husband first, it’s so much neater!”’

Jennifer Worth, who died of cancer shortly before the first series was aired, was inspired to write her memoirs after seeing a plea by midwifery lecturer Terri Coates, who now works as a consultant on the series. Terri describes to Stephen how she’d asked in the Midwives Journal for a ‘James Herriot of the midwife world’ to write about the profession, because she believed midwives were invisible in literature despite their key role in society.

Heidi Thomas says that after being approached to turn the books into a TV show she saw the potential in stories about babies born in one of the poorest districts in London. ‘Every birth is a

story waiting to unfold,’ says Heidi, ‘and the midwife is there to write the beginning, middle and end of it.’ Heidi’s brother was born with Down’s syndrome and she’s never shied away from exploring the difficulties people can face. The horrific stories of people being born without limbs due to their mother taking Thalidomide dominated the last series, and Stephen learns about the challenges from Rosaleen Mori-

arty-Simmonds, who was born without hands and legs but became the first disabled student at Cardiff University. ‘We’re giving a voice to people who’ve experienced beautiful and terrible things,’ says Heidi. ‘When I sit down to write each episode I think, “Whose story am I going to tell today?”’ Call The Midwife: The Casebook, tomorrow, 5.05pm, BBC1.

ELEANOR STEWART A midwife-nun from Liverpool, she became broody after working with babies and left the church to start her own family, like Dr Turner’s wife Shelagh in the show. ANTONIA BRUCE The midwife trained with Jennifer Worth, whose memoir Call...