Hurrah for 1965, twopenny choc ices and your dad’s Hillman Imp!
The joy of nostalgia is how it can make us yearn for things we shouldn’t miss at all. No rational person could really want to relive 1965 if it meant measles, single-bar electric fires, income tax at 83 per cent and Simon Dee on the radio.
But anyone old enough to recall the era must have felt it tugging at their heart, in an episode of Call The Midwife (BBC1) crammed with sentimental echoes.
Score a point if you suffered a pang at the thought of cod and chips wrapped in vinegar- damp twists of newspaper, from a van on the high Street after an evening at the pictures.
Another point for anyone who remembers running a stale loaf under the tap and warming it in the gas oven, because food could never go to waste.
Points, too, if your mouth watered at the sight of Sister Julienne’s twopenny choc ice, a vanilla brick coated in chocolate thinner than gold leaf — and if you ever felt that a ‘TV dinner’ or eating your tea in front of the telly was the epitome of stylish, modern living . . . ‘avantgarde’, as Nurse Crane (Linda Bassett) called it.
Give yourself an extra mark if that young father’s hillman Imp evoked the feel of its vinyl upholstery sticking to the back of your bare knees. There are bonus points if your mum or gran, like Grace ( Samantha Spiro), kept implements such as scissors in a painted plaster ornament that hung on the wall (also handy for Biros, knitting needles and anything else that could have your eye out).
Double score if you’re old enough to remember the fiction that a big white bird brought new babies. The midwives’ pre-natal classes for first- time dads were billed as evenings ‘Preparing for the Stork’, even though the lads must have harboured pretty strong suspicions about why their newlywed idylls were about to be shattered.
Tot up your points. Chances are you’ve got the maximum: why else would you be watching Call The Midwife if not the nostalgia?
This year, there’s been scarcely any plot to speak of. The days when nurses had passionate affairs with the vicar and lesbian trysts after lights out are long gone.
It’s as if, with the arrival of the permissive Sixties, the spark of libido has fizzled out for Trixie (helen George) and her pals. That’s a shame — nostalgia is lovely, but the show needs some romance to keep it bubbling.
Alaska offers the romance of the wilds, on Win The Wilderness (BBC2), but no stork would stand a chance in those mountains. Babies are probably brought by bald-headed eagles.
With this reality show in its second week, as couples compete for the deeds to a wooden mansion 100 miles from civilisation, the grandeur of the landscape isn’t coming across.
People kept gasping: ‘ What a view!’ as they surveyed the scenery, but it was mostly pine trees as far as the eye could see.
Scotland and Wales are far lovelier, and you don’t have to wear a mosquito-net helmet when you mow the lawn.
Farmers Mark and emily were the second contestants to spend a night at the cabin with the 70-something couple who built it, Duane and Rena.
The Brits were rugged country folk, but I couldn’t understand why they would want to live in the far back of beyond, getting their groceries delivered once a month by air.
Mark and emily talked of nothing but helping their grown-up sons run the family business back in england.
Retirement doesn’t have to mean becoming a hermit on the other side of the world.
CHRISTOPHER STEVENS