Call the Midwife creator: ‘People tell me birth stories in the supermarket’

Call the Midwife creator Heidi Thomas has a habit of finding unexpected things on her shopping trolley.

“I was in the supermarket, and a woman came up and said, ‘I gave birth standing up’,” she laughs. “What am I going to do with it?”

Probably more than you think, given that he’s behind the popular TV series that chronicles countless birth stories.

Thomas’ BAFTA-winning BBC drama explores the lives of midwives and nuns who live together in a convent, Nunat’s House, and the families who care for them in post-war East London.

“Call the Midwife for me will always be a play about women and the working class,” she tells the BBC.

The British author’s superpower is her ability to combine stories of care and warmth with the brutal realities of poverty, racism, backstreet abortions, child loss and domestic abuse, to name but a few.

The BBC One show – a consistent top performer in the TV ratings – is now approaching its 14th series since 2012, no mean feat in an increasingly competitive TV landscape. is

Thomas manages to squeeze in hard-hitting stories in a comfortable 8 p.m., Sunday night slot, often shared with shows like Antique Roadshow.

There have only been two instances where he has been asked to change something in the show, which was initially set in 1957 and set in the 1970s.

“One was for a hemorrhage machine,” she says of a contraption that recreates postpartum blood loss.

“I think it’s a unique piece of equipment for us.

“We were told that the blood on the leno was very loud. [on the floor] — so it was literally about a sound effect.”

Another word was “a quarrel” over the use of bastard, an old and offensive way of describing a child born to unmarried parents.

Thomas says they had to do a little “creative cutting” to remove it.

Amazingly, though, despite its pre-watershed run, it hasn’t had a single plotline knocked out by the censors or the BBC.

“We’ve never had to compromise our storytelling style, because it’s set in the nunnery house,” she says, where nuns and midwives live and share words of wisdom over tea and cake.

“We care about our audience emotionally, so even if we push them hard enough by showing them dark emotions or desperate situations, we bring them back to a place where they feel safe.”

She says the show challenges viewers by being “emotionally graphic”.

“People often think that graphic means sliding down walls of blood, but it can mean showing someone in pits of despair; interestingly, this is always justified, even before water.

“But even when our stories don’t end happily, there’s always a hint of hope somewhere.”

Thomas has also managed to write endless fresh stories reflecting the health and social issues of the era.

“People ask me every year, ‘Where do you get your stories?’

“And the simple answer is, I go to the British newspaper archive, or I go to the medical archive, or people come up to me in the street.”

That’s why she decided to write about sexually transmitted diseases in a series coming up in January.

“In Health Report for Poplar [in London’s East End]she had this wonderful explanation of how gonorrhea was getting out of control, and the Greater London Council instigated tracing teams of middle-aged women,” she says.

“I just thought, ‘That’s Miss Higgins’ – I love Miss Higgins.”

Miss Higgins, played by Georgie Glenn, is a prim surgery receptionist with a poignant family backstory, which reveals her hidden powers.

“I think all good drama surprises you,” says Thomas.

“The stories I choose to tell are the ones that grab me by the throat or the heart.

“I never know which organ is under pressure.

“But there’s that kind of ‘wow’ moment, when I see things that actually happened, and then it gets into the fantasy process of creating the play.”

The show is also a family affair for Thomas, as her husband Stephen McGann plays one of the main characters, GP Dr Patrick Turner.

His recognizable face is often the reason the couple is approached on the street by fans, who don’t always know who Thomas is.

“He’s always quick to say: “‘Oh, it’s the lady who writes it’,” she says, “and then they sort of melt away! I think some people don’t realize that we are married in real life.”

The series airs in over 200 global territories, although its largest audience is in the United States.

She laughs as she recalls watching a dubbed version of McGinn on Italian TV when the couple vacationed there.

“They gave him a really deep, sexy laugh, in proportion to what he was saying – it was a beautiful ‘har har har’.”

Thomas, whose other writing credits include the 2007 BBC period drama Cranford and the 2017 mini-series Little Women, says how much of his life is tied to the show, he is still at home and Manages to keep work separate.

She rarely visits the set during filming, and explains that McGinn never looks at the scripts before releasing them to the other actors.

“It was a decision I made at an early stage to protect his integrity as an actor,” she says. “But I think it also saved my writing space.”

She talks about the series’ impact overseas, including the stories it tells about illegal abortions.

“We’ve asked young American women to use clips from our show on their Instagram feeds, so they can warn their peers about what could happen if the laws were changed in America.

“You realize you’re touching people’s lives and perspectives in a very profound way.”

She also talks about the importance of kindness, which is abundant in the show, and about her brother David.

He was born in 1970. Down syndrome and serious heart complications, and died in 1985.

“I’ve lived a long enough life now. I’m 62 and I grew up with a severely disabled brother, and that opened me up to the goodness of people,” she says.

“For those who met him exactly as he was, accepted him as he was and loved him for what he was – that very early, information age, humanity,” she says. was my introduction to,” she says.

“And I honestly think that having someone with a severe disability with me for the first 20 years of my life changed me for the better.”

Show character Reggie Jackson, played by Daniel Lowry, who has Down syndrome, was a major storyline in that year’s Christmas special, placing him at the center of the show.

Thomas concluded by saying: “I think what this show is about, most of all, is love and kindness. It’s about people doing their best.

“So I will continue to tell stories that show the better side of human nature.”

Call the Midwife airs on BBC One on Sunday 5 January 2025 at 20:00 GMT. The Christmas and Boxing Day episodes are available on BBC iPlayer.