Call The Midwife Series 3, Episode 5: A Review
I wrote my preview of tonight’s episode of Call The Midwife here last week, when its storyline was revealed. I said then that it seemed I wouldn’t be thrilled by the storyline of the episode. I was right.
The storyline reflected attitudes to the issues raised perfectly. Attitudes to the issues raised, that is, as those attitudes were in the 1950s, when the episode is set.
Reactions to Sally Harper’s pregnancy ranged from ‘is that even possible?’ to ‘is that even possible?’
As it turned out Sally didn’t seem to understand what it means to have a baby. She expressed, during her labour, that she didn’t want a baby and just wanted to go home. Her parents were shown to know this and viewers were left in no doubt that they really cared for their daughter.
However, this viewer has been disabled since birth. In fact she shares the disability of Jacob, the baby’s father- Cerebral Palsy. For this viewer, and her mother, what was most interesting was the romantic relationship between Sally and Jacob.
When it was thought that Sally’s pregnancy was a result of rape at the home where she and Jacob lived, Sally was able to express clearly that ‘nobody hurt me’ and that the man who had made her pregnant was her boyfriend. The love story between the couple was sweet and touching- their romantic feelings for each other were clearly very strong. But when their relationship was discovered they were separated, by the board of the home and by attitudes of the time in which they lived.
Although Sally’s baby was stillborn, and although viewers came to understand that this was for the best, in the circumstances, this viewer also understood that one thing Sally did understand was her relationship with Jacob. So their enforced separation moved her to tears.
Today, with the right support, a disabled couple like Sally and Jacob would not have been separated. They would have had contraception explained to them in a way that they could both clearly understand, and they would have been allowed to continue a romantic relationship.
This viewer, and her mother, came away from the episode extremely thankful that they live in 2014, not 1954.
All that remained for them both to do was to sincerely thank the team at Call The Midwife for casting disabled actors in the roles of Sally and Jacob, and to celebrate the truly brilliant acting of both Sarah Gordy and Colin Young throughout the episode.
Readers, remember those names. They both have bright futures on your screens.
And, if you missed the episode, or if you simply want to watch any part of it again, it is available on Iplayer here for four weeks.
Same Difference 
What happened to them probably wouldn’t have arisen today, not only because there just aren’t large institutions which house people with all disabilities, from cerebral palsy with no apparent learning disability, to Down’s syndrome. Both would probably have been living in the community and Jacob might have found a job. Sally — if she hadn’t been aborted — would be living with her family or perhaps in some kind of supported accommodation. However, Jacob would also have understood that having sex with a woman with a learning disability was unacceptable — at that time, they were all just lumped into one category although Sally’s father understood that he was “sharper” than she was. It was particularly upsetting to see Jacob moved against his will, and obviously to somewhere a long way away.
The interesting thing about this storyline is that the institution is shown as not being particularly bad — when Sally’s mother dragged her out when she discovered she was pregnant, Sally protested “this is my home”. I also think that you can’t read too much into what Sally said when she was in labour; at that point she would just have been overwhelmed with the pain, and she might have felt differently afterwards if the baby had survived. The probable reason she did not connect sex with pregnancy is because she hadn’t received any sex education.
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