Call the Midwife star says it is ‘vile’ nurses are nonetheless combating for truthful pay

Stars of Call the Midwife are livid that nurses are nonetheless combating for truthful pay.

The new sequence of the beloved BBC drama, set in London’s East End, has nurses’ poor wages as a central theme. The opening episode has moved ahead to 1969 shortly earlier than nurses’ real-life pay battles of the Seventies. Megan Cusack, who performs nurse Nancy Corrigan, stated: “It’s pretty vile. Revolting really, that it’s been ongoing for so long. Nurses need to be paid better. It would be lovely if something like this gets people talking about it.” Linda Bassett, much-loved senior nurse Phyllis Crane, is at odds along with her character’s stance, which is that nurses don’t do it for the cash.

Asked how she feels in regards to the plot being mirrored within the current day, Linda stated: “It’s shocking. Appalling. “We don’t have the right values do we? I think that’s why people like Call the Midwife because people matter, people take care of each other. I don’t want them to go with Nurse Crane!”

Showrunner Heidi Thomas stated pay and circumstances couldn’t be ignored and stated of the trainees at Nonnatus House: “In conjunction with Nancy they put their shoulders behind an extraordinary campaign, which I discovered in my research. “These nurses took to the streets, protested and carried placards. One said: ‘We help sick people. This sick government will not help us.’ How could I not put that in?”

She added: “Nurses did not get what they were fighting for until 1970, which is the next series… now we’re in 1969 and it’s about women who want more choice, more freedom, more money, more power, more happiness.” Also within the sequence Trixie and Matthew (Helen George and Olly Rix) embark on married life – however wrestle with cash worries which places their relationship underneath pressure. And comic Rosie Jones visitor stars as a pregnant girl with cerebral palsy.

• Call the Midwife, BBC1, Sunday, 8pm