August 8

I have been wondering about the appeal of series such as Call the Midwife.  It seems that 'period dramas' are the in thing at the moment.  A friend of mine says there is a tendency to glamourise the past and make it look too squeaky clean and good fun.  I know John always criticises the fact that buses and cars are always spotless and says they should dirty them a bit so they don't look like they've been driven out of a museum.  I suppose it is the same with the characters and the plot.

However, this idea of looking to the past for inspiration appears to be there in books as well as films.  Both Sian and Ellie are currently reading books set in the 1930s and 1920s respectively.  I have to admit that I don't have much time for current literature.  I tire of the need for current authors to always be completely original and 'rule-breaking' in their approach.  I know, I'll write a book with no full stops or with every Second word Capitalised.  Ground breaking stuff.

To get back to the sudden surge in television series set in a different age, I think, ironically, it's not only the glamour that attracts us, but also the rules that governed society.  Today, we live in an age where everything goes.  You can go to dinner at an expensive restaurant wearing jeans and a T-shirt (if asked to leave, you can claim you have every right and shouldn't be discriminated against) and whether you have table manners is by the by.  So it is nice to enter an age when there were certain, often unspoken, rules about dress and behaviour.

It's the lack of consumerism that we also find refreshing.  We see young girls saving to buy a dress or nail polish and not using credit cards to buy things they don't need or thoughtlessly throwing the things away when they don't want them any more.

It's the pace of life, too, the quiet.  It's the sense of wonder people had in a world where not many people had travelled very far. It's that feeling when the series has come to an end, when you feel, despite all the progress that has been made in terms of technology your life lacks something.  Could it  possibly be a landline?