'Call The Midwife' Season 12 Explores All The Lonely People

Call The Midwife may be a bastion of view joy, but parallel to our time and place, 1968 Poplar has a mostly unseen workforce of school-age children working in factories, markets, and other small businesses. The system is ripe for abuse, and Sister Veronica has been watching, suspecting these child laborers are exploited (or worse) despite it being an economic necessity for many families. Dr. Turner and Miss Higgins agree with her plan to create an evening clinic for the children, even though Nonnatus’s schedule is packed.

Even though we know he’s a kind and nurturing person, Fred looks guilty as he describes the routine of the fleet of paper boys the Buckles employ, up early each morning to deliver newspapers before school when Sister Veronica asks them about it. He gives one of the pamphlets about the clinic to the most conscientious of them, Joey Fletcher (Dylan Mynett) after he oversleeps and gets a telling-off from Miss Higgins over her late delivery. With an absent mother and a depressed father in ill health, Joey is the sole support for his family, buying medication for his dad, getting his brothers to school, and keeping everyone clean and fed in their one-room flat.

The first clinic winds up swamped with working kids as Nurse Shelagh and Dr. Turner are shocked by the undernourished, lice-ridden, and (in some cases) physically abused kids. Joey is the last to arrive, noticeably tired and underweight. His school records show his attendance is poor, even though he is “grammar school material.” (Meaning his teachers recognize he’s smart enough to be put on track for university later.) Dr. Turner is deeply concerned.