Call the Midwife, St Raymond Nonnatus & God is the Bigger Elvis

The Hobnail Nun - no tambourines please

We've been fans of the Call the Midwife series on the BBC. That's Mrs H and I of course.

For me the character played by Pam Ferris, Sister Evangelina, is the best. You can't beat the kind of nun who should wear hobnail boots, that's what I say!

I know they're not Catholics (though bizarrely their order is named after a Catholic Saint), well we can't have everything, but with the plainchant, prayers and habits, they are possibly closer to the real thing than many modern 'M&S nuns' busy strumming kum-by-ya on guitars.

We (yes, Mrs H and I) used to like the series Lilies set in Liverpool based on a Catholic working class family in the 1920s. Despite loving it in the Hurley home, the BBC did not commission a second series - the swine!

What I like about such series is that they do not hide away the hard lives people had, but they do convey the sense of community, and the reality that there was much good alongside the poverty.

Out of Hollywood for a Happier (& Longer?) Life

Given its popularity let's hope the Beeb isn't as remiss with this new series.

On the subject of nuns-on-film there was a piece in the Sunday Telegraph today about Sister Delores Hart who gave up the life of a Hollywood super-star (who was in quite a few big Hollywood films) to enter the cloistered life 50 years ago, at the age of 24. A documentary about her life, God is the Bigger Elvis, is up for an Oscar.

Perhaps it will paint a better picture of Catholicism than the usual Hollywood fare.

In the week in which the pop star Whitney Houston died, perhaps these nuns can - if only for a fleeting moment - provide more of a role model for daughters everywhere than the "stars" who live in a drug-addled mess.


Right: St Raymond Nonnatus - the Spanish Cardinal after whom the 'Call the Midwife' Anglican nuns' order was named.