Call The Midwife Christmas special sees deadly Covid-like disease grip 1969 Britain

It might be set more than half a century ago, but this year’s Call The Midwife Christmas special will certainly resonate strongly with many viewers. As the show waves goodbye to the Swinging Sixties, a pandemic sweeps across the country, drawing obvious parallels with the recent Covid crisis.

The beloved TV drama returns to East London for two hour-long episodes – on Christmas Day and Boxing Day – rather than the traditional 90-minute special. And it comes complete with a Christmas cliffhanger ahead of series 14 next month, which moves into the 1970s.

Amid the yuletide celebrations and East End merriment, not to mention plenty babies being born, Poplar will be in the grip of a dangerous double whammy of influenza and Hong Kong flu.

Call The Midwife writer Heidi Thomas says she relied on archives at the Wellcome Trust in London and the British newspaper library to delve into the social history of the time, as well as to pick up real-life stories
of the day to use in the programme.

She discovered that just as Covid arrived from China in 2020, so did Hong Kong flu 50 years earlier, with Britain experiencing tens of thousands of excess deaths among the four million globally.

Heidi says: “I remember hearing about the Hong Kong flu during Covid. Like storms, it is always serious when they give it a special name and of course there were parallels with Covid so I thought that would be interesting. It was highly contagious, the elderly were especially vulnerable and the hospitals were overrun with cases.

“And while it isn’t a major part of the Christmas episodes in that none of the main characters catch it, I wanted to include it as it had a huge impact at the time.

“In the Christmas storyline we see an old lady die alone like so many did in Covid, without anyone to hold her hand or look after her.

“One of the nurses, Joyce, played by actress Renee Bailey, is called in to cover at Christmas as the hospitals are overwhelmed with staff are dropping like nine pins – and a little girl living in great poverty sees both parents struck down.”

She adds: “I remember talking about Hong Kong flu during Covid and there are certainly parallels. What felt different though is up until Covid we had almost started to believe we were all immortal. We think science can cure everything, even cancer, but it can’t.”

Historian of Medicine Dr Michael Bresalier said people and the Government reacted very differently back in the day. The academic and flu expert based at Swansea University said: “Hong Kong flu came in two waves.

“We first saw it in Britain in 1968 and it was pretty mild compared to in America. Then we had a second wave in the winter of 1969-70 which was more severe and coupled with a seasonal bout of influenza.

“There were roughly 33,000 excess deaths in the UK that winter alone and around four million died worldwide. The incidence of absenteeism across the workforce was extremely high but there were no shutdowns, no lockdowns and no recommendations in the form of public information films or pamphlets from the Government.”

A Pathe news reel simply advised people to eat a hearty breakfast before facing the Tube or bus in the rush hour even though offices and factories were decimated by the outbreak.

Dr Bresalier added: “Schools remained open and the Government was anxious to keep the economy going. Sickness benefits sky-rocketed and there was a feeling among employers people were skiving over Christmas and New Year.

“Just under a million vaccines were made available to frontline medical staff and the elderly but there weren’t nearly enough. Another million doses were bought from Australia but they weren’t found to be effective and were sent back.”

In around six weeks from mid December 1969 to the end of January 1970, there were just over 11 million sickness benefit claims made as people were struck down with either influenza or Hong Kong flu. But Dr Bresalier said people were more hardy in those days and were well used to coping with illness.

“The British then were used to infectious diseases and it was nowhere near as bad as the flu outbreak in 1918 or indeed 1957. And we must remember they still had to contend with other serious infectious diseases like smallpox, diphtheria, polioTB and measles.

“In that respect there was less fear than with the Covid pandemic where people, up until that point, had possibly gone their whole lives without being exposed to a serious infectious disease because of vaccination against childhood diseases. I wouldn’t say people were necessarily more stoic back then than in 2020, but perhaps more resigned.”

Call the Midwife will air on BBC One and iPlayer on Christmas Day at 8pm, and on Boxing Day at 7.30pm.