Call the Midwife

Season 7

1. This episode takes places during the winter of 1962-63, known as the Big Freeze of 1963, which was one of the coldest winters on record in England. According to the records of temperature that date to 1659, only the winters of 1683-84 and 1739-40 were colder. The cold was so extreme that in Kent, the English Channel froze for a mile away from the shore.
2. To coincide with the Christmas Special, Jenny Agutter (Sister Julienne) wrote an article for "The Times" newspaper about her own memories of that winter, when she was 9 years old and studying at ballet school. She recalled it being a fun and "wonderfully disruptive" time for children.
3. The pregnancy of Helen George (Trixie Franklin) is apparent in this episode.

1. Victoria Yeates said she felt very uncomfortable delivering the line in which her character, Sister Winifred, refers to the new Jamaican midwife, Lucille Anderson (Leonie Elliott), as "coloured." Initially, the line (in which her character worries that Lucille will face discrimination in the neighbourhood) referred to Lucille as "black," but the director asked Victoria to do another take saying "coloured" because it was more historically accurate for the early 1960s, which was the take they used.

1. The actress playing Trixie (Helen George) was pregnant while filming this episode.

1. This episode marks Helen George's departure from the series in order to begin her maternity leave.
2. Tokophobia, the medical term for significant fear of giving birth, was not coined until 2000. It comes from the Greek "tokos" (childbirth) and "phobos" (fear).

1. Helen George (Nurse Trixie Franklin) is absent from this episode due to her maternity leave, as she was expecting a child with costar Jack Ashton, who portrays Rev. Tom Hereward, Trixie's former fiancé.

1. This is the final episode for Barbara, as the actress portraying her (Charlotte Richie) chose to leave the show.

1. The poem which Phyllis reads at the funeral is "Turn Again to Life" by Mary Lee Hall.
2. This episode reveals that Sister Monica Joan's birthday is the 25th of November (as it is the same day as John F Kennedy's funeral service takes place)
3. This episode featured multiple characters which have left the show - in the video montage at the end we can see Chummy (Miranda Hart) and Peter (Ben Caplan), who were last seen in the show during season 4 and 6 respectively. There are also photographs featuring Sister Evangelina (Pam Ferris) who left the show in season 5, and Barbara (Charlotte Ritchie) who left the show the previous episode (S7E7).
4. In this episode Shelagh mentions Sister Evangelina by name as they are preparing the maternity home for the extra patients. This is the fourth time Sister Evangelina has been mentioned by name since she passed away in the series 5 finale. The first mention was also by Shelagh in S6E0 (2016 Christmas Special) as she commented on what Sister Evangelina would do when working with limited resources. The second mention was in S6E4 by Sister Monica Joan, as she tells Valerie that it was Sister Evangelina and her who delivered Valerie. The third was in S7E0 (2017 Christmas Special) where Nurse Phyllis Crane suggests that she could have offered Sister Evangelina's bathrobe to Christopher as it would have been "masculine enough" (but that was not possible as it had been donated to charity).