Turnadette Tuesday
Turner Topics–Turnadette Origins
The Seeds of a Story
This week, I had some thoughts on a topic I’ve written about before, but now have some more ideas about. I’ve wondered in the past about why the Turnadette romance was put into the show when it wasn’t in the books, but reading more of the books gave me an idea that while maybe it wasn’t in the books directly, I can see where the seeds would be sown for this idea based on the stories in the books. More thoughts follow:
Heidi has written in her foreword to Doctor Turner’s Casebook that one reason she felt free to embellish on the stories of Dr. T and Sister B from the books is that Jennifer Worth had informed her that these characters were not based on real people. Still, there are apparently lots of other “orginal” characters in the books so why these two? Well, I think I have an idea. Only Heidi knows for sure if this is what inspired her, but for me as a writer, reading the first and third books with my “writing hat” on makes me see where a writer like Heidi could have come up with this pairing. It actually is in the books, in a way.
The first book (Call the Midwife) has the chapters called “A Christmas Baby” and “A Breech Delivery”, in which Dr. Turner is mentioned by name, called out on a case on Christmas. He’s described as a devoted doctor who lives in the East End with his family. Sister Bernadette, described as an efficient, devout and highly competent midwife, is also called out on this case, and Jennifer Worth makes a point of stating that Dr. T has a high level of respect for Sister B, and fully trusts her to take the lead in the delivery. While Dr. T is married with kids in the book, it’s easy to think that a writer could see an incident like this as a kernel of an idea–this dedicated doctor and the highly skilled nun that he respects.
Later, in the third book (Farewell to the East End), Jennifer Worth writes about the Carter birth in a way that’s similar to how it was portrayed on screen, in the chapters called “Meg the Gypsy” and “Mave the Mother”, only the doctor attending that birth is not actually named. Sister Bernadette and Trixie are there, though, as is this unnamed doctor who can easily be the aforementioned Dr. Turner. The same book also has the story of Novice Ruth, a young devoted nun-in-training who seems to get along extremely well with the young nurses. At the end of this book, Worth mentions what happened to both Novice Ruth and Sister B in the years after Worth left the East End. Here, she mentions that both left the order for differing reasons (with Ruth leaving the religious life altogether and Sister B joining a stricter, Catholic order). Now I’m wondering if all three of these stories together (the Christmas birth, the Carter birth, and the epilogue) were together the “seeds” of the Turnadette story.
I know I’m not the first one to notice the similarity between screen-Sister B’s story and Novice Ruth’s story in the book. It’s been suggested by several people before that TV Sister B was something of a composite of book-Sister B and Novice Ruth, but with TV Sister B leaving the order a lot sooner than Ruth did, and for a different reason than either book Sister B or book Ruth. So, what I’m thinking now is that maybe Heidi noticed all these little moments and then decided to just tie them all together, so now the devoted Dr. T is a widower, and the young, conflicted nun is also the highly skilled, matter-of-fact competent Sister B, and that little sentence that mentions his confidence in her becomes the seed of an idea, that maybe these two characters can be adapted for the screen in a way that makes that professional relationship into more of a personal one.
Now, who knows how long Heidi was planning this arc? Really only she does, I think, but the suggestion is that she was thinking of ways to continue the series after series 1 before that series was even filmed (because she mentioned talking to Jennifer Worth about it, and Jennifer Worth died shortly before series 1 started filming). Still, regardless of how long she was planning it, I can see in the books the possible inspiration for this plot.
This is all just a bit of educated speculation on my part, but it makes sense to me. Regardless of *why* Heidi put this story into the show, however, there’s little doubt that it was a successful arc, now that the Turners as a couple are such an essential aspect of the show. It’s hard for me to imagine CtM without the Turners, and it’s odd thinking that they weren’t even “the Turners” in the book at all.
That’s all for this week. I’m not quite sure yet what I’m going to write about next, but I’m sure I’ll think of something. Stay tuned to find out!
