{"id":170609,"date":"2023-02-06T16:28:22","date_gmt":"2023-02-06T16:28:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/?p=170609"},"modified":"2023-02-06T16:28:22","modified_gmt":"2023-02-06T16:28:22","slug":"we-live-in-call-the-midwife-town-it-looks-flashy-on-tv-but-the-posh-portrayal-couldnt-be-further-from-the-truth-the-sun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/precoinnews.com\/world-news\/we-live-in-call-the-midwife-town-it-looks-flashy-on-tv-but-the-posh-portrayal-couldnt-be-further-from-the-truth-the-sun\/","title":{"rendered":"We live in Call the Midwife town – it looks flashy on TV but the posh portrayal couldn\u2019t be further from the truth | The Sun"},"content":{"rendered":"
RESIDENTS in a town used for the BBC's hit series Call the Midwife say its posh on-screen portrayal couldn\u2019t be further from reality.<\/p>\n
Chatham, in Kent, boasts historic dockyards dating back to the mid-16th Century – complete with period buildings and cobbled roads.<\/p>\n
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It forms the perfect backdrop for the show, based on midwives working in London's East End in the late 1950s and 60s.<\/p>\n
But scenes like the Admiral's House, the maternity hospital in the BBC drama, is a far cry from the crime-stricken reality of the Medway town's high street – just a mile up the road.<\/p>\n
"C**p", "unsafe" and "full of druggies" were just a few choice words residents coined when asked to describe Chatham.<\/p>\n
Grandma Mrs Brown, from nearby Rochester, was waiting for her daughter outside Primark, when she revealed: "There have been fights with knives in the street.<\/p>\n
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"It\u2019s not a very nice place to come, you feel unsafe here – I wouldn\u2019t come down here on my own late afternoon."<\/p>\n
Her daughter, mum-of-four Emma Walsh, told The Sun Online she has seen brawls with chairs getting flung and doesn\u2019t like her teenage kids coming into town.<\/p>\n
The 39-year-old, also from Rochester, explained: "It seems to be where a lot of gangs hang out, no matter what age you are it\u2019s not safe."<\/p>\n
While David Baverstock, 72, from the Princes Park area blasted: \u201cIt\u2019s c**p! There is nothing here for anybody, let alone the kids."<\/p>\n
<\/picture>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/picture>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/picture>\n <\/span><\/p>\n <\/picture>\n <\/span><\/p>\n Twelve season Call The Midwife have run since 2012 and boasts Jessica Raine, Miranda Hart and Helen George among its all-star cast.<\/p>\n Brimming with throwback costumes and bucolic scenes of midwives cycling through clothes line hanging streets, filmed in the docks, the drama reflects a radically different world to 21st Century Chatham.<\/p>\n Boarded-up stores litter the once "thriving" high street, which residents say has "nothing" to lure tourists flocking to the docks for film set tours.<\/p>\n Mum-of-one Hope Beard, whose lived in Chatham 30 years, says it should come as no surprise given mobile phone and vape shops are "two a penny".<\/p>\n The Chihuahua owner, whose own son "hates" the town, added: \u201cThe docks? definitely. Tourists wouldn\u2019t come here, not at all."<\/p>\n The comments fly in the face of a \u00a314.4 million Levelling Up cash injection the Government says will \u201ctransform\u00a0Medway\u00a0into a leading creative destination\u201d.<\/p>\n The money is going into artistic spaces, including dance studios, across the area.<\/p>\n In the carpark of Wickes building merchants, pals Brian Egan and Chris Scammell were loading cement into their car to do up the former\u2019s house.<\/p>\n Brian, 76, who briefly worked in the docks before its 1984 closure, said: "No-one in their right mind goes into the middle of Chatham. It\u2019s grotty. It is a disaster."<\/p>\n Chris Scammell said his dad and uncle were employed in the docks before it shut, adding: "Now it\u2019s just a general decline in everything."<\/p>\n At The Thomas Waghorn Wetherspoons pub, Sammy Pearmain, mum Caz and mate Jamie-Lea Harding were having a catch up.<\/p>\n There ain't no \u2018Garden of England\u2019 around here<\/p>\n Sammy Pearmain, a 27-year-old mum of three, from Rochester, said Chatham was \u201cfull of druggies" while Caz blasted it as "the worst part of Kent".<\/p>\n "There ain't no \u2018Garden of England\u2019 around here", she added, referencing the county's motto.<\/p>\n But NHS community nurse Bissy couldn't be more proud to live in Chatham, praising it for having "everything you need".<\/p>\n The mum, who's lived in a flat on the high street for three years, said: "It\u2019s not that bad, nothing has happened to my flat, it has been a very peaceful place for me."<\/p>\n The positive reviews continue down in the docks where Francis Kelly has lived "peacefully" for 20 years surrounded by history.<\/p>\n Speaking over the hum-drum of Steve McQueen's film crew as they shoot upcoming WW2 flick 'Blitz', she said to live amongst the "hustle and bustle" of cinema is "fantastic"..<\/p>\n The 71-year-old added: "Every now and then King Charles comes and visits and we have the opportunity to meet him.\u201d<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n The same sentiment was echoed by Rob Dunsmore, 76, who enjoys the annual 1940s weekend at Chatham Historic Dockyard.<\/p>\n \u201cIf you move here, you know what you\u2019re buying into so it\u2019s sort of your own fault if the film stuff bothers you", he said.<\/p>\nNicola cops call in specialist divers with special sonar today in hunt<\/h2>\n<\/section>\n
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