'Call The Midwife' Star Victoria Yeates Admits Discomfort Over Racist Term In New Series

‘Call The Midwife’ actress Victoria Yeates has admitted her discomfort at the use of an outdated racist term in an upcoming episode of the BBC period drama.

Victoria plays Sister Winifred in the show, who in a new episode is heard discussing the impending arrival of a new midwife from Jamaica - Lucille - anticipating that she could ruffle some feathers.

Speaking to The Sun, Victoria admitted: “Initially [the line was], ‘They’re going to be worried that she’s black’. It was ‘black’ in the script. Then they decided to do another take where I had to say ‘coloured’.

“That was really difficult and I did it because it’s the period. But it felt so vile for the actors to say that word.”

The first series of ‘Call The Midwife’ was set in the late 1950s, but enough time has passed that the most recent Christmas special took place during the Big Freeze of 1963.

Addressing cultural changes in Britain at that time, Victoria added: “There was this push and pull that Britain had with Commonwealth countries, being like, ‘We need you when we need you and we’re going get rid of you when we don’t need you’.

“And in the wars it was, ‘Come and fight for us and die for us, but when we think you’re taking our jobs we’ll get rid of you’.”

The new series of ‘Call The Midwife’ starts on BBC One this Sunday (21 January) and introduces newcomer to the show Leonie Elliott, who plays the aforementioned Lucille Anderson.

Fans may recognise the actress from previous appearances in ‘Black Mirror’, ‘Danny And The Human Zoo’ and ‘Wondrous Oblivion’.