Unfortunately, as many of us know all too well, this line is all the more poignant because so few ever consider the harsh realities endured by the suffragettes: the forced feedings, the humiliation, the psychological and physical torture. Emmeline Pankhurst, for one, described her own time in prison as “like a human being in the process of being turned into a wild beast”, and accounts from other women at the time can make for tough reading.

And, just as is described by Clarice in Call the Midwife, many imprisoned suffragettes went on hunger strikes to protest against the terrible conditions they were kept in: they contended they should be treated as political prisoners, not as criminals. Some were force-fed with rubber tubes pushed down their throats while their mouths were held open with sharp steel clamps (Sylvia Pankhurst admitted that the sense of degradation was worse than the pain of her gums, which were “always sore and bleeding, with bits of loose, jagged flesh”). It was also recorded that working-class women had feeding tubes inserted into their vaginas and anuses, often without washing between uses.

Is it any wonder, then, that the leadership of the Women’s Social and Political Union rewarded Suffragette prisoners with a range of military-style campaign medals? And that those who served terms of imprisonment with hunger-strike were, just like Clarice, presented with Hunger Strike medals at breakfast receptions upon their release, with silver bars representing the periods of rebellious fasting?

Why Call The Midwife’s suffragette storyline is so deeply important