Call The Midwife keeps delivering babies and strong ratings.

We meet the cast members of Call The Midwife who talk excitedly about a new run of the much-loved show. Jim Maloney reports.

Anew series of Call The Midwife kicks off this week with the nuns and midwives of Poplar, East London, as busy as ever.

The good news for them is that the new Mother Superior, Sister Mildred (Miriam Margolyes), has sent two nuns to join their ranks – Sisters Frances and Hilda, who appeared in the Christmas special.

But while Nurse Crane (Linda Bassett) looks forward to the arrival of the experienced Hilda (Fenella Woolgar), she complains to Sister Julienne (Jenny Agutter) that novice nun Frances (Ella Bruccoleri) is “as green as grass” and “a dead leg, not an extra pair of hands”.

There is excitement in the air, too, because the Queen is about to give birth and Violet (Annabelle Apsion) is holding a Teddy Bears’ Picnic and raising funds through a sweepstake on whether the Queen will have a boy or a girl.

Such has been the success of the show around the world that a new series after this one has already been commissioned, which will take us into 2020. And Jenny Agutter, 66, who has been in the show since the beginning, is delighted to keep coming back for more.

“The story progresses year by year and gives us the opportunity to mark major events of the time, so it always seems fresh,” she says. “So in episode one it’s 1964 and the Queen is pregnant with Prince Edward and there are social things happening, pop-art and changes in the law.

“I think it’s a very honest show. I don’t think it’s sentimental. We look at the past and we touch on things that are evocative.”

The series has brought back memories of Agutter’s own past, growing up in London during the Swinging Sixties.

“My enjoyment of the 60s was without any of the baggage of having come from the Second World