This Much Is True

To my amazement, I was to play Mother Mildred, a loquacious, energetic senior nun, who was bringing orphan babies to England from Hong Kong. I am not a lover of babies: I never wanted children, which was lucky because my womb and I parted company in 1974 and that was the end of that. But my first entrance to Nonnatus House was to be with an armful of babies, lovely to look at, but heavy to carry and often uncooperative.

My feelings about children haven’t altered; I’m constantly warned to keep my language pure when the under tens are on set. It was both a delight and a relief when Mother Mildred became Mother Superior and had slightly less to do with babies and more with being a fount of irascible wisdom at the service of the order. It was the beginning of a delightful professional experience which is still continuing. I hadn’t known Jenny Agutter, who is the mother of the company. She welcomes all new cast members with warmth and humour.

Call the Midwife was a reunion with Judy Parfitt (Sister Monica Joan), whom I first met in Los Angeles at Eric Matthews’ dinners in the Valley. She is a larky girl when not dressed as a nun — and politically miles away from me. Usually I steer clear of the Brexit divide, but Judy is different; I have to have her in my life. She’s eighty-five and from Yorkshire. More active than I am, sharp as a button, she continues to delight me both as herself and when she enters her character, playing with compassion and gentleness the ageing nun the nation has taken to its heart.

I based my character of Sister Mildred on a nun I met as a child in Oxford. There was a Carmelite convent just around the corner from ‘the hovel’ and I often met the two lay sisters, Sister Anthony and Sister Aloysius, on my daily walk to school. Curious about their lives inside the order, as was my wont, I had struck up a relationship with Sister Anthony.

One day, she told me she had mentioned me to her Mother Superior and then asked if I would like to meet her. I was only nine and said I'd better ask Mummy and Daddy first. My parents agreed and one afternoon I was invited for tea at the convent at four o’clock.

Carmelites are strict, closed-order Catholics, not like the Anglican Nonnatus House. I was led into a small room with a set of bars right across one wall. After a few moments a lady in full habit entered and sat down on a chair behind the bars. I moved my seat closer to see her better and we started to talk. She was totally practical and completely normal, a middle-class lady, very professional, like a lawyer or counsellor, with considerable authority. She told me she came from Liverpool and had been to the Liverpool GPDST High School, the sister school of my Oxford High.

I noticed her shoes were rather strange and I commented on it. She told me that the nuns of the order made all their own. I laughed and showed her my smart Clarks sandals; ‘I couldn’t make shoes for anything,’ I told her. I remembered that because I thought it was the weirdest thing. But she herself was utterly direct, down to earth, without any sort of spiritual nonsense. I never forgot her and I modelled my Mother Superior on her.

I turned up to the first day of filming with a bag of my snack of choice — whole, raw Spanish onions. When I first peeled then chomped into one, everyone grimaced, imagining, I suppose, how ghastly it must taste. But I just munched away. I couldn’t understand what all the fuss was about. I have eaten raw onions all my life — I like the taste. I like radishes too. The sharper the better in my book. They make my eyes water but I don’t mind (same with curries). I don’t know if it’s good for the constitution or not, but it’s sensible in winter because my onion habit tends to keep people away from me, so I catch fewer colds. True, I’m slightly less popular in the make-up trailer.

I had to be taught everything about Christianity and midwifery. Ann Tricklebank, our endlessly conscientious producer, arranged for on-set ‘nun tutorials’. Being Jewish, I didn’t know how to cross myself properly. Mummy had stopped me from reading the New Testament. Plainsong was quite beyond me, so I mimed when we were in chapel, just like when I was on Broadway. And getting dressed was a marathon; who knew that under those dark blue habits there were so many layers of costume? Thank goodness I was allowed a dresser; she knew which bit went where. The programme is scrupulously accurate in every department. I’m still wearing the wedding ring on my right hand (nuns are the brides of Christ) so that I’m ready for the call when it comes again.