Call the Midwife star on Miss Higgins's "forbidden" secret: "It will live with me as an actor"

Fast-forward to the finale, which aired tonight (Sunday 3rd March), and her long-held "secret" was revealed: Miss Higgins has a son, who was born while she was living in India.

She had returned to the region when she was 21 following a period there as a young girl, boarding with a widowed friend of her parents in Shimla and working at a library.

That's where she first met Krishnan Choudhary, an Indian tutor who approached her about three copies of Henry V.

But their relationship quickly extended far beyond the professional, a development which they kept secret.

"It was absolutely forbidden to mingle with Indian people," Glen told RadioTimes.com. "You were there to pick up a young white army officer. But she did the forbidden and she fell in love with Krishnan."

When Miss Higgins's son was born, her landlady swiftly made the necessary arrangements and he was sent to live with another family. John became Victor, and Krishnan exited her life forever.

"She was relieved that the family were people with a mixed ethnic background and that there would be some continuity for her son, to honour his father, who she deeply loved," said Glen.

"And what extraordinary nobility from her that she understood that Krishnan had to please his parents, she understood the culture enough to know that he had to marry into his own, and that was how it had to be."

Glen added: "Of course tears were shed, but she's a product of her time. She wouldn't have been a woman who could stand up and go against the grain.

"She's a very traditional woman who followed her heart, and her heart allowed her to breach various social codes, and then it was over, and she got on with her life. I don't believe she ever spoke to anyone about it."

Prior to receiving the scripts, Glen had "no clue whatsoever" about what was in store for her character.

"I did bump into Heidi [Thomas, creator and writer of Call the Midwife] because we have houses near each other, and she sort of said, 'Oh, you've got a bit of a... I hope you like it,'" she explained.

"And I somehow instinctively knew not to ask. And the director, David Tucker, I crossed paths with him, and he said, 'Interesting storyline.' So I was aware something was on the horizon, but I had absolutely no idea."

What was Glen's response when she learned about Miss Higgins's backstory?

"Apprehension, that was my first feeling," she said. "Because nothing like this had been asked of me in the series before. And it matters so much to me that it is believable and that the audience are carried along with it as well. The responsibility is huge, so you have to dig deep."

But despite the unexpected reveal, Glen felt that there have been "moments in the past where Millicent has appeared to have a pain inside her".

"I don't know why," she added, "but Heidi has allowed those moments, a slight pain to Miss Higgins, that one has glimpsed. And suddenly, I knew what it was. It was a revelation for me."

Does Glen think that the Miss Higgins we know would have been different had she not endured such an ordeal?

"I think it might explain why she doesn't let anyone get close," she said, with the one exception being Sergeant Aubrey Woolf, a police officer who she grew fond of in seasons 8 and 9, before his ill health ended their relationship.

"I don't know if that's part of her nature or whether that's part of her secret. I think it probably is part of her secret. I think she probably buried it very deeply and then came back and dusted herself off and got on with it, because that's what you had to do."

She added: "She was a spirited young woman. She had the independence in her early 20s to take the chance to get back to India, and the fact that she was open to the relationship and to falling in love with Krishnan, she wasn't buttoned up then.

"So, I think if it hadn't happened, I think she might well have trod a different path. She might have stayed out in India, she might have married someone else. I think she would have been a freer woman."

While Krishnan disappeared from Miss Higgins's life after she gave birth, she did come face to face with her son Victor in tonight's episode, after his wife unexpectedly turned up at her front door, and they spent much of the next two weeks in one another's company, making up for lost time.

She learned that he's built a good life for himself working for the Indian civil service, and that he also has a son of his own, Harry, who's reading dentistry in Liverpool.

But their reunion was "bittersweet". While she had a chance to "hold Victor and to laugh with him and to smile with him", as well as meeting her grandson, there was tragedy just around the corner.

His health, which had been suffering due to kidney disease, took a turn for the worse while in London. Despite the very best efforts of Dr Turner, there was nothing that could be done, and almost as quickly as he had arrived, Victor was gone, with Miss Higgins by his side.

"When he dies, that's when she says, 'In the end, I was there for his first breath, and his last,'" said Glen.

"And to begin with, I had a real problem with that line, and I don't often worry about lines. I talked to our producer and I said, 'I don't know how to say this.' Because it's not something you would be proud of, to be there at your child's last breath. And I couldn't find a way of saying it. And I still couldn't when we filmed it.

"But I think what she meant was, she brought him into this world, and she was there, still responsible, still a mother as he left this world. And that was just her raw reaction on being told he had died."

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But as heartbreaking as it would have been to lose him again, "at least she's seen him, at least she had the chance", said Glen. "Although it must be a terrible bittersweetness, there must be a sense of something being laid to rest."

She added: "And I still, in a funny way, carry a bit of it in me. When the series ended, I came away still with it all inside me, and it hasn't left. I think it will live with me as an actor.

"I've never had a storyline that's actually not left me, and maybe it will go, when I don't play Miss Higgins anymore, but it's certainly there."

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