Call The Midwife is a series that keeps getting better.
During the seven years and eight series that it has been on the air, we have seen so many wonderful characters come and go.
And Nurse Valerie, played by Jennifer Kirby, is now a firm favourite with fans - which is why the producers have decided to delve deeper into her background.
In this weeks episode, we meet her grandmother Elsie Dyer (Ann Mitchell), who is an East End lady with who Valerie has a close bond.
We also met her Aunt Flo (Nicky Goldie) and Jennifer let it slip that Flo is still around.
She said, ''It has been nice for me to explore Val’s East End side. She was raised in a different way to the other midwives and her roots are properly East End.''
She continued, ''We’ve already seen Auntie Flo [Nicky Goldie] in the pub. And she’ll come back later, too.”
Ann, who plays Valerie's grandmother also revealed what it was like on the set of the BBC period drama.
She said, ''It was an absolute delight and Jenny plays Val so beautifully. We had very good chemistry and a similar way of working.''
She continued, ''We’re both very focused, and before we started filming, Jenny rang me and we had a long conversation about their relationship and our backgrounds. It was just lovely."
Jennifer also thinks that the actors need to discuss their characters because they have such a strong bond.
She said, ''We wanted to be clued up because we are playing very close relatives. And you want that familiarity to come across on screen, so we laid down stories from when Val was little.”
We can't wait to see more of Valerie's family and her East End background.
