When Phyllis and Millicent had to grin and bare it!

AS NURSE Phyllis Crane and doctor's receptionist Millicent Higgins, Linda Bassett and Georgie Glen inhabit their no-nonsense characters in Call the Midwife so completely you couldn't imagine them playing anyone else.

- Alison James

However, the pair have worked together previously - although what they got up to would have had the prim and proper nuns of Nonnatus House reaching for the smelling salts.

They both bared all in the iconic 2003 hit film Calendar Girls, about real-life Women's Institute members who stripped off for a nude calendar to raise funds for a leukaemia charity.

"I was a small element in the film whereas Linda was one of the six main women," recalls Georgie, 68.

"We were both in the naked scenes, though, and had to take our clothes off on camera.

"I remember we were very supportive of each other. It certainly wasn't what Linda nor I were used to doing in the course of our work."

Linda, 74, remembers feeling especially apprehensive about disrobing.

"But Georgie was particularly kind to me," she says. "I was very nervous - trembling, in fact. Georgie gave me a little bunch of flowers to let me know she was thinking of me on the morning I had to do my naked shot.

"I was so appreciative. I don't recall Georgie being as petrified as I was."

That was all down to some sage advice from Dame Helen Mirren, who played Chris Harper, the driving force behind the idea to strip off for a charity calendar.