Susan Hampshire plays Molly

Molly is forced to adapt to change as she begins to embrace the friendships which surround her now that her close family have moved on.

As ever, she has a close bond with Golly, but while she's accepted friendship is at the heart of their relationship, she's not sure how she feels about him moving on and perhaps making friends with other women.

Then there's Paul, once merely a reminder of Hector's infidelity, but now someone she begins to truly accept as a member of the MacDonald family.

However, she isn't quite so keen to wipe the slate clean when her brother-in-law Donald makes a reappearance and stirs up some best forgotten memories from Molly's past.

"Everything is a bit new to Molly at the moment - her son has gone abroad, her daughter-in-law has gone with him, they haven't given her a grandchild yet and somebody she didn't even know about is now the new laird.

"It's been hard because she obviously adores and misses Archie, but she's growing very fond of Paul.

"I don't think there's any malice in Molly, she's very open hearted and just gets on with things even if more often than not she's not very good at them.

"Then on top of all this change, the icing on the cake is her brother-in-law, Donald, turning up out if the blue after 40 years - so I should think the poor woman is probably in shock for most of this series," grins Susan.

"She's not happy at all to see Donald because there is a history between them. She feels he let Hector down and behaved pretty badly all round.

"To begin with people used to feel very sorry for Molly and thought she represented tolerant women everywhere, for putting up with Hector. That was the first reaction.

"Plus people loved the fact that she's eccentric and gets on with life.

"Then they loved the period when she had all these suitors fighting over her, because that showed that life doesn't end when you're a widow.

"There have been lots of stages of Molly and I think she's in a kind of transition period at the moment where she is accepting the fact that she's getting older and everything around her is changing."

Unlike Molly, London born Susan has a much more positive reaction to the new cast member who plays Donald - actor Tom Baker.

She says: "It's a stroke of genius to bring the character of Hector's brother to the series because he comes in as this unknown quantity and can really put the cat amongst the pigeons everywhere he goes.

"Tom is a one off and I enjoy the wonderful energy he brings to the show.

"Glenbogle is a magical world where everything is slightly heightened - and Tom and Donald fit into that world perfectly."

Susan is about to tour the UK in the lead role in Alan Bennett's hit play The Woman In The Van, but it's Molly and Monarch that everyone from grandparents to grandchildren want to talk about when they meet the much loved actress.

"I went to do a fete the other day and all the under tens called me Molly. And sometimes children call me 'Susan Hamster' which I love - it's so sweet isn't it?

"The older people love chatting about Monarch and I also get asked a lot of questions about The Forsyte Saga and What Katy Did and programmes even before that.

"It makes me feel even older than I am," she giggles.

"In the past I have played a lot of wicked women, absolute arch bitches really. But I think the public perception of me at the moment is, blurred probably by my work for dyslexia, that of a goody two shoes and Molly slightly compounds that.

"But I am really delighted to be in something like Monarch, as I believe there's a huge need for family entertainment where there isn't any swearing, where there is romance but no sex and where there isn't any violence, but there is humour.

"It's so hard to get that combination these days and I'm proud that Monarch is the place to find it."