Old Rage: 'One of our best-loved actor's powerful riposte to a world driving her mad’ - DAILY MAIL

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Today is particularly piercing on this score, the death of Denis Waterman, Thaw’s co-star in The Sweeney, having just been announced. Such an entertaining memoir, full of wisdom, wit and character covering the years from 2016-2021, when well-known British actor and star of theatre and television, Sheila Hancock (aged in her late 80s), shares her thoughts during the tumultuous years of Brexit and Covid. She had weathered and even thrived in widowhood, taking on acting roles that would have been demanding for a woman half her age. Views about Brexit, universal education, decent pay for NHS staff…punctuate memories of the author’s life, her family, her life on stage and the actors and mortals she has met along the way.

How “Brexit”, something she loathed, affected that scenario and its impact generally is emotionally covered. I was probably scared, disappointed it was considered a flop; feeling I hadn’t done good service to it because I’d suffered terrible stage fright. Her loneliness throughout lockdown and her vivid descriptions of watching nature from her verandah and later from her walks are all what other people who were classed as ‘extremely vulnerable’ and those who live on their own, can all relate to. She is kind and doesn’t have a bad word when speaking of people she knows and has met over the years. As a Quaker one might expect a less judgmental and more forgiving soul than Shelia Hancock portrays herself to be.Hancock, who kept wondering why the producers hadn’t cast Judi Dench until she found herself lying in a freezing cold sleeping bag 2,000 feet up on the side of a mountain, believes she is the oldest person ever to have done this – though as she admits in Old Rage, the short flight in the helicopter that retrieved her from the summit was, in the end, far more terrifying than the climb. She has strong opinions and is not afraid to express them but I share many of them so the book appealed to me. In my opinion, I did feel there was too much ranting about politics and Brexit for my taste, but it’s clearly a passionate topic for her. Having lived through bereavement and been born and remembers the Second World War, she now finds herself lonely at times and her body is finally not doing that well now.

In her gut, though, she knows where she belongs: “If I see a gang of kids in the street I’m not a bit frightened.It all kicks off with an insight into her recent film “Edie”, where an old lady, her husband having passed away recently, decided to go and climb Suilven. Names familiar and less familiar all get mentions into how their paths crossed and the impact those others have had on the arts. Glass in hand, she is resplendent: a walking, talking advertisement for a good haircut – this, she insists, is the real secret of eternal youth – and an abiding interest in other people. She is irreverent and funny when she refers to politicians and entertaining when she looks back at different actors that she has worked with over the years.

This tale is happy and sad in parts - just like life, and made me smile and also cringe in places - and it also made me think a bit more about how I behaved during our "lockdown" phases. Amidst all this Hancock perseveres and describes the ups and downs of her life with wit and humor and always honesty. When she and Thaw became a couple – they married in 1973 – they each had a daughter, Abigail and Melanie, by their previous partners; later, they had a daughter together, Joanna. View image in fullscreen Hancock with daughters (l-r) Melanie, Joanna and Abigail at the memorial service for John Thaw at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, 2002. You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice.Following the death of her husband, John Thaw, she wrote a memoir of their marriage, The Two of Us, which was a number one bestseller and won the British Book Award for Author of the Year.