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

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I confess I’ve not read any of her three previous efforts but, after digesting this diarised account of her latter years, I can certainly handle a bigger dose of Sheila. Loveable and forthright character that she is, Sheila lays it on the line and it’s all from the heart, which is why her prose is passionate and interesting. Funny, feisty, honest, she makes for brilliant company as she talks about her life as a daughter, a sister, a mother, a widow, an actor, a friend and looks at a world so different from the wartime world of her childhood. Having just gone through the Covid Pandemic on my own myself I did find it a bit depressing but her spirit is still going strong.

I didn't get any of the humour that Hancock usually has when being interviewed or in her previous books. 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. At first I was a little unsettled by the format - it is loose and fluid like a conversation which switches backwards and forwards between dates and ideas. But every page of Sheila Hancock's new memoir shimmers with laughter, defiance and profound insights into life as an old RAGE pensioner ― Mail on Sunday --This text refers to the hardcover edition.Sheila doesn’t mince words in giving her opinions on the state of world and national affairs, while at the same time coping with advancing age (which doesn’t please her either).

She covers everything in old age from the loneliness and aches and pains to rage at the body that once did so much but now can’t, and the strange society that we’re all making our way through.Home alone, classified as 'extremely vulnerable', she finds herself yelling at the TV and talking to the pigeons. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Around her neck is a chain, on which there are five rings: her wedding ring, those of both husbands, and of her parents. Following the death of her husband, John Thaw, she wrote a memoir of their marriage, The Two of Us, which was a no.

This is a lady who has seen World War, learned to use Zoom and WhatsApp, acted on stage with the greats and walks the deserted streets of London during the pandemic. I had assumed (and wondered if I was seeing it in myself) that as we get older we get less wound up by things. In 2019 she was starring with James Nesbitt in Tim Firth’s musical comedy This Is My Family in Chichester when she fell in the bathroom of her digs, and had to have 10 stitches in her head. But here we have a much loved and in many ways under-appreciated actress, dealing with the privations and challenges of old age. Old Rage by Sheila Hancock was a funny and excellent book and still looking great at OMG 89 years old and still got her wits about her.This book however is like a diary, where Sheila has mixed what has happened within that year and flips back to her past younger years of what happened. As Billie was in a ward of her own Sheila sat with Billie day and night singing to her and saying a childhood prayer to her, one that I truly loved, that was one my favourite parts in the book for loving the prayer. 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.

She defies the stereotype of an octogenarian and it was wonderful to read her thoughts on many current events and her reflections on her life. The building of many new houses threatens the tranquility of her beloved French house, then Britain votes to leave the common market, the horror of the Grenfell disaster and what it reveals about English politicians, and then isolation in her home during the Covid pandemic, devastating for someone who loves to connect with people. She has suffered loss and sadness, and currently has rheumatoid arthritis, an autoimmune and inflammatory disease, but doesn't stop her maintaining a firm grip on life and learning. Whilst I’m sure she’s a very nice lady to be commended for her many and varied accomplishments including mountain climbing aged 83, raising 3 daughters whilst maintaining a career and a marriage to an alcoholic but the incessant opinionated ranting and disparaging remarks about public figures she doesn’t approve of or like is tiresome.However, her enquiring mind never ceases to scrutinise the after-effects of Covid-19 and Brexit while politics tops the list with shoddy government, weak politicians, inept prime ministers, poor decision making, and lack of support for the education system. Thaw was much more like Jack Regan than Inspector Morse, she tells me, and for this reason she has occasionally plucked up the courage to watch The Sweeney since his death. I find it interesting to see Hancock's point of view on a great many recent events from a perspective somewhere less Americentric. Hancock discovers many reasons for joy and optimism - and you're quite likely to find yourself nodding in agreement with her. I really enjoyed the book but found it really quite angry and sometimes found that hard to merge with Sheila Hancock's Quaker faith but then I guess I learnt something there too - being a pacifist most definitely doesn't mean you're a walk over.