Our Patch february 2015
C
areer changes can be
daunting, but as she
approaches her 82nd
birthday, Sheila Hancock
is undergoing three.
The actor, film maker
and panellist (she’s figured on Just A
Minute for nearly half a century, and
was famously a Grumpy Old Woman)
is now reinventing herself as novelist,
public speaker and DJ.
Her debut novel, Miss Carter’s War,
was published last autumn, examining
the social upheaval of the post-war
decades through the eyes of a teacher.
Promoting the book has entailed
giving dozens of talks to roomfuls of
the enraptured… while she has also
become a Radio 2 DJ, mastering not
only the skills of interviewing celebs on
air, but also the art of fading music in
and out at precisely the right point.
“I suppose Radio 4 and 3 is my
natural home, but I really enjoy all
this disc jockey thing,” she said, as we
chatted over morning coffee at High
Road House in Chiswick High Road.
“People like Chris Evans and Graham
Norton are just so marvellous at it.
Michael Ball told me that I must learn
to do all the mixing myself. Although
I mainly listen to classical music, I’m
getting more into modern music. I
interviewed Noel Gallagher; he grew up
on the same estate as my husband.”
She has already written about her
life with John Thaw, and about the
challenges of coping after his death
(at her Hammersmith home are 20
box files of letters written by people
inspired and comforted by her words
on bereavement), but Miss Carter’s
War is the first time she has let her
imagination soar in print, even if the
book is grounded in the factual events
of Britain in the second half of the
20th Century.
The book involved a lot of
research. As an actor I’m
always looking at people and
I have a store of characters
“A novel is a jump,” she conceded.
“It took me four years to research, and
I’ve now got to the age where I don’t
think I could do all that research again.
If I do write another, it would have to
be quicker!”
She has a huge affection for W6
and W4, having set down her roots in
8/9
Sheila Hancock stars in
Harold Pinter’s play
The Birthday Party
at the Lyric with
Justin Salinger in 2008
Hammersmith thanks to the nagging of
her window cleaner!
“Hammersmith Council gave me my
first mortgage,” she said. “I was living
in a basement flat in St Peter’s Square
with my first daughter, hanging the
nappies up to dry, and Charlie Jackson,
the window cleaner, knocked at my
window and said a house nearby in
Black Lion Lane was coming up for sale.
He said I should buy it.
“I didn’t know what a mortgage
was, but Charlie took me along to the
council and I got a mortgage and a
building grant too, as it had an outside
loo. I owe everything to dear Charlie;
he got me on the housing ladder.
“I paid £3,000 for the house, and
eventually paid off the mortgage. We
sold it at a profit, and I was off! I love
the river, and the diversity of the area,
and the fact that we have every single
ethnic restaurant you can find.”
Sheila performed many times at the
Lyric Theatre where her daughter now
works as a drama therapist, completing
a neat family circle.
“I did several shows at the Lyric,
including One To Another, with Beryl
Reid, which had sketches by people
like NF Simpson and Harold Pinter,
who I’d done rep with,” she said.
Other Lyric performances down
the years have included Prin (1989),
The Way of the World (1992) and
The Birthday Party (2008), while she