Hancock with daughters (l-r) Melanie, Joanna and Abigail at the memorial service for John Thaw at St Martin-in-the-Fields, London, 2002. 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.

I was a little disappointed overall, but there were some interesting passages and it definitely gives you a feel for the changes in the industry and in the world. So why, at 89, having sailed past supposedly disturbing milestones – 50, 70 even 80 – without a qualm, did she suddenly feel so furious? Sheila has also been made a dame (a proper one), an accolade she took in her stride while reflecting on the type of society that created such things, which leads me to mention that her political views are expanded upon here. Amidst all this Hancock perseveres and describes the ups and downs of her life with wit and humor and always honesty.I right away looked up the movie "Edie" which gutted me in the first few minutes (if you watch nothing else see Edie's confrontation with her midlife daughter) and what came after was awfully sweet.

I watched a film clip on YouTube and was in awe of Sheila's determination which she talks about in the book. Sheila Hancock definitely isn't letting things pass her by if they frustrate her or, as a country, we haven't learnt from previous experiences. 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. She is brave although fearful and sometimes tearful but still interested in people, hugely engaged with the world and keen to promote change.Reading about the lockdowns brought back a lot of memories as well as anger and a sense that we need to change. 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. Old Rage" is a beautifully written and inspiring book full of profound wisdom, kindness and razor-sharp awareness. I felt Old Rage was a gift from the universe, given its positivity, despite Hancock’s righteous rage about various aspects of life. John was abandoned by his mother, and it dominated his life to a certain extent, certainly his relationships.

She also worries, in the book’s opening pages, that she is undeserving of the damehood she was awarded in 2021. A diary of the actress's life from 2016 to June 2021, documenting her life in Chiswick and a remote hamlet in deepest France, her medical vulnerability due to rheumatoid arthritis, before the pandemic isolated her.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. She doesn’t shy away from telling her own opinions and that’s missing in todays world when everyone is so scared of saying the wrong thing. She is kind and doesn’t have a bad word when speaking of people she knows and has met over the years. She had weathered and even thrived in widowhood, taking on acting roles that would have been demanding for a woman half her age. She remembers the war, she has direct memory of how people behaved and cause that we, as a human condition, caused one another and how long it took to rebuild bridges.