It was the best thing for her that he left, because she went to university and became a very reputable scholar. There was much to admire about the diary style reflections of Sheila in her 80s eg rants about Brexit and the impact of Covid. I had assumed (and wondered if I was seeing it in myself) that as we get older we get less wound up by things. I think I know the answer to this question, but her relish is so enjoyable, I want to be the perfect audience.

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. 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’s 20 years now since Hancock’s second husband, John Thaw, died of oesophageal cancer – the same disease that took her first, the actor Alec Ross, 31 years earlier – and I wonder if the isolation born of Covid-19 painfully reinforced the state of widowhood. 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.At her age she has seen much and it gives her deep insight into the people who claim to know how things should be and trying to wield power over us. Sheila Hancock shares her story and unflinchingly examines her life and all that comes with it, flaws, mistakes and all.

It summed up a stage we were at: him being very sexy in leather, us spending money we’d never had before, and me driving him mad with my guidebooks. Witnessing and then accepting the decay of your physical self as you age is a brutal reality and it's captured well in Sheila's diaries. But these bands of gold stand as a reminder that she was born into a world that barely anyone remembers now.I watched a film clip on YouTube and was in awe of Sheila's determination which she talks about in the book. 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.

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. I bought this as I have enjoyed Sheila Hancock's other books and the premise of this appealed to me.

Funny, feisty, honest, she makes for brilliant company as she talks about her life and takes an uncompromising look at a world so different from the one of her wartime childhood. 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.