Just Me Page 21

  Funerals, nowadays, are often celebrations of people's lives, rather than a gloomy meditation on grief. It can get a bit irritating, with jokey pop songs accompanying the disappearance of the coffin, but it is usually uplifting. When my dear friend Sheila Gish died a difficult death, all the horror was dispelled when her coffin entered the church. Her daughters had painted it all over with vividly coloured flowers and the congregation cheered and clapped as it was borne in, in the same way that in life an audience would have greeted this glamorous brilliant actor.

  When another friend, Stella Moray, died in 2006, I and two friends, Helen Cotterill and Faith Brook, went to lunch at Peter Jones, overlooking the Royal Court Theatre, where we had started our forty-year friendship. We put a photo of Stella in front of an empty chair, and got very tipsy, contemplating which old muttering crone would be the last one sitting at a table with three photos. When I explained our mirth to the waiter he was taken aback. It seems that to some people death should not be laughed at. But I think everything should. It helps.

  After Stella's death we were given a CD she had made years before, probably as an example of her work for auditions. It was wonderful. She had had a good career, delighting audiences at the old-time musical theatre The Players, performing in West End musicals, entertaining the troops during the war, but she had never achieved great stardom. The CD was a revelation. She should have been huge. I was astonished by the power yet subtlety of her singing voice. It is grossly unfair that she did not receive more recognition and in her old age had to worry about money. Yet she was a happy woman. Always delighted at other people's success. Generous in her praise. Enriching the lives of her friends with her bawdy humour and kindness. There was no sign that she felt overlooked. I wonder if J. R. Wildman was as sanguine about his allotted rung on the ladder of fame.

  How many people can honestly say that they have lived a fulfilled life? I am in a panic about what I want to be able to do before I die. Most of my achievements are mediocre. I find it difficult to be satisfied with that. John thought he was 'just a telly actor'. He had not done many films, or played Hamlet or Lear, so he didn't count. He could not accept that what he had achieved, moving on from a dreadfully deprived childhood to world-wide audience affection, was worth anything. One of life's hardest tests, when you are old, is to accept what you are and where you have got to, and be content with that.

  Now, I have to be content with being on my own, without a partner to share my life. I can't pretend it is what I would choose. I am envious of those friends with a good relationship to keep them company on the last lap. I have, to the delight of my friends and family, been on a very few dates, but it hasn't worked for me. John is a hard act to follow. Not because he was wonderful – he wasn't always – but we had reached a stage, after many battles, of a profound, yet not boring, peace. That takes time and energy, and I am running out of both. I just can't be bothered.

  I went to a few gatherings to put myself about a bit and I hated it. There is always deafening music and babbling voices, so I can't hear a word that anyone is saying. The nadir was reached when I accepted an invitation that came from the Financial Times to a party to be held at the Victoria and Albert Museum. It sounded interesting. Although I could not imagine why I had been asked. I wondered even more when I got there.

  I dolled myself up and forced myself through the huge doors. Inside, were hundreds of men in suits and a very few women, doing what I believe is called networking. Loudly. Undaunted, I walked though the seething crowd, attempting to catch some-one's eye. Not a hope. Not a drink or a titbit came my way. After circling the room, without a soul talking to me, or even smiling, I walked out of the doors again.

  Outside, stretched on the pavement was a vagrant. He struggled to sit up, slowly got me into focus and smiled blearily. 'How nice to see you, Miss Hancock. May I introduce my friend?'

  His friend was just visible inside a filthy sleeping bag, and all he could manage was a grunt and a proffered grimy hand. Which I shook. I politely declined the swig from the can proffered by the gentleman. For that he was. We had a little chat, my new friend admired my car, and waved as I drove off. So not an altogether wasted evening. I met some nice people.

  I went to Sandi Toksvig's celebration of her civil partnership with Debbie. It was a joyous occasion. Sandi's children – who are some of the loveliest, most grounded children I know – were having a ball. I asked another guest, a well-known writer, how she managed to be so prolific. She fondly referred to her companion, explaining she organised all the everyday things for her. She was the archetypal wife.

  Two women living together can be a very successful union. I have known many such relationships, not necessarily lesbian, that seemed happy. After the First World War, the huge death toll of men left thousands of women with no hope of marriage and a life of solitude ahead of them. Some of the teachers at my grammar school were just such victims and had formed partnerships with fellow teachers. My father's sister too lived with a woman all her life; they took care of one another until the end. My aunt was disfigured by smallpox as a girl and presumably no man wanted her but her companion loved and fiercely protected her. Whilst I was doing Cabaret, two of my gay friends came backstage to see me. One, who is a musician, has suffered a stroke and finds speech difficult. His lifelong partner, who is a retired nurse, watched him anxiously. At one point, when his friend was struggling to shape a word, he finished the sentence for him, stopped, and cried, 'Oh, I am so sorry dear, I mustn't talk for you.' It was a demonstration of such gentle understanding that I defy anyone to question the validity of same-sex love.

  However, in the absence of the love of a good man or woman, I do worship my car. Motors have always been my passion. After my Lambretta in the sixties, I graduated to a pea-green convertible Morris 1000, then a cream MG, then a beautiful white Morgan. When my children were young, I had to have boring old estate cars, but as soon as they were off my hands, I started on Jaguar sports cars. I still have one. I maintain it is more environmentally friendly than some old banger, but of course it is disgraceful. I have tried to assuage my guilt by running my hot water and electricity on solar energy, for the environmental lobby is getting to me. I pray that science will come up with something that makes a beautiful vehicle acceptable again. I cherish my car. Mind you, I recently visited a car show where the Top Gear gang were doing a display. It was not pretty. Jeremy Clarkson, with his belly hanging over sagging jeans, making adolescent jokes about being a petrol-head. I realised I looked equally absurd. A 75-year-old woman in a supercharged sports car. But I'll be defiant a little bit longer. Then I'll join the green people who drive those ugly electric snails. Or even ride a bike, jumping the lights, running people over on pavements, and being as sanctimonious as they. Or get that elephant.

  When I am driving my powerful, purring beautiful car, I do not feel in the least bit old. Getting out of it is harder these days, but I suppose that is to be expected. I creak more now, and if I don't take regular exercise I seize up completely. But then I have never felt particularly well. Some bit of me has ached all my life. The only time I feel really fit is for about two minutes, under the shower, after a swim. When I went to a party at Buckingham Palace to mark the Queen's eightieth year, I marvelled at her stamina. She had to attend numerous parades and public appearances to celebrate her birthday, and when I commented on this she said, 'Yes, it has gone on a bit.' How her pretty little feet must ache at the end of the day. Mine kill me if I walk up to the shops, never mind trudging round talking to thousands of gaping subjects.

  According to Psalm 90 my time is up. I have had my 'three score years and ten' plus a bonus of five. But there is a get-out clause: I can make it to four score 'by reason of strength'. Which is why I can be regularly found lying backwards on a big blue ball, levering two weights over my head. Standing above me is my personal trainer, a vision of masculine physical perfection, and a necessary incentive, as I loathe exercise.

  I'm shaken when my age catches
up with me, as they say. When I visit the John Lewis store, I park my car in the garage under Cavendish Square, because the young men in the basement love my Jaguar and wash it beautifully. Then I climb the three flights of stairs up to the street. The last incline has become my personal Everest. For fifty-odd years I have skipped up easily, but now I arrive red-faced and panting into the sympathetic arms of the Big Issue and Evening Standard vendors. I steel myself for the five floors of John Lewis. Take the lift? Never. The woman who has just moved, not into a bungalow, as befits her status, but to a three-storey house? We are talking wartime childhood here, 'we will never surrender' and all that.

  The stark truth is that, within sight of the finishing post, I am actually enjoying the race more than I have ever done. Because time is short, I have never been so desperate to relish every minute. I do not intend to waste any time being old and grey, and full of sleep, and nodding by the fire. In recent years, my husband and many dear friends, some younger than I, have had life wrested from them. In deference to them, I will value mine.

  My northern friend from the Solo holiday phoned me the other day with a shocking story. His son is serving in Iraq. They were attacked and three of his friends, only fifty yards away from him, were killed; another lost a leg; another, an eye. He came home in a plane with three corpses and two men whose lives are ruined. It is not like World War Two when everyone shared the horror, and the servicemen were heroes. These men come back to indifference towards an unpopular battle. His father was appalled by his son's dead eyes, contemplating the mutilated world. It never ends, the pity of war.

  After all my agonising in Germany and Budapest, I am not really much closer to understanding the horrors of World War Two. It is still a darkness in my mind that cannot be obliterated, however much light I shine on it. I find no answer to the question 'why did it happen?', except the disturbing one, that cruelty is part of our nature. So is bigotry. I can only try to suppress it in myself, by reason. By confronting it. That is what the bravest individuals I have come across have done. They challenged the status quo, and tried to heal the hurt. They are the people that vindicate the human race and I am grateful to them. Ken Small and his tank, Imre Nagy, Sophie Scholl, the young soldiers coping with the nightmare of the concentration camps, even my grandfather and his small battle with Thomas Cook.

  I still relish a battle or two. Preferably on behalf of someone else. I have engaged in much navel-gazing over the years – too much. I find other people much more interesting now. As an actor I have been looking in mirrors, tarting myself up for shows, for sixty-odd years, so my face is of no more interest to me. I much prefer gazing at Sandra's brown skin and lustrous wicked eyes. When you are old, you have a wealth of experience that can be shared to help others avoid pitfalls. Because we, in England, as opposed to the Continent, tend to separate the generations, much is wasted. The vitality and freshness of youth for the old, and the wisdom of maturity for the young.

  I received a thrilling opportunity to bridge this gap. In 2005 I was awarded an honorary degree by Portsmouth University. Why? You might well ask. As did I. Well, I was born on the nearby Isle of Wight. I appeared in many a season in the Shanklin Repertory Company, and on Sandown Pier I was in a concert party with Cyril Fletcher. I have toured to Portsmouth in various Agatha Christies. Not really credentials for a Doctor of Letters. Working-class women of my generation did not have the educational opportunities that are available today, so I wasn't going to look a gift horse in the mouth: I donned my purple gown and fetching beret and was as proud as punch that they should be so kind. Then in 2007 they went further. They paid me the enormous honour of inviting me to be their Chancellor. I was delighted. What could be more wonderful in my seventies than to be involved in the futures of thousands of young people?

  Although I used to covet the posh period residences of the staff at Oxford University when we visited in John's Morsing days, I am thrilled to be involved with one of the new universities. I have the use of a lovely flat overlooking my birthplace and the exciting redevelopment of Portsmouth with its iconic Spinnaker Tower. The university is growing and changing all the the time. Portsmouth is not complacent like some of the ancient colleges. Nothing is set rigidly in tradition: we are not hidebound by history. There is important research going on – not least into brain tumours, which as I know from my grandchild's experience is still a grey area – but the students are all-important. The young people who come to us are from every part of society, and indeed the world. At my first day of welcoming new students and their parents, some were the first generation of their family to attend university, and they were thrilled, as I was for them. Having left formal education aged fifteen, I feel a bit of a fraud, but I am so grateful for this chance to explore a whole new world that I missed out on when I was young.

  I am frequently asked, usually by taxi drivers, 'Not thinking of retiring then, Sheila?' No, I have never enjoyed my work more, especially the companionship. The humiliations seem amusing now. There is no chance of getting above myself. Even after sixty-odd years in the business, I still have to audition for parts and be gracious when twelve-year-old directors, who have never heard of me or bothered to find out that I have been schlepping about working since before they were born, ask, 'What have you done?' I sometimes answer faux-naïvely, 'You mean today?' I keep meaning to pack it in. Then, along comes a part that simply has to be played.

  I met a traveller from an antique land

  Who said: 'Two vast and trunkless legs of stone

  Stand in the desert . . . Near them, on the sand,

  Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown

  And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command,

  Tell that its sculptor well those passions read

  Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,

  The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed;

  And on the pedestal these words appear:

  'My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:

  Look on my works, ye Mighty and despair!'

  Nothing beside remains. Round the decay

  Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,

  The lone and level sands stretch far away.

  From 'Ozymandias' by Percy Bysshe Shelley

  14

  Budapest

  I WAS OFFERED THE part of the mother of a German Nazi concentration-camp commandant in the film of the book The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas. Directed by Mark Herman, who was responsible for one of my favourite films, Brassed Off, it was a gift from heaven. On top of that, it was to be filmed in Budapest. It was Budapest and its Terror Museum that had set me off on a winding road through my childhood and the events around it. Whereas I had made my personal peace with Germany, I never really felt at ease in the same way with Budapest.

  There is no better way of really getting to know a place than to work there. With the film company, we had translators and, anyway, performers world-wide have a common language and modus operandi. It was shocking to discover that many of the extras were respected actors, desperate for work. Which is why they were so wonderful. In the ballroom scene in which I appeared, I watched enthralled as they all created individual characters and scenarios for themselves, rather than just waltzing mindlessly. When I had to walk through the room as a woman defying the growing threat of the SS, they needed no direction as to how they should react. They knew only too well and used their real-life experience. Some recoiled nervously, others furtively expressed agreement, just as they knew happened. Our producer, David Heyman, made a speech of admiration and gratitude at the end of the day's filming and several had tears in their eyes.

  When I first arrived on set I was miffed to discover our English make-up supervisor had offloaded me on to a homely-looking Hungarian woman. I was very grumpy until I realised how much better off I was. If I were a star I would insist on having Anya for every job I do. Her English boss produced an ill-fitting, badly dressed wig on the day before I started work. When I arrived the next morn
ing full of nerves – for the way I look is crucial to the building of a character – there, on the wig block, was exactly what I had asked for, but had been told was impossible. My lovely Anya had taken it home and worked on it in her own time. She was an artist. She had healing hands, so that at 5.30 a.m. having my make-up applied was like the most wonderful soothing massage. She fussed over me and made sure I looked right for every shot. I discovered she had to travel all over Europe to earn enough to live on and was pathetically grateful for the work being generated by the English and American companies now taking advantage of the benefits of Hungary becoming part of Europe.

  Knowing how our Hungarian colleagues were were struggling to make a living made it uncomfortable to be wallowing in the luxury of my hotel, one of the many that have been developed for the potential tourist influx. The hotel had its own spa, where I indulged in Turkish baths, one night sharing the quite small steam room with a stark-naked Lufthansa pilot. We had a lovely chat culminating in, when he left, him shaking my hand and actually clicking his bare heels Germanically with the inevitable effect on his dangling parts.

  One night in the restaurant I watched, as is my wont, a smarmy American man smoothly chatting up a very young Chinese girl. He oozed confidence and savoir-faire, until she went to the ladies', when he, without realising an old biddy was watching him, fell apart. Fingers tapping the table, then shakily lighting a fag, scared eyes darting about sightlessly. Could he satisfy her if he got her to bed? What would his wife/mother think? Should he just disappear? Then, as she sauntered back, he changed instantly from a gibbering wreck into his previous seductively smirking man-about-town. It occurred to me that perhaps everyone is acting a role. And maybe even the most confident are actually scared stiff.

  I was invited to lunch in a restaurant in the old ghetto area where, in 1944, Eichmann had sealed 200,000 Jews into 2,000 houses before they were taken off to be slaughtered. The restaurant was an elegant revamp of an old crypt-like building. The trendy young waiter, who unusually spoke English, could not tell me its history. It clearly didn't interest him.