Authors: Sheila Hancock
When depression consumed him, John was in danger of losing his sense of humour. Now he enjoyed a joke again. Just like my
father had been when relating jokes – he was incoherent with laughter as he told me about Spike Milligan on a doorstep, with
a stocking over his face, saying to the person opening the door: ‘I’m a Jehovah’s burglar.’ An actor came to rehearsal with
a rather poncey crocodile bag and John went into a brilliant riff about man-eating briefcases. He literally fell out of his
chair when told that the very ladylike Virginia McKenna was in the wings with Frances Barber when Brian Blessed stomped off
the stage muttering. Frances asked Virginia what he was saying and in her upper-class, cut-glass voice she replied, ‘I think
it was something about cunt.’
As his drinking had become worse John, and therefore I, had become reclusive. He did not like people coming to the house and
was not interested in friendships. Now, when Tom Courtenay agreed to take part in
Kavanagh,
it was a joy for them both. Tom wrote: ‘Just to say how much I enjoyed being reunited with you. Your warmth, sweetness, humour
and talent gave me the greatest pleasure.’
28 June
Busy, busy preparing memorial, fighting Carlton to get the
long version of the tribute programme shown rather than
a cut version. Every now and then I literally double up
with grief. He is still so – not real, sadly – but potent.
Lovely poem by Raymond Carver from Rufus Norris,
young director at Royal Court:
And did you get what
you wanted from this life, even so?
I did
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
beloved on the earth.
John’s workaholism was the next ogre he tried to fight. In 1999 he did a television film called
Waiting Time
, a lot of it shot in bleak East Berlin, where he had a sequence reminiscent of the
Sweeney
days, giving chase over rooftops. It nearly killed him. The redoubtable Pauline had loyally chosen to be with John even though
she had been offered a job on the Delia Smith cookery show. They were filming in a stinking herring boat in a freezing cold
gale, tossed around in the Baltic Sea. John noticed Pauline had tears running down her cheeks. He put his arm round her and
she wailed over the wind and lashing rain, ‘I took the wrong job. I could be in Delia’s warm kitchen now.’ John said, ‘Never
again, kid. We’re getting too old for all this.’
Wanting to lessen his workload, he agreed with Colin Dexter that they should finish their thirteen-year run with
Morse
. Colin would not entertain the idea of any other actor ever playing Morse; everyone was shocked when it was decided to kill
the character off. Even the camera was unhappy. When they were shooting Morse’s fatal heart attack in a college quadrangle
the camera broke down five times. That had never happened before. John found the final episode upsetting. Before each shot
he had to remind himself he was a sick man and he began to feel really off colour. It was nevertheless a consummate piece
of acting from both him and Kevin. When Lewis kissed the dead Morse on the forehead and said, ‘Goodbye, sir’ there were many
wet eyes amongst the three quarters of a billion people that watched worldwide. When we went shopping the day after the episode
went out, people were stopping him, genuinely distressed. It was the Princess Diana syndrome.
The talent to act is difficult to explain or pin down. However much technique you acquire, a performance can work magically
in front of one audience and inexplicably fail to click the following night. Because of this dependence on chance, actors
are a superstitious bunch, forever warding off demons that will come between us and our ability to meld the words, our minds,
our emotions, our bodies into expressing ephemeral events. Some people believe it is absolutely necessary to feel nervous
before a first night and get nervous if they don’t. I have always found my fear of critics and audience destructive, so I
use regular hypnotherapy to help me overcome it. As you stand in the wings waiting to go on, there is nothing but you. No
computer, no tool, no machine, just you, facing an empty space with a head full of words. It can be scary and performers often
lose their nerve and need help. A pill, a drink or a shrink. Kenneth Williams knew that his personality was not altogether
normal, but rejected any suggestion of psychiatric help lest it should take away his talent. Yet John did some of his best
work after treatment. In the final
Morse
, there is a long shot when the camera tracks into Morse’s face as he sits alone in his flat. He is confronted with retirement
and loneliness. John does nothing. No movement of the eyes or puff of a cigarette. He just is. It is as powerful a piece of
work as he ever did in his career. An example of screen acting at its finest. Something he had striven for since those trips
to the Burnage Odeon.
With John now on a relatively even keel, I set about looking at my own state of mind. The vicissitudes of my life since my
cancer and my glimpse of death had made me question my atheism. I would never believe in a biblical God, but I felt the lack
of a spiritual dimension in my life. I embarked on a quest, similar to my childhood religious adventures with my father. The
Anglican Church was a non-starter, with its absurd reluctance to accept women priests. We had a splendid woman in Betty Boothroyd
as Speaker of the House of Commons, easily controlling all the little boys, but the hierarchy of the Church of England was
much too scared of women to let them do more than arrange the flowers and make the tea. All those men in frocks, refusing
to let women give communion and threatening that the upstart hussies would divide the Church, made it impossible for me to
contemplate even entering one of their buildings.
I tested many weird and wonderful approaches to the religious life. The all-time low was reached in an expensively vulgar
house in High Wycombe, where a roomful of coiffed and manicured ladies crouched humming in front of a television. After a
lot of ‘ohm’ing an attractive female guru in a fetching red kaftan was beamed to us from New York and we were asked to approach
and lay a rose in front of the telly. ‘Oh noo, not for me,’ as Jack would have said.
Although admiring of the various Eastern religions I explored, I always felt a bit silly participating. I am British or, as
I like to think, European, and my inclination is towards something based on Christianity and my conditioning. I eventually
found a home in the Society of Friends.
The Quakers are an odd lot. There is no one in charge, everyone believes something different, but the silent meetings are
potent and you can continue to question faith but with others equally curious. The Society of Friends is, like Al Anon, dependent
on the wisdom of ordinary folk. The homeless always welcome the Quaker sandwiches and soup the most because we don’t judge
or preach. My interest in prison reform is also something Quakers support and, of course, pacifism. Quakers are to be found
negotiating secretly on most war fronts. Theirs is an active pacifism. They too like a good demo. They have a proud history
of reform in all spheres of life and are not sexist or homophobic.
30 June
Went to Brighton to spend the day with Neil and James.
How I value my gay friends. They have always brought
style and affection to my life. Their lovely homes, their
taste, their cosseting, their humour. All through my life I
have been supported by gay men – and women. Now more
than ever. We went to a very odd secluded beach where
naked, rather unattractive guys were eyeing the trade. The
sadder side of their lifestyle. On the other hand, on other
beaches heterosexuals are doing exactly the same thing. But
I was sure some of these were bank clerks living with their
mothers, and that only on this beach could they furtively
be themselves. Probably not true. I’m stuck in my memories
of gay friends in the fifties, terrified of being found
out. Dear Jack who committed suicide. An immaculate
charming man who was forced by society to be ashamed
of loving – or I suppose lusting. Nothing wrong with a bit
of lusting, in my opinion.
I am not a good Quaker. I hypocritically hide my Jaguar round the corner when I go to meetings, as it hardly conforms to their
ideas of simplicity or, in its petrol consumption, their regard for the environment. Sadly, because Quakers don’t put themselves
about, most people still confuse them with folk in white collars and pointy hats, but they are in fact the most unpuritanical
people you could wish to meet. I am lucky to have found them.
Religions based on a book make me nervous, whether it’s the Koran, the Torah or the Bible. Extremists can use them to justify
anything. The Quakers’ only book of importance is called, endearingly,
Advices and Queries
– no laws or creeds for them. One ‘advice’ is ‘Speak truth to power’; right from the start Quakers have stood outside and
questioned authority. Suits me. I like a bit of anarchy. In the nineties I had a sneaking admiration for Nick Leeson who stood
the Stock Exchange on its head and nearly ruined Baring’s Bank. I also enjoyed the discovery of a very old lady in Bexleyheath
of all places who had been a spy. It was claimed she gave atomic information to the Russians on principle, to keep the balance
of power. It obviously wasn’t for money or surely she would not have chosen to live out her life in a bungalow in Bexleyheath.
By the nineties my campaigning zeal was beginning to wane. I did not join the anti-poll-tax riots under Thatcher or the demos
against pit closures under Major. When I worked with Harold Pinter in a revue at the Lyric Hammersmith in 1997 we agreed we
were probably even angrier than when we were young, but unlike Harold I had that disease of old age – resignation. When I
got to sixty, things began to repeat themselves and I questioned the effort I had wasted in attempts to change the world.
I was, however, delighted when, at last, Labour was returned to power in 1997. My favourite moment, as it was for many, was
the defeat of Michael Portillo by a rather startled gay man. Portillo has now become a softie, but I could not forget a truly
shocking speech he made at the Tory Conference in 1993 when he lambasted Europe and came on strong about law and order and
the proud SAS, which would not have been out of place at a Nuremberg rally. The blue-rinse brigade lapped it up. Now they
were choking on this landslide defeat.
My happiness on the home front was reflected at work where I did some good and interesting stuff. In the theatre I landed
two great roles, in David Eldridge’s
Under the Blue Sky
at the Royal Court and then in
In Extremis
by Neil Bartlett at the National. In
The Russian Bride
on television I received a BAFTA nomination for playing a blousy, tarty woman who destroys her son’s life, who John said reminded
him of his mother.
John was less lucky.
The Glass
was not a great success but he enjoyed working with Sarah Lancashire. He loved it when Sarah was terribly nervous about kissing
him passionately as he was ‘a national treasure and shouldn’t be rummaged about with’. He had high hopes of another of Ted’s
ideas. Monsignor Renard was a priest in wartime France. Chris Kelly was again producing and all the Scallywags decamped with
him to France. John brought his usual self-discipline to the role. He learned to do a High Mass in Latin from a priest at
my old school, St Ethelreda’s in Ely Place. He was word and gesture perfect.
1 July
Chris Kelly tells me he had a Mass said for John at St
Ethelreda’s. I wonder if some little girl was sitting in the
church holding her nose as the incense went by.
To lose weight for the part he did not eat at all at night. In the land of good food and fine wine he could enjoy neither.
Everyone was thrilled with the first series. It was a perfect part for John and the series was impressive in its historical
accuracy. Nick Elliot, the head of the network centre, who chooses what we see on ITV, wanted more. Two money men who have
since left Carlton, Lord Waheed Ali and Michael Foster, dithered for some time and then decided to ditch the series as they
deemed it too expensive. Caught in political infighting, the series was abandoned. Everyone was dumbfounded by the decision
and John was bitterly disappointed, as well as being disillusioned by the new criteria for commissioning shows, so different
from his early career, when good quality was paramount rather than immediate financial returns. As with any of John’s shows,
the programme would have ultimately repaid them handsomely in overseas sales. He consoled himself by thinking it would have
been gruelling work for the next four years of the proposed schedule and he could have a few holidays instead, as Udi had
recommended.
5 July
At last an antidote to ‘Death is nothing at all’. It’s by Edna
St Vincent Millay and was sent by another stranger:
Time does not bring relief; you all have lied
Who told me time would ease me of my pain!
I miss him in the weeping of the rain;
I want him at the shrinking of the tide;
The old snows melt from every mountainside,
And last year’s leaves are smoke in every lane;
But last year’s bitter loving must remain
Heaped on my heart, and my old thoughts abide.
There are a hundred places where I fear
To go, – so with his memory they brim!
And entering with relief some quiet place
Where never fell his foot or shone his face
I say, ‘There is no memory of him here!’
And so stand stricken, so remembering him.
That’s more like it. As we Quakers say, that ‘speaks to my
condition’. Good old Edna. She knew a thing or two about
loss. I can barely lift my eyes and look around me without
some memory jumping up and biting my brain. As I drive
around London – this café, that doctor’s surgery, that stage
door, everything I lay eyes on makes me ‘stand stricken’ –
not wise when you are driving a Jaguar XKR and I can’t
even look at that without remembering his joy when he
gave it to me and saying it was for putting up with him
for twenty-five years. I am a human-shaped container filled
to eye level with water, which spills over, cascading down
my face, whatever I look at. A startling apparition to draw
alongside at the traffic lights.