Sheila Hancock, Corn Exchange, Brighton, May 24 (From The Argus)

Sheila Hancock, Corn Exchange, Brighton, May 24

12:27pm Monday 25th May 2009 in Festival Reviews By Jess Barrah

Following on from her best-selling autobiography The Two Of Us, about her life with her late husband John Thaw, Sheila Hancock discussed her new book, Just Me, with writer and broadcaster Kate Mosse.

With humour and pathos, Hancock described how she decided to write a travel book about travelling alone – and the benefits and difficulties that this brought.

Her description of revisiting Venice, a place where she and her husband had been happy on previous holidays, and the grief that this reawakened, was particularly moving.

The audience relished her description of the liberty to behave selfishly - or as she put it "naughtily" - as an older person, although she seemed fabulously energetic, despite descriptions of creaky knees.

At 76 she is admirably full of vigour, expressing her hopes for a reinvention of banking and government structures, although wryly acknowledging the improbability of this actually happening.

She also discussed the renewed sense of spirituality in her life, following a period where she lost her faith – and was so enthusiastic in promoting the Quaker faith that there may be a silent stampede down to the Friends Meeting House.