Dame Sheila Hancock has admitted she still talks to her late husband John Thaw when she is feeling lonely.
The Inspector Morse actor died in 2002, aged 60, after he was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer, but he still provides comfort for his 92-year-old widow.
Dame Sheila, who was married to Thaw for 28 years, explained that although she ‘blessed’ with friends and family who are a ‘great comfort’ to the actress, they ‘eventually go home’.
She wrote in Prospect magazine: ‘I am left with the gaping loss of the person who has left forever, with whom I could be totally honest and myself, warts and all. Who is there now to wipe my tears and make me laugh?
‘I still talk out loud to my long-departed husband, especially when I watch the news on Channel 4, but our imagined rant about politicians and human idiocy has grown fainter over the years.’
The Sixth Commandment actress said that her loneliness was ‘terribly difficult to deal with’.
Dame Sheila Hancock has admitted she still talks to her late husband John Thaw when she is feeling lonely
The Inspector Morse actor died in 2002, aged 60, after he was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer , but he still provides comfort for his 92-year-old widow
The Sixth Commandment actress said that her loneliness was ‘terribly difficult to deal with’ (Pictured in 2023)
She added: ‘One can wake up and feel overwhelmed by depression at the thought of a solitary day ahead. The easiest thing is to turn over and stay in bed, but an effort must be made when one least feels like it, to get up and be active, or one descends even deeper into the Slough of Despond.’
Dame Sheila has observed a growing queue at her local supermarket for the solitary human cashier rather than the self-checkout machines.
‘I suspect some people are lining up just for the opportunity to chat to someone for a few minutes. Sadly, it looks likely those human checkouts are going to disappear completely,’ she said.
She admitted that she had contemplated buying a cat to keep her company, but has resisted because she is concerned that it would ‘outlive’ her.
Dame Sheila, who was awarded a damehood in 2021, has admitted in the past that her late husband Thaw was a depressive and alcoholic and as such it turned their marriage into a tempestuous one.
‘It was an obsessive love,’ she said. ‘My father was a drinker, and my first husband drank, and I worked out that I like instability and danger.
‘With John, you never knew what mood he was going to be in. When he was wonderful he was absolutely wonderful, and when he was vile he was vile.’
When she and Thaw became a couple they each had a daughter, Abigail and Melanie, by their previous partners. In 1974, they had a daughter together, Joanna.
Dame Sheila’s career has spanned seven-decades with her credits in Carry On Cleo, The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas and Edie.
