voice-over: this is bbc news. we'll have the headlines and all the main news stories for you at the top of the hour, straight after this programme. when dame sheila hancock arrived at drama school in 1919, she was an outsider — not to london, where she'd grown up above her parents' pub just before the war, but to an acting establishment that was very male, very posh, and university educated. but she has refused to let other people's expectations hold her back. at 16, she backpacked around europe. and at 83, she conquered a mountain. she is an obe, cbe, and a dame. she would go on to be a pioneer on stage and screen, rewriting the rules for comedy, women and the working class.

but it was her best—selling books about love and loss following the death of her husband, the actorjohn thaw, that would endear her to millions. today, at 90, she is scarred by war, stirred by faith, and as energised by injustice as ever. i've come to the harold pinter theatre in the heart of london to get the full story. hello. how are you? i'm all right. we take you to all the nicest places, don't we? i know, i know. it is a lovely theatre, isn't it? sheila... sheila hancock. you look so scared. don't be scared! iam scared. i'm terrified. why are you terrified? well, i don't know why i'm here. i'll tell you why you're here. i thought it would be nice to interview some people who are seen as icons and pioneers, and i think you're one of them. oh, for heaven's sake. i mean, the other people that you've done are really kind

of important people. i nearly had a fit when i saw the other people! why are you so humble? i really think you're being honest. you do think you've had a sort of strangely boring life, and i think you've had one of the most remarkable lives of anyone i've ever met. i mean, i'vejust lived a life. and, you know, my private life has been normal, and people have died, and i've had children, and i've got grandchildren, like everybody else. you've always stood up for your beliefs, and despite being an actor, you've basically refused to play all the parts that society expects of you. you refused to be a working class girl destined simply for marriage and motherhood, or poverty. you refused to let what you describe as your "unconventional looks" stop you getting leading roles in the 1950s. and, as you've written in your own books, you now refuse to be a conventional old person, whatever that might be. how am i doing? is that fair? well, i'm just being me. which happens to say i want to do such and such a thing and i'll really try to do it. i have taken a stance against things. i have stood up for certain things and tried to right

wrongs because i'm a wartime child. born in 1933, sheila lived above a pub in london's kings cross with her parents and sister. but her happy home was interrupted by chamberlain�*s terrifying announcement on the wireless. 'this country is at war with germany.�* - it was a moment in history that would define hancock's life, and one she remembers well. yes. and my mother cried. i'd never seen my mother cry then or after. you remember it? i do remember that. yes, it was frightening. and then the air raid warning went. they were trying it out, but we didn't know that. she mimics siren we all rushed out. my dad, with his usual competence, because anderson shelter things had already been delivered, so obviously they knew there was going to be

war, but my dad had dug a deep hole in the garden and he was going to put some railway sleepers over it and put earth on top, but he hadn't got far as that. so, mum and i sat in this earth hole while he dragged physically on his own sleepers on top of us, and then poured earth on top of us. so, you know, not only was i frightened because my mum was crying and something awful was happening in the world that i didn't understand, but my dad was burying me alive! oh, god! so it was a really bad start to the war. years later, you made programmes about that process and about the psychological impact it had on you. so you were very struck by the extraordinary response you got from other people who had similarly been... i think the word is traumatised by that experience. but, darling, anybody that's been through a war in any capacity is damaged. . .for generations. it upsets me terribly, the fact that those things are being forgotten.

and i remember after the war we heard about belsen and people didn't know, not our sort of people — we didn't know what had been going on. this is the concentration camps? absolutely. and...it was horrific. and my dad told me what had happened in this place and the horrors that had been going on. and he said to me... "this must never happen again. "and it's down to you." and i was, i suppose, 11 then. and i've neverforgotten that. and i worry that that's not being said to people now — the actual horror of what happened in that war. and i want people to know in their guts that we have got to try and care about one another. if your dad could hear you now... yeah. what he said to you at the age when you were 11, it's stayed with you, hasn't it? it's absolutely ruled my life, yeah. maybe your dad said it

to you because he knew he had quite a special girl on his hands. you get a scholarship to a grammar school. you met a lot of very strong women... wonderful. wonderful teachers. women that you sometimes based future parts on, or they influenced how you thought about the role of strong women in society. yes. i think a lot of them were single because they lost... they lost their fiances during the first world war. watch beeps i remember people... now, you see, that is saying, "it looks like you've taken a hard fall — emergency call." let me tell you something — that happens if i raise my arm! i, and i won't go into the details because it's so unglamorous, but in the bathroom, ifell badly... alone in the house, on my back. this thing — nothing happened! nothing! not a dickie bird! not an ambulance. nothing! so i thought, "oh, great! well, i'll press it." look, my... here, you see? this wrist. this wrist was hanging. the hanging wrist was broken.

doctors said at her age it wouldn't heal, but she proved them wrong. it's that determination that her teacher spotted in her and encouraged, taking her to paris at 1a to au pairfor a summer — a trip that gave her a taste for adventure. yeah, it was wonderful. it was absolutely wonderful. yeah, we had knapsacks and we hitchhiked. we got lifts, we got put up... we had unionjacks on our knapsacks and we did jobs as we went. and it was an amazing experience because it wasjust after the war. it sounds exhilarating. it was fascinating. her teachers urged her to apply for university, but the idea was inconceivable to a girl from such humble beginnings. instead, having shown a talent for acting, she accepted a scholarship to the drama school rada, but her cockney roots would put her at odds with her posher fellow students. i was one of the very few

working class people in rada because, again, iwas on a scholarship and i spent the whole time with them trying to tell me the difference between... i still can't do it. ..door and "daw—er". door! i couldn't hear it. and all the other people in the class were frightfully posh and they were freaking with laughter. i was going "doorrr!" and ijust... i still am nervous if i do it. hancock graduated from rada and needed to earn a living, so immediately found work in rep theatres. people, i think, may not know there was a time when you were so poor that you were hospitalised for malnutrition. yeah, it was, it was tough, and we were on very low salaries. in a recent radio 1! documentary, my colleague gary richardson unearthed some letters hancock had penned to the bbc in those early years. "i am a 19—year—old struggling actress who knows "no—one with influence. "would you please, pleasejust see me, or, dare i say it, give me an audition? "yours faithfully, sheila."

oh, that's so sad, isn't it? a year later, she was granted a general audition at the bbc, but faced more snobbery when they fed back. the awful other document that we found was the report of my audition. and on the thing it said, for voice, it said, "rather over—careful. "could pass as educated." could pass as educated! and then i got what was an �*a' for acting, which meant that they thought i was a good actress. but the comment was, "could be useful in juvenile character." it must make you pretty angry. the amazing thing is, now, looking back as an old woman at those letters, i thought, "that's awful! "how terrible that that happened to her." but at the time it was just what one expected. that was life. ironically, my first big success...

the rag trade, where i played a cockney, gawky, daft girl. the rag trade would break new ground for women in comedy. set inside london's east end, the accent rada had forced out of her was now pitch perfect for the show. after nine years of toiling away in regional theatres, this was the break she needed. but rather than take the part she was offered, she dared to ask for a better one. funnily enough, our brilliant archive researcher has unearthed a letter... ..that young sheila hancock wrote... oh, no! so you wrote to the head of bbc comedy. yes. "dear mr main wilson..." you wrote to the head of bbc comedy after nine years in the relative wilderness... i'm embarrassed. it says, "i think a lot can come out of their class "closeness, and i can see a possibility of subtle "nuances, as they say." outrageous! that is so rude of me. i mean, where did

i get this guts from? and the point of it is that you wanted a more intellectually rewarding and deep part, because even in the rag trade, this revolutionary comedy where you had women in charge, you wanted a role, a character with more depth. i can't believe this. you see, it is so extraordinary to look at your young self. i don't recognise this creature. she was given the part she wanted — carol, a good time girl who became one of the public�*s favourite characters. laughter it's my baby doll... you've got a nerve! the show�*s fresh approach to class, gender and politics broke new ground and was a runaway hit, with 11 million people tuning in to watch. 0h! are you all right? i'm quite glad to talk about it because whenever there's

a history of the theatre, and progress for women, particularly, the rag trade is never mentioned because it was a cheap, old comedy show with lots of thigh and stuff from me, but it actually was a huge breakthrough. it was three women in the leads. we had the best parts and each week we got the better of the men. there was a catchphrase, because we had a union and miriam was the head of the union, and she would blow her whistle — "everybody out!" everybody out! and the whole of england was shouting that catchphrase that a woman had said. do you know what i mean? which was revolutionary. she quickly became the darling of tv and stage, fronting her own shows, starring opposite comedy legends and the acting elite, as well as appearing in classics like carry on cleo.

working my fingers to the bone washing and scrubbing and clearing up after you... hot ash pit. slaving away over a hot ash pit, morning, noon and night. cooking meals that nobody appreciates. and for what? insults and ingratitude? insults and ingratitude, that's what! that's all i get in return for my trouble. by the 1970s, her confidence had grown enough for her to become picky about the roles she took. i remember there was a bbc party and i shouted across to somebody in authority and he said, "0h, miss hancock's getting very grand. "she's turned down the latest thing that we've offered her." and i said, "well, that's because it's rubbish." and he, this bloke, said, "ok, madam! "you can have an hour to do whatever you like with it." she partnered with a new wave of comedy producers and writers to create a one—woman show called but seriously, it's sheila hancock. it was a brilliant idea. i mean, i interviewed dudley moore on music. we took subjects.

peter hall on theatre, and then we did one on environment. and then i did germaine greer on women. so it was quite progressive, wasn't it? immensely. some at the bbc thought "too progressive". funny women on tv played a narrow set of typecast roles, but sheila wanted to do more and include a wider repertoire of sketches with sharp, satirical, sometimes mean characters. and the bbc said, "you can't do that." i asked why not, and they said, "because it'll spoil your image." and i said, "well, i am going to do it." i did it, and i didn't work for the bbc for about ten years after that. so, you know, it was quite difficult to speak up in those days as a woman. the show did make a cultural impact. but, like other shows from that era, the recordings have been lost from the bbc archives. and so... i'm not on the list of people

who've made progress, really. that happened later. what do you mean? well, if people talk about women's thing, i don't usually feature. it's very sweet of you to bring these things up. are you saying you don't think you've contributed to the cause of improving the lot of women in britain? is that what you're saying? maybe i've spoken up occasionally, and maybe sometimes somebody has listened, i don't know, but i'm not conscious of having done that. there's more than that. i think it changed british comedy forever. another challenge she had to face was her image, which did not fit the narrow 1950s ideals of perfect beauty. now i'm going to do something that i've never done before, and i'll probably end up regretting, which is i'm going to talk to a woman about her looks. because... partly because it's something you've written about a lot, and you've spoken about a lot, and because it was clearly a big issue in your career. what was your look, and why was it unconventional? i was too tall. i was very tall.

and you couldn't be taller than your leading man in those days. it is unbelievable. i spent my whole time in ballet flats because i couldn't... and bending down if i was on telly. and i had acne. so i didn't fit the pattern of what it's best to look like as a woman, really. in those days. classic example. i had a big success in a play called rattle of a simple man in the west end at the garrick, and i got prizes and all sorts of lovely things happened. they did the film, and diane cilento played the role. now, diane was at rada at the same time as me. she got to marry sean connery. she did marry sean connery. she sadly has passed on now, but she was exquisitely beautiful. but she was a beautiful version of me. do you know what i mean? she was... i used to look at her at rada and think, "i almost look like her, but i don't." but, do you know? years later, muriel box,

who was the producer, asked me to go to dinner with her. i didn't know her. and she said, "i just want to apologise that we did "that to you in those days because it would have made such "a difference to your career to have a big film role." but it was the pressure of the way i looked. hancock's career has spanned 70 years. she's had bafta and tony nominations and won an olivier award. but this world she has thrived in and cherished is, many say, under threat. you spent decades in regional theatre, and today, regional theatres are shutting down at a terrifying rate. how concerned are you about the plight of regional theatre in this country? deeply concerned. somebody told me a quote of winston churchill and i checked it, and it's not actually written down, but he wrote very similar things. but it is said that during the height of the war, somebody said, "we've got to cut taxes on culture "because we need more for armaments." and churchill apparently said,

"what are we fighting for?" her passion for the arts is not the only thing she is outspoken on — protesting for many causes, including anti—apartheid and homosexual rights. i don't actually consider that my friends', my daughters' or my own sexuality is any of your business. and above all, she is passionate about her family. the mother of three daughters and eight grandchildren, she's been married and widowed twice. first to alec ross, who died of cancer, and then to one of the country's most well—loved actors, john thaw. but their life together, as revealed in her bestselling book, the two of us, could be tumultuous. was alcohol the difference between when things were good and when things were bad? yes. quite honestly, yes. as a wife who saw someone through that, what did you do that worked? was it tough love? it was tough love. yes, it was tough love. it was... it was absolutely tough love. but the miracle

was thatjohn... he got left alone for a while by all of us. i just left a telephone number of somebody that could help him. and in that period, he contacted that person, and he never had another drink. although thaw sobered up, turmoil still found a way into the couple's life. in 2001, he was diagnosed with oesophageal cancer and he died shortly after. there may be people listening to you now, may even be people interviewing you now who are going through grief, and with your long lens on it, and the benefit of 21 years since dearjohn died, more than that since alec, you lost your parents, what's the most important lesson about grief that you would pass on to others who are suffering? well, i'm not good at passing on lessons. i don't learn lessons myself. and i can't honestly pretend that i can handle grief. the only thing is that i can tell you that you will eventually come out the other side. some time. it might be ages, but you'll be able to deal with it because the human being has

the most amazing capacity, and also to learn from it and to let it be. not to say, "oh, i'm sad, i've got to stop being sad." you're entitled to be sad, just as you're entitled, when you're sad, to laugh. i tell a terrible story. when alec died, i was accompanied by a dear, gay friend of mine, and in those days you had to go to the registry of births, deaths and marriages... in hammersmith? ..to register a death. immediately, you have to go there. i don't know whether that's true now. hopefully not. but we did. so, these two battered, tear—stained, one gay, person went to the registry of births, deaths and marriages and sat there in a heap, and the door burst open, and in came a man saying, "so you're the happy couple!"

laughs and... we just fell on the floor! about two hours after alec had died, we were rocking with laughter, and we felt guilty, but there's no guilt in that. i keep saying to people, "you are allowed to laugh, and you are allowed "to enjoy yourself in the midst of grief." another tonic to heartache is the quaker faith, which hancock came to when facing her own battle with cancer in the late 1980s. it is practised in silence. there's something about that silence that got you, you know, that you found mesmerising. yeah. what was it about the power of that silence? well, istill find it so powerful. and then when i got cancer, there was something missing in my life. there was a level of spirituality — it's difficult to put it into words. but that was lacking in my life. so i tried all sorts of fine things. and then somebody said, "oh, well, there's a weekend of quakers getting together "in a house near oxford. "why don't you try that?"

and i went. and immediately, i was at home there and this marvellous thing of worshipping in silence. but it's not meditation. it's not going in on yourself. it's going out. it's...reaching out for something. now, in her 10th decade, she still continues to act, advocate and seek adventure. i mean, you were 83 when in the film, edie, you got incredibly fit and learnt to climb a mountain, camping overnight in the wind and rain. i mean, were you surprised at yourself with that, with just what you were able to do? well, it was because it was such a good part, really. that's the awful thing with actors. you'll do almost anything for a really good part. it was about a woman carer who'd looked after her husband, whom she loathed, and he died. and she decides to climb this mountain. lovely. nancy, i'm letting you know i'm going away for a few days.

anyway, i said, "well, i imagine you'll have green screens and all that "and i won't be climbing the mountain?" and they went, er... so i said, "you're kidding?!" i then went to my gym where i did gentle workouts and said, "do you think i can climb a mountain "in three months?" and they said, "well, if you work every other day, "one rest day, one day on weights..." and i did that for three months, and i was fit as a flea at the end of it. imean, atany age, if you make up your mind, as long as you've not got some really ghastly thing wrong with you, you actually can get amazingly fit. but it's such hard work and it's so boring! and gyms have that terrible music on all the time. she has also continued to write. her latest book is called old rage. my publisher said, "look, why don't you write a book about old age? "because you're coping with it really well "and people might have a lovely example.

"0k?" so, this was just before one of my daughters got grade three cancer, i got rheumatoid arthritis, there was lockdown and covid and brexit, so suddenly, this beautiful old age turned into a raging terror and anger. and i wrote the wrong sort of book, although hopefully i have put some nice bits. it sold a lot of copies, so it really resonates with some people. is your daughter all right now? yes, she is. yes. thank goodness. are you still angry, and what are you angry about? oh, dear. angry isn't quite the right word. anguished? frightened? i mean, i wish i could say, you know, i'm old, i'm 90—odd, and i... i wish i could say that i'm going to leave a world that is in good condition. there are so many frightening things happening and so many mistakes being made, and i'm not sure that

we have people around that can solve it. reading your book, it read like you've got a sense of almost empowerment, that with age comes a certain understanding, a certain wisdom. well, no. i wish i could agree with you, but no, i don't feel any sense of power. the only power i have is that if i say something outrageous and i'm cancelled, i'm shortly going to be cancelled by death anyway, so it's kind of all right! that gives me a sort of, "ooh, dear, i don't care because i'm going!" do you know what i mean? what's your legacy, sheila? 0h... do you believe in legacies? no, i really don't. i really, really don't. one of the leaders of the quaker movement, margaret fell, nobody knows where she's buried because she didn't want it to be commemorated. she didn't want... it was unimportant where she was. so... you know, when it's over, it's over. i hope there might be little seeds of naughtiness in my grandchildren that might

grow into something productive. i see signs of it in them. i see signs of a desire for change. hello. cloudy, windy and mild pretty much covers sunday's weather forecast in most parts of the uk. we do have this wriggling weather front which will bring rain for some, particularly in the western side of scotland. but with that front edging a little bit further northwards, it will introduce milder air for more of us. but with that extensive cloud cover, it will be quite misty and murky for some coasts and hills.

a bit of rain across north—west england, parts of northern ireland, but more especially, this western side of scotland, the rain becoming heavy and persistent. eastern scotland with a bit of shelter from the winds, while here, we mayjust see a little bit of sunshine. but it is going to be a windy day for many of us. very windy in the far north. gusts of 60 miles per hour, for example, in shetland, where temperatures will only climb to four degrees. but elsewhere, further south, highs of 13 or 1a degrees — well above the average for early february. and then during sunday night, the rain keeps on coming in western scotland, hence this met office yellow weather warning. the wettest locations over higher ground could see 170 millimetres of rain. some snow mixing into the north of our weather front, where it engages some cold air. very mild, though, further south, as we start monday morning. through monday, we'll continue to see these outbreaks of heavy rainjust waxing and waning across the northwest of scotland, with some snow across the far north. but to the south of that, it stays mild, it stays quite windy, it stays very cloudy,

with some mist and murk and some spots of drizzle. temperatures up to around 13, maybe 1a degrees once again, but always colder to the north of our weather front. just two degrees there, in lerwick. and by tuesday, well, that frontal system looks set to push a little bit further southwards. so rain for northern ireland, northern england, perhaps into north wales. to the south of that, still cloudy, a bit murky, very mild. to the north of our weather front, well, some sunny spells, a few wintry showers in the far north and something just a little bit chillier. now, this weather front just wriggles around through the middle part of the week. it will bring further outbreaks of rain. later in the week, it does look like these various frontal systems will eventually push southwards and that will allow some colder air to dig its way across more parts of the uk. it is going to take a while for that colder air to spread southwards, but it does look like, as we get through the end of the week and into the weekend, it will turn colder for all of us. yes, there'll be some rain, but for some, there may also be some snow.

live from washington, this is bbc news. the us and uk lead international airstrikes on iran—backed houthi positions in yemen in the latest response to attacks on red sea ships. it comes a day after the us hit iraq and syria with airstrikes, in retaliation for last weekend's deadly drone strike on us troops injordan. presidentjoe biden saunters to victory in south carolina, where democrats held their first primary election of the year. hello. i'm sumi somaskanda. we start in the middle east, where a us and uk coalition launched more strikes against the iran—backed houthis in yemen. within the last hour, the pentagon announced

that a us strike destroyed a houthi