Sheila Hancock

Sheila Hancock received a Damehood for services to drama and charity in 2021. Since the 1950s she has enjoyed a career across film, television, theatre and radio. Her first big television role was in the BBC sitcom The Rag Trade in the early 1960s. She has directed and acted for the Royal Shakespeare Company and the National Theatre. Sheila has recently starred in two major TV dramas – A Discovery of Witches and Unforgotten – as well as the twelfth series of the beloved Great Canal Journeys on Channel 4.

Following the death of her husband, John Thaw, she wrote a memoir of their marriage, The Two of Us, which was a number one bestseller and won the British Book Award for Author of the Year. Her memoir of her widowhood, Just Me, also a bestseller, was published in 2007, followed by her bestselling novel Miss Carter’s War. Her Sunday Times bestselling books have sold over 1.2 million copies.