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<\/a>Instead she is looking ahead and thinking she will install a lift in her three-storey home in Hammersmith, West London if she can’t make the stairs. And if she shows signs of dementia she will check into a Quaker-run nursing home in York.<\/p>\nFortunately she is walking distance from an M&S and close to the theatres and restaurants of central London which she loves.<\/p>\n
She still travels to her home in France though, the rustic farmhouse she bought with John Thaw over 20 years ago. She drives from Marseille Airport to the tiny hamlet up in the Luberon Hills where she retreats to her simple home \u2018with no pool and no central heating\u2019 to write.<\/p>\n
However, she realises that once she is no longer able to drive her life will have to change \u2013 quite radically. Even so she doesn\u2019t want to be a burden to her children.<\/p>\n
Sheila has two daughters: Melanie, from her first marriage, Joanna from her 29-year marriage to actor John Thaw, and stepdaughter Abigail Thaw.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t want to be a burden to my daughters and having nursed two husbands and my mother, which nearly killed me; I know how stressful being a carer can be.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve already thought that the top-floor room in my London house, which I use as a study, could be for a carer if I needed one.\u201d<\/p>\n
She loves the area of Hammersmith because it\u2019s also near one of London\u2019s historic pubs, The Dove, where poet James Thomson wrote Rule Britannia and Charles II romanced his mistress Nell Gwynne.<\/p>\n
\u201cI grew up near pubs and I like the sound of people in pubs,\u201d she says. \u201cBut I hate music \u2013 so I always ask them to turn it off when I go in and if they don\u2019t – I leave!\u201d<\/p>\n
While she can’t quite imagine moving to a small apartment she has attempted to declutter.<\/p>\n \u201cThings do not mean a lot to me,\u201d she says. Yet, she admits there is a still a room of John\u2019s things she has not yet tackled.<\/p>\n \u201cI want to do it with the girls,\u201d she says. \u201cI have his watch, and the paintings we bought together mean a lot and still give me great joy; I would find them hard to get rid of. The rest is for the girls.<\/p>\n \u201cJohn and I were both from working class backgrounds with no money so buying paintings was very grown up. Then we bought a place in France which was \u2018wow\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n When John died she wrote about her marriage in her best seller The Two of Us<\/em> and then wrote another book about coming to terms with widowhood in Just Me<\/em>.<\/p>\n Ms Hancock is an inspiration. Having suffered the loss of two husbands she has proved that you can still enjoy a rich and fulfilled life \u2013 and even climb a mountain.<\/p>\n To buy tickets for Edie click here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n An official companion booklet has been published to go with the film. Too access it click here<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<\/a>Ms Hancock admits that she has had to adjust to living alone but has now come to enjoy being solitary and independent.<\/p>\n