Quotes from Sheila Hancock

There isn't a carer in the world who doesn't say, 'I hate it. My life is being ruined. I didn't see my life like this.'

I only wrote one diary to be read by others. I went on an exchange to France, working as an au pair, when I was 14 and in a battered red notebook I wrote my experiences for my father to read later.

I live in a perpetual state of fear.

On the night of Brexit, while some people were celebrating and others were having wakes, I stayed in and played Beethoven, his quartets mainly, into the small hours of the morning.

Just as our bodies need to be exercised, so, perhaps, do our brains.

As a child, I was deeply religious and went to church every Sunday.

I was chancellor of Portsmouth University.

I was terribly ambitious: I was always thinking why wasn't I in the West End. I really wasted my whole youth.

I love classical music. It's my stabiliser.

Around a quarter of cancers eventually spread to the brain. As people live longer, their risk of developing cancer increases; as cancer survival rates improve, their risk of developing secondary tumours in the brain increases. We can therefore expect increasing numbers of brain-tumour patients.

Solitude is part of my life, and I don't mind that. I like it. I love it. I don't allow loneliness to be part of my life, let's put it that way. I really won't allow it. If I feel lonely, I phone somebody or I go for a walk or a swim, get the endorphins going, because I hate feeling lonely.

Christmas Eve is my wedding anniversary so it is a double whammy.

I get into an awful lot of trouble for not being polite.

In the old days I'd like to have been a politician, when I think the world was more idealistic. When I was young I did a lot of campaigning.

I think when you're coping with grimness perhaps you do get sillier and more escapist in what you want to see at the theatre.

It is well known that people who are involved with people who have addictive problems have a problem themselves. You are drawn to mad living, a kind of insane thing. It is much nicer when it stops, believe you me.

I used to pray every night: 'Please let me look all right from the front.' I didn't care about real life, but I wanted to look good for theatre audiences - I worried about having a funny nose.

I am a far better grandmother than I was a mother. My daughters would back me up on this. As a mother I was busy, preoccupied and obsessive about John and my life with him. My children got overlooked. But my grandchildren never get overlooked.

I do like Christmas but the build-up is ludicrous. Such a kerfuffle about two meals and a few presents.

I've never been one of those nanas who pretends to be young.

I've been lucky enough to love dearly the people I cared for, but even then there were times when I thought, 'I can't bear any more.'

I don't really despise anyone.

I used to be the sort of person who'd listen to a taxi driver going on about the-country-going-to-the-dogs-blah-blah, and let him rant on. But now I don't. I find myself letting rip.

Even for those who do survive, tumours can affect the functions of the brain and therefore affect a person's personality, preventing many people from working, driving and otherwise leading a normal life.