A Pocketful of Happiness

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It’s still too raw and present, and I am still having an ongoing conversation with my wife in my head,” he says. Her Central School of Speech and Drama–trained standard English accent is sounding more Aberdonian than I’ve ever noticed before.

Attempting to be “normal” in this uniquely abnormal situation exhausts us all, and we’re in bed by 9 p.All this is carefully described by Grant in his new memoir, A Pocketful of Happiness, which takes the form mostly of the diary he wrote in the last year of his wife’s life (Washington, a celebrated voice coach, died in September 2021, two months before their 35th wedding anniversary). It is a difficult read in moments and will certainly make you consider how you might react when a loved one passes away, as we will all experience at some point.

What a beautiful relationship they had, and how honestly he conveys the pain following her diagnosis.Life is precious and even more so when you read the words of someone lucky enough to embrace every moment of a life we’ll lived. Form filling then ushered into a small room where a nurse asks her to lie down and injects a saline solution into her arm, followed by a radiation drug that will circulate through her bloodstream, taking an hour to fully absorb, during which she has to lie still and not talk. He still posts frequent videos on social media, telling people what’s going on in his life, how he’s feeling, and he looks shocked when I ask if he ever feels he’s given away too much of himself. Convinced of his own persuasiveness, he once tried, he tells us, to get a part exchange, not on a car, but on a loo seat. Review books, get personalised reading recommendations and help us complete the largest ever survey of English Novels.

It could be some kind of severe infection, but is most likely to be a form of lung cancer, so I’d like to do a biopsy under local anaesthetic next week. Grant about his role in the 10-part series, from his home in lockdown – which he has accidentally become perfectly prepared for.His new memoir, written in diary form, is about his terrific 38-year marriage-of-opposites to Joan Washington (he the eternal adolescent, star-struck optimist and gifted actor, she a sharp-tongued, no-nonsense and equally gifted dialect coach)… Genuine and compelling. Had zero effect on her and drove him into a Rumpelstiltskin-stick-banging apoplexy, audible at the back of the stalls.