Meet your cover star
She’s one of our most popular TV actors, yet away from our screens has battled some of the darkest of times. Here, Jill Halfpenny talks to Lara Kilner about loss, love and why she’d like to appear in a period drama
Jill Halfpenny first came into our living rooms when she landed a part in Byker Grove, the iconic kid’s TV drama that also launched the careers of a couple of other Geordie teenagers by the names of Ant McPartlin and Declan Donnelly. And it’s fair to say she hasn’t stopped working since – from Coronation Street to EastEnders, Waterloo Road to Kay Mellor’s In The Club. More recently she’s starred in the acclaimed drama The Long Shadow and Channel 5’s The Cuckoo.
The 48-year-old actor also won Strictly in its infancy (two decades ago, no less) and has starred in numerous theatre productions, so it’s safe to say that she is a familiar face on our TV screens.
What is less well-known about Jill, though, is the devastation she has been dealing with behind closed doors. In 2017, her partner Matt died suddenly. One morning he went to the gym and never came home, suffering a fatal heart attack in shockingly similar circumstances to Jill’s father, who she lost at the tender age of four, when he went off to play football and also never came home.
Now, seven years later, Jill, who has a 16-year-old son Harvey with her ex-husband Craig Conway, has found love with a new partner, Ian, and written a raw, honest book about her grief and how she learned to deal with it – and not just put one foot in front of the other, but go on to thrive again in her personal and professional lives.
SHARING HER GRIEF
When I decided to write my book about grief, I knew it wouldn’t be a masterpiece, but I also knew how important it was that the words came from me. I’ve read so many amazing books but they’re often written by professionals. The advice is great, but have they lived it? When I was going through grief, I really wanted to hear from other people experiencing it.
There’s this notion that grief shouldn’t be talked about because it will be upsetting. But I need to talk about it; I want Matt in the room with me. I want to keep him alive in my mind.
Sometimes I thought, ‘Why am I doing this?’ Writing about the day Matt died was so hard. I lived it, but now I’m observing it. I think that’s cathartic. I’m watching myself go through that stuff. It’s important for me to remember that’s where I was at, and remind myself how far I’ve come.
There was a sense of feeling cursed when Matt died after what happened to my dad.
Like, how can that happen twice? That drove me to therapy to investigate those feelings because I thought, ‘I’m not going to live alongside that narrative.�
