Much-loved actor Sheila Hancock on childhood memories of shrimps and winkles, climbing mountains in her 80s, and the power of finding joy in small things
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Mumand dad worked in pubs when I was a young girl. They didn’t own them; they worked for the brewery, so we moved around a bit. One of them was on King’s Cross Road in London, and I went there recently and it is still a working-class pub, which is quite something; it hasn’t become a wine bar or a coffee shop.
It was very conventional for its time – there was a public bar, a saloon and, at the back, a little room called ‘the ladies bar’. I wasn’t allowed in any of them as a child, but outside the pub on Sundays the Salvation Army band came to play. They were lovely and used to come in and collect from the customers, and I used to bang a cymbal with them.
There was also a seafood barrow that arrived – we would get a pint of winkles, a pint of shrimps, and mussels. That was our Sunday tea, with a slice of bread. My sister and I wore our best frocks, made by my mum, and matching aprons so we didn’t get winkle juice down them. It is such a happy association – the smell of the winkles, the sound of the band. A full sensual experience.
You had to get the winkles out with a pin, and there was always a competition to see who got the longest winkle, including the tail. There was a technique of turning your hand… I could still do it now. You also had to peel the shrimps. It was something we all did together. Mum and Dad worked all the hours God sent, and when the pub wasn’t open for a brief while, well, that was our time.
I didn’t think about it at the time, but if I look back we were poverty-stricken really. We lived in a very working-class area and we used to play in the streets.
Opposite was a police station. We all knew the local coppers and if there was any trouble in the pub, they’d come over and say: ‘That’s enough of that!’ They had horses and we’d go and see them, and play in the police yard. It was very much a community place.
My parents worked all their lives and died at 70 of hard work, and here am I at 89. They ta
