When I worked in Bertram Mills Circus, I would nightly watch the trapeze artists performing in the roof of Olympia without a safety net. There was one manoeuvre in which a woman was swinging while holding the hands of a colleague, who was hanging by his knees from a trapeze. After two swings, she had to let go of his hands and somersault through the air to hopefully be caught by another man, hanging by his ankles, on another trapeze, a chasm away. Had I been up there, I would have clung on, whimpering, to the strong hands holding me, but every night she let go, and flew through the air. Oh, the courage of that letting go.
There has been a lot of reluctant letting go recently in the public sphere and in my own life. We held our breath while the leader of the western world clung to his office, despite the grip on his mental agility visibly weakening. Eventually, he ran out of people prepared to catch him, so he has been forced to let go and watch the dangerous, high-wire act of American politics from the sidelines.
Andy Murray tried to cling to the remnants of a dazzling career, despite injuries that would have had some people in a wheelchair. His mother watched, ashen-faced, as he played his last match at Wimbledon. She knew the pain he was in. Not just physical pain, but the acceptance of letting go of his winner’s identity, and the companionship, the adulation, the discipline, the triumphs of his all-consuming sporting life.
I have played the radio game Just a Minute for more than 50 years. Many times, I have managed to win the competition to talk for a minute without hesitation, deviation or repetition, but my 91-year-old brain is surely not as agile as it was, so I’m nervous of putting it to the test. Being tentative is disastrous in trapeze acrobatics, as it is in adapting to the vicissitudes of life.
Looking back, my life has been a continual challenge to let go in a timely and effective fashion and move on to pastures new. Acting parts have gone from Juvenile to Leading to Character—in my latest television performance, I played a 100-year-old woman. I recently turned down an offer of a tour of a big musical, as well as a lovely play in a fringe theatre. I could just about manage them physically and mentally, but do I really want to spend some of the limited time I have left doing weekly train calls, staying in awful digs, sharing a pokey dressing room with variously gendered, overexcited actors and hungry mice? All of which I would have loved a few years ago. Not anymore. But how I hate admitting that.
The best cure for the pain of letting go is to embrace change. Last week, I did an event at the Ryedale music festival, appearing with the Carducci String Quartet, discussing my passion for the music that I had chosen for them to play. It was one of the happiest performances of my life. I am also writing this as part of the lovely Prospect family. A whole new career! And one with less fear and pressure. When I was young, I felt I had to prove myself worthy, to get five stars. My goals are lower these days. “Good enough”—or, as my husband used to say, “got away with it”—is sufficient for me now.
So, with less work, what do I do now?
I no longer enjoy travel. Having to ask for help to put my case in the locker; being knocked flying by people wearing huge backpacks; a two-hour wait, standing in a queue, when the passport e-gates break down—I can’t cope with all that. So I will let overseas travel go, and concentrate on the UK.
One thing I dread letting go of is my car. I recently took a test with the Institute of Advanced Motorists, in case I was not as proficient as I thought. Thank God, I passed with flying colours, but I will keep an eye on it. If ever I become a danger on the road, as some old folk are supposed to be—despite the fact that we have far fewer accidents than the young—I’ll stop. I am already sussing out the brand of the luxury mechanical wheelchair in which a man on the footpath by my house terrorises dogs and runners. He drives hell for leather, with no apparent regard for a speed limit. I will always have to have wheels of some sort.
The biggest wrench in my life was letting go of my home in rural France. I will not pretend that there is not still a gaping wound from the severance of my way of life there. Though I may no longer be surrounded by lavender fields, cherry blossoms and sunflowers, I have created a little garden on my London rooftop with a riot of English cornflowers, daisies, poppies and roses. I have allowed myself one fragrant lavender bush. À la recherche du temps perdu.
