Sheila Hancock believed she 'didn't deserve' her Damehood

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Roman Kemp and Alex Jones welcomed Dame Sheila onto Thursday’s The One Show to discuss the release of her new book, Old Rage. In it, the former Doctor Who star has compiled diary cuttings and reflected on her decades in the world of showbiz – and even touched upon receiving a damehood from Prince William in 2021 after landing a spot on the Queen’s honours list.

However, in doing so, Dame Sheila claimed the Queen must’ve felt “embarrassed” about including her in the honours, as well as teasing she was already in a “bad mood” thanks to the prime minister, Boris Johnson.

Alex kicked off the discussion as she said of Old Rage: “Now, you talk about the day you found out that you were up for a damehood, and you talk about feeling, you know, the imposter syndrome. 

“Is it something that you’ve always suffered with?” Alex asked to which Dame Sheila replied: “Yes I think I have. 

“I mean, I’m a working-class girl, and in my day you were considered a bit above yourself if you talked out of turn and little girls should be seen and not heard and all that.

“And then after the war and being bombed and being evacuated and a lot of bullying went on so I became very fearful. 

“And I think the rest of my life I’ve been pretty fearful,” she candidly admitted.

However, that changed when she received the letter from the Queen, as Sheila described: “But when I got this thing…

“I mean the opening statement – Lenny [Henry] will know about this – it says something along the lines of, ‘We are minded to ask the Queen if she would give you a dame hood’ or whatever the words are, and, ‘Are you interested?’ kind of thing.”

Sheila Hancock says she used a 'Thatcher voice' on Doctor Who

Still refusing to believe it was true at the time, the actor went on: “And I thought, I know what’s gonna happen, they’re gonna go to the Queen and she’s gonna say, ‘You’re kidding with that! Seriously, what about that awful film… the sort of, Carry On Cleo and all that’… It [Sheila’s work] all seemed so inadequate. 

“I just thought it was embarrassing for her,” Dame Sheila added before teasing that Her Majesty was already displeased with Mr Johnson’s running of the country at the time.

“She’d just been asked to baroque parliament as well by our lovely prime minister,” she went on. “So she wasn’t in a good mood about being told to do things. 

“So it set me off on kind of a thing about looking at whether I did deserve it…

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“And quite honestly the conclusion was that I didn’t and I was sort of embarrassed by it.”

Despite fearing the Queen wasn’t pleased with handing her the honour as well as her own feelings of “inadequacy”, Sheila admitted the day was brilliant.

In fact, she even detailed a slight mishap that occurred with Prince William when he handed her the honour.

“When the actual day happened and I went with one of my grandchildren, it was a lovely day,” Sheila recalled.

“It was after the lockdown had happened and it was their first time doing the ceremony again and it was Prince William,

“He was having a bit of trouble with the hook and I said, ‘Shall I do it for you?’ 

“And he said, ‘No, no, I haven’t done it for two years,’ and he was really nervous so it made me less nervous,” she concluded as she shared a laugh with her fellow The One Show guests.

The One Show airs weekdays at 7pm on BBC One.

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