The Lady in the Case

IT IS TRUE TO SAY THAT Jeremy Brett could not have staggered through the last Sherlock Holmes series if he had not had the help of one special lady who had entered his life merely as a fan and gradually became a close friend and nurse. Linda Pritchard was this lady, a diminutive Londoner with fierce determination and a spirit of steel. She cared for and nursed Jeremy devotedly in the last few years of his life as his health slowly, but inexorably, deteriorated.

Paradoxically, their relationship began with Jeremy offering to help and support her. Linda's story of her involvement with Jeremy Brett is a moving one, and indicative of how the aristocratic, worldly-wise thespian always made himself available to others. He once said that, as a public figure, he felt it his responsibility to speak to the man in the bus queue and to be nice to the lady in the greengrocer's. His first contact with Linda Pritchard began in similar circumstances. She had seen him on television as Holmes and became fascinated by the man behind the performance. Her ambition to meet her hero was realised on 12 September 1988. At that time Linda was planning to run around Great Britain in an attempt to raise money for cancer research, and she had written to Jeremy asking for a signed photograph to take with her on the run. He was appearing in The Secret of Sherlock Holmes in Richmond at the time and invited her backstage. It was the start of a seemingly unlikely friendship.

Linda recalls this first meeting vividly:

'After handing me the signed photograph, we talked a long time about his career, my intended quest to raise money for cancer research and my need to help a worthy cause. Jeremy told me about the loss of his second wife, Joan Wilson Sullivan, to cancer on July 4th, 1985. He told me that he had never given up hoping: "there are success stories and there are miracles and one always thinks you're the one who is going to get away with it. Even right up to the very last minute there are cases of people who do. But what I think is extraordinary is that the human spirit is so strong, that one doesn't give up hope until the very end. The hardest tiling about being left behind is that you're left to pick up the pieces. You try and carry on as normally as possible, but very often it's not possible, so one has to give oneself a lot of space, a lot of sitting still and a lot of praying, to come to terms with all the resentment one sometimes feels. One experiences anger—anger that it should happen to the person you love so much. All this has to be released and let go—and that takes time. It isn't a comfortable journey. Some never get over it. I don't think one ever quite gets over it: one gets used to it. So be prepared to cry and let it all out. Don't be too brave. Bravery is a fine thing on some occasions, but sometimes it can be quite a dangerous thing. The stiff upper lip is not always the best."'

It is obvious that Jeremy was touched by this young woman's strong need to help those suffering from the disease which had brought an end to the life of his Joanie. There was within him always a strong streak of unselfishness, a keen desire to help others. In Linda and her quest, I believe he saw something clear and tangible into which he could channel this desire. Linda Pritchard's run, called 'Keep Hope Alive', began from Greenwich in south-east London on 12 April 1989. Jeremy Brett was there to see her off. In the intervening months since their first meeting, he had been an enormous help to Linda in setting up and supporting this venture: 'He gained publicity for me for a back-up driver and vehicle and he helped raise money for running shoes.'

Jeremy had recently won the title 'Pipe Smoker of the Year' and he donated his prize of £3000 to the run.

'The Keep Hope Alive' marathon was a gruelling and testing time for Linda.

'The 5000 mile run took over six months to complete. During the journey a number of inevitable problems occurred which tested my resolve to the limit. Injury, ill health to my back-up driver, atrocious weather conditions and a lack of accommodation to name but a few. However, Jeremy somehow always knew when I needed help and encouragement. It was like he had a telepathic link to my feelings. I will never forget when I was at my lowest ebb after completing 3000 miles and with hardly any money raised, he telephoned me and before I uttered one word about the problems I was having, he told me what I needed to hear: "Remember what you are doing is right. Sometimes our hopes and dreams do not go the way we planned, but we must never let despair overcome us. We have to try and we have to care. We must never give up when we still have something to give. Nothing is really over until the moment we stop trying. You will succeed in the end of that I am sure."'

This stirring speech worked. Linda resolved to carry on. And, as Jeremy predicted, the run turned out to be a great success, raising £50,000 for cancer research. What now? thought Linda. With the venture over, surely it would be time for her to slip back into the shadows of everyday life and leave Jeremy shimmering in the spotlight. She admitted to me that their two lives and backgrounds were worlds apart:

'But I need not have worried about losing contact with Jeremy. We continued to see each other, often meeting for a coffee at a small cafe called Tea Time in Clapham Common near to Jeremy's home. Some days we would be the first customers to arrive and the last to leave. We met at least once a week until late 1992 when I heard Jeremy was ill in hospital with manic depression. From that moment on our lives became entwined in a battle against his ill health.'

Before Linda met Jeremy Brett she had never even heard of manic depression, let alone understood the nature of the illness, but now she set out with determination on another marathon: not a running one this time, but a quest to learn as much as she could about manic depression—its symptoms and the signs of the disorder. She soon discovered there was a severe lack of understanding about the condition: 'Even Jeremy's General Practitioner at the time had the idea that anyone who suffered from manic depression brought it upon themselves and should simply, in the time-honoured admonition of the ignorant, pull themselves together!'

Sadly, Jeremy himself, while suffering from the curse of manic depression, also had little understanding of the illness. With Linda's help, a great deal of patience, and a new doctor, he learned more about the nature of the beast which, in Linda's words, 'allowed him the luxury of having less severe episodes'. One must remember that while all this was happening, Jeremy was still forced to put on a public face, for after all he was an actor, a public figure—public property. This in itself placed greater pressure on him.

During this period, Linda's relationship with her hero grew stronger, along with her respect for his courage:

'Caring for Jeremy made me realise the enormous effort it took a sufferer to recover from a manic depressive episode. One's self confidence is shattered and life is never quite the same again. Yet time and time again I saw Jeremy pick himself up and face the illness with more courage than anyone could possibly imagine. He was one of the bravest people I have ever met and I have met many brave people in my time. During my run around Great Britain, I visited cancer wards and hospices and encountered many cancer victims who faced the disease with incredible fortitude. At that time I felt I would never see courage like that again. But I was wrong. Jeremy battled through a cruel and devastating illness and when the illness became almost impossible to bear, he put out his hand and comforted those who suffered too. He was an inspiration to me and a beacon of light to other sufferers and I continually thank the workings of fate that brought us together.'

It was not only Linda who thanked fate for bringing her into Jeremy's life. Friends and the production team at Granada were thankful, too, that there was someone there for him, to minister to and care for this man crippled by two devastating illnesses, which attacked the twin essences of the body: the heart and the mind.

Linda remembers this period with warm feelings:

'Whenever Jeremy felt reasonably well, we would spend the evening together having dinner at one of the local restaurants in Clapham Common. Other evenings we would spend at home having a delicious meal cooked by Jeremy. I le loved cooking, pasta dishes being his forte. Watching television was another enjoyment of ours. We both enjoyed nature programmes and ^x sport. Jeremy's favourites were horse events, while I loved football. In Jeremy's case, one programme that took precedence above all others was opera. If there wasn't anything interesting on television, we would spend our time puzzling over crosswords. This was something I introduced into Jeremy's life when he was having difficulty coping with the rapid flow of ideas that pervaded his mind during a manic depressive episode. I surmised that if he could concentrate on one particular subject for a period of time, then the rapid flow of ideas would subside a little, helping him to cope with the illness more easily. As we found later, this proved to be the case.'

When Jeremy Brett collapsed at the end of filming 'The Dying Detective' in 1993 and ended up in Charters Nightingale Hospital, producer June Wyndham Davies faced the prospect of having to pull the plug on the whole series. She knew how ill her star was and how he needed full-time personal care to coax him back to the kind of health that would allow him to work again. Edward Hardwicke told me of a conversation he had with June around this time:

'We said, "God, who can we think of to go to that great big apartment in Clapham and live there and look after him?" I mean there was that roof garden. It's perilously high with some little railings. I thought one night Jeremy will go up there and be off the roof into the ether. So we cudgelled our brains as to who we could ask to take on this onerous task. But Linda, like an angel, was already in there doing the job—caring for Jeremy. And she made a particular speciality of learning absolutely everything there was to know about the medication. She read books about it so that when the doctors prescribed certain things she said no, no you can't give him that because he's taking this. She was remarkable in being around and being there for him.'

Linda Pritchard was caring for Jeremy Brett right up to the end. But we haven't quite reached the end yet.

Thirteen

Дата добавления: 2015-10-30