Vera and Shetland writer Ann Cleeves has revealed the five words her daughter told her after her husband of 40 years died suddenly of a heart attack. The novelist, who worked on the TV adaptation of Vera alongside Brenda Blethyn, was married to her husband Tim for four decades and was left stunned when he passed away.
A sudden loss after 40 years
Ann and Tim, a famed ornithologist, met in the 1970s on Fair Isle, where Ann was working as a cook at the Bird Observatory. She recalled in an interview with the Sydney Morning Herald: "Part of my job at the hostel was to show people to their rooms. I'd noticed he had a bottle of malt whisky tucked into his rucksack, so I thought he'd be worth getting to know."
Tim proposed to her on that same island, and the pair went on to raise two daughters together, Sarah and Ruth. It was one of Ann's daughters who helped her through the period of grief.
Words of comfort
In a new interview with Saga Magazine, Ann admitted: "After 40 years of marriage, Tim died very suddenly at the end of 2017 from a heart attack, and I just wanted to run away from Northumberland, where we lived.
"I needed a break from the sympathy. My daughter, who was a midwife, said grief is like the waves of labour pain. It comes, it eases, and then it comes back. You have to ride it just as you ride labour pain."
A lasting legacy
Ann described Tim as "charismatic, exciting and full of adventure". In her Sydney Morning Herald interview, she revealed the lasting gift her husband left to her.
"I suppose what he left me were his friends – in particular, Martin and Paul, a gay couple with whom we'd gone on holiday. They were the ones who scooped me up after he died, and they still look out for me. That was Tim's legacy, the wonderful friendships he'd made."
Final days of Vera
Ann also revealed to Saga that there were "lots of tears" on the final day of filming Vera, as she headed on set with her friend Brenda Blethyn. She said: "Brenda and I have been friends from the start and I still see her. She joined me at a writing festival this summer and we had a great time.
"She's very generous and will sign books with me, which means I get a lot more people because everybody wants Brenda's signature."
She confessed: "I'm writing the last Vera book, but I'm not saying anything more about it, you'll have to wait. I don't think it will be televised: Brenda decided she had finished – she was in almost every scene with such long days. I think she made the right decision at the time.
"If this last book was televised, would she be talked back into appearing? I think she would certainly do a one-off Christmas special or something, which would be fabulous. She would love to do it, but the studio is being dismantled now, so it would be far too expensive."
