- Surrey England
- Time – 1999 – 2002
- Name – Frances Grace Newley
Looking after Gracie
After Tony Newley passed away in April 1999, Sue and I would take his mother, Gracie, out every Saturday morning for her favourite meal and as a true cockney it had to be jellied eels for Gracie, although Sue and I never partook in this particular delicacy as we would enjoy our own personal favourite – pie and mash.
I had been going to one particular pie and mash shop, Cooke’s in The Cut, since the 1960s and I was well known to the owner.
It would usually close at 2pm on Saturdays but if we were running late, I would phone the owner and he would just say “knock on the window and I’ll open up for you”.
Once we were inside he would pull the shutters back down to stop anyone else coming in, we were very well looked after.
A tour around the East End
After our wonderful feast we would take a little tour of the East End, it was where Gracie grew up and she loved to see it.
Amazingly she would recollect certain street names and we would try and find them for her, it was a lot of fun.
On one occasion we took her to Victoria Park in Tower Hamlets, on the way there she asked us if the bandstand was still there, on arriving, much to her delight, we discovered it was.
Gracie began to reminisce about her father playing in the band on Sundays, back in 1913 when she was a young girl.
She had a vivid memory of the whole area from those early days, pretty amazing considering that she hadn’t visited it for some seventy years.
It was a true pleasure listening to Gracie’s memories, recounting her life and what a life she had led!
Did you know Orson?
During our conversations it became apparent that I knew several people Tony had known. People such as Frankie Vaughan, who I had worked with in the studio and we were good friend of the family. There was also Tommy Steele, who I didn’t really get on with. Gracie just assumed that I knew most of Tony’s friends.
She would always make us smile saying things like,
“Did you know Peter?”
“Peter?” I would reply.
“Peter… Peter Sellers.”
“No Gracie, but I would have loved to”
“He always came round when he had had women trouble, he always had women trouble… always.”
“How about Orson, Orson Welles?”
“No Gracie!”
“He was a lovely man, such a lovely man.”
When we returned to her home in Esher, we would always see her to her seat in her favourite room, it was full of Tony’s photos, awards, posters and a massive collection of memorabilia.
Gracie told us, she always sat there for the rest of the evening speaking to Tony, telling him all about her day out.
Christmas with Gracie
Every Christmas Day Gracie would have dinner with Tony’s ex-wife Joan Collins’s, the following day she would come and have lunch with us.
During her visit to us on Boxing Day 2001 she told us she had a meeting with a nice man, Garth Bardsely, who was writing a book about Tony.
I told her I had also made a small contribution to the book.
Grace went on to say.
“I told him everything you know, no good making stuff up, but when you read it, you won’t ever want to talk to me again.”
“Why not?” I asked.
“Well, I was a scarlet woman!” she replied.
Sue and I both roared with laughter and told her she really shouldn’t worry, whatever was in the book, it would make no difference to us.
During lunch, Gracie went on to tell us that Joan was getting married on the 17th February and although she had been invited, she really didn’t want to go.
She explained.
“As I’m on my own, I will just be sat in a corner somewhere with no one to talk to.”
Then Gracie surprised us all by asking if our son Nathan, who she absolutely adored, would be her chaperone.
Nathan accepted gracefully, forgive the pun.
A sad turn of events
On Saturday the 10th February, a week before the wedding, we took Gracie out as usual and she seemed her normal self.
The next day I phoned to see how she was but she sounded awful.
I asked if she would like Sue and me to come over.
Gracie said, “I’d love you to but I don’t wanna spoil your Sunday.”
“Gracie we will be over in 30 minutes.”
When we arrived we could tell she was not herself.
She asked Sue if she would make her favourite lunch, chicken stew, which she was only too pleased to do.
Gracie only managed to eat a small amount and then asked us to help her back to her armchair in Tony’s award room where we sat chatting with her until around 6 o’clock.
Gracie, then asked us to help her into her living room and said,
“You should be both heading home now, I’ll be fine, Annie will be here soon.”
Annie was Gracie carer, she came in first thing in the morning and then again in the evening to help her get ready for bed.
We phoned Annie to tell her Gracie was unwell and as we were leaving could she come over a bit earlier.
Unfortunately she couldn’t.
We decided to wait with Gracie until she arrived.
A short while later Gracie started to cough and rather alarmingly we noticed she was coughing up blood.
We were very concerned and immediately phoned Annie again. She said,
“She be fine, she’s been like this before, you just go and I will be there later.”
Over the next ten minutes Gracie was getting worse so we phoned for an ambulance and called Annie back to let her know.
The ambulance arrived and the crew attended to Gracie. They decided she should go to hospital so placed her on a stretcher and headed out to the ambulance.
Just as she was being put in to the ambulance, she held her hands out to Sue and me and said,
“Thank you both for everything I don’t think I will see you again.”
I said, “Don’t you be silly, you will and don’t forget you have a wedding to go to soon.”
Just then Annie arrived, shouting at the ambulance crew.
“Where are you taking her? Do you know she has private health insurance?”
One of the paramedics explained, “We will be taking her to Richmond Hospital, which is an NHS hospital.”
We went to visit Gracie at the hospital on the following Wednesday. She had know my mother was ill and despite her own predicament Gracie, sitting up in bed asked us as soon as we entered the room
“How’s your mum?”
“She’s fine Gracie, but how are you?” we asked
“I just wanna go home.” She replied.
We could see she was still weak and assured her they would let her go home as soon as they thought she was well enough.
Whilst we were there Tara Newley, Tony’s daughter with Joan, arrived. On seeing Gracie and hearing her wish to return home she asked us to help her get out of the hospital.
We suggested that she speak to the doctors and if they say it’s OK we would drive her home.
The request was denied by the hospital.
Tara then suggested we get her a wheelchair and just leave.
I explained, in the politest way, there is a reason they need to keep her here so we can’t go against professional advice.
Tara wasn’t happy but as she couldn’t do it by herself she really had no choice.
Tony’s partner Gina returned home a few days later from the USA to organise Gracie’s return home, complete with a full hospital bed and an IV drip on a stand.
We sent a huge bunch of flowers and Gina told us, because Gracie couldn’t speak she had explained to her that they were from us.
Everyone knew that these were Gracie’s last days and we were all hoping that she wouldn’t pass away before, or on the day of, Joan’s wedding.
Grace, passed away on the 19th, the day after the wedding.
RIP Frances Grace Newley – We were so proud to have known you
Gracie was buried at Long Ditton Cemetery Surrey a few weeks later.
A short time after the funeral Gina returned home in the USA.
A few months later she phoned us to ask if we would go to the home in Esher and collect all of Tony’s 16mmm and 8mm film cans as the house was being sold.
We stored the cans at our studio in Chiswick for several months, it seemed no one knew what to do with them.
With Gina’s blessing, I finally managed to contact the British Film Institute who were happy house this wealth of material.
We remained dear friends with Gina and saw her regularly when she returned to her home in the UK.
Gina, sadly passed away on the 25th May 2017 and was cremated in the Kingston Crematorium, her ashes were returned to the USA to take her place alongside her true love, Tony Newley.
Gina, like Grace never got over losing Tony, her heart was broken when he died and remained in pieces until the day she passed away.
With Gina”s passing, this would be the end of an era, of wonderful friendships, with Tony, Grace and Gina, years filled of good times and fun.
We miss them all dearly.
Below is a link to my YouTube channel Denton115 Keeping the Memory Alive.
https://www.youtube.com/user/denton115/videos?app=desktop
Below link to various blogs
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