Jill Halfpenny on Byker Grove, Her New Memoir and Dealing with Grief

Jill’s memoir centres on two tragic losses in her life. When she was four, her dad had a heart attack at a game of five-a-side, and in 2017 her partner Matt suffered a cardiac arrest at a gym class. A Life Reimagined is Jill’s story of hope reflecting on her grief for them both. Emotionally and honestly, she offers advice based on what she’s learned from her own experiences. 

Jill has never shared her own story in this way, and whilst she’s had the idea in her head for a while it was only when her agent suggested writing that she decided now was the right time. ‘I always take those [situations] as a good sign that you’re on the right path when there don’t seem to be any hurdles in your way,’ Jill explains. ‘Sometimes when I’m doing things in life and it feels like there’s one hurdle in front of another, I think either it’s just been challenging or it’s not quite the right time to do it’. When asked how she feels now her memoir is published, she laughs: ‘horribly vulnerable!’.

The best advice Jill was given is the advice she now shares with others. ‘I know this might be scary for people but in order to heal you have to feel,’ she says. ‘You cannot manage it in the way that you might manage your life, you can’t control it or structure it, you’ve got to invite it in, feel it, and then find the tools that work for you to be able to cope with it. Just don’t run away from it. It will get bigger, it will get louder and it will get scarier, or it will turn into something else.’

Jill says she ‘devoured’ any grief book she could get her hands on, and recommends a few in A Life Reimagined. ‘There are amazing grief books out there – really brilliant – and the only thing I had thought was that I never got to read a book about grief from somebody who wasn’t a professional but who was also giving advice about maybe what they’d done,’ she says. ‘There were plenty of people telling their story but I just wondered whether there was a little space for this book to be in that area of one person who’s grieving to another: this is what happened, these are some things I did and this is where I’m at now. It’s a very, very simple structure.

‘I think I’m always interested in people’s stories. That then helps me understand the person. I just knew that in order to say what I’d done that had helped me I was going to also have to tell a little part of my story. I certainly never set out to write an autobiography in any way, but I think you have to give context in order for people to understand where I got to and where I’m at.’

Jill’s book shares fond memories from her time on Strictly (which she says she ‘adored’ from start to finish), as well as Eastenders and Coronation Street, but her career started out on Byker Grove here in the North East – a clear highlight for Jill, having wished for a ‘Geordie Grange Hill’ from a young age. We’re surprised to hear the runner on her first day was Si King (before his Hairy Biker days). ‘I’d never been on a set before. I’d never been in front of a camera before and every single part of that job was new to me,’ Jill says. ‘It’s not very often in anyone’s life that you remember the newness of everything. Even when you get a new job you might still be in an office, you might still have a manager.’ Jill says every day on set was a learning curve. ‘I remember on the first day – I can’t remember exactly where I was but I’m going to say somewhere in possibly the Benwell area – we were filming outside a corner shop. I remember this big camera pointing at me (because in those days the cameras were much bigger than they are now) and a boom operator with a big stick and a microphone hanging over me. I honestly remember thinking this feels really comfortable. I mean, why would that feel comfortable? But I remember that thought: I like it here. I couldn’t have asked for better training as far as camera work is concerned to do four seasons of Byker Grove. I just loved it.’ Sadly, Jill remains just as in the dark as us about its return to screens. 

Jill’s now settled back in the North East by the sea with her son Harvey. ‘I don’t know what it is for me and water, but I know it’s the same for a lot of people. It’s very relaxing and genuinely calms my nervous system,’ she says. ‘There’s something about it that just takes me to a place of groundedness. I can quite easily live in my head quite quickly and if I get worried or stressed about something it all goes up here, but the water grounds me. That’s my favourite part about being here. Obviously I love the open space, the people, the coffee shops and being near to my family, but the water is one of the big things that drew me back.’

Jill accepts that she doesn’t know what’ll happen in the next five minutes, let alone the next five years. ‘With that, I think, comes a sense of freedom,’ she tells us, simply striving to enjoy where she’s at in the moment. ‘It’s so easy for me, especially in my industry, to judge myself. Am I good enough? Have I worked enough this year? There aren’t many people with a job like this where you’d sit and be able to compare yourself – compare and despair as they say – that much.’ Now, through trial and error, therapy, recovery and connecting with others, she’s in a much more peaceful place. ‘Hopefully I’m on the journey to just being a bit more me,’ she concludes. 

A Life Reimagined by Jill Halfpenny, published by Macmillan, is on sale now.