Five days after Joan Washington, Richard E Grant’s wife of 35 years, died from lung cancer in September 2021, he got a phone call from a number he didn’t recognise. Grant and his daughter Olivia, then 32, were driving around, dealing with what he describes in his new memoir as “the bureaucracy of death”: filling out government forms, picking up hymn sheets for the funeral – all the banalities that come rushing at you when you’ve just lost the love of your life. Then the number flashed up. Olivia advised him not to answer, as it was probably a cold-caller. But Grant replied that it might be to do with the death certificate.
“Hi, it’s Elton,” said the caller.
