Lin Cook, who died before Christmas, personified that odd breed: the celebrity widow

Amid the flurry of famous deaths during 2016, one particular passing has been more or less forgotten. Peter Cook’s third and final wife, Lin Cook, died on the eve of Advent, at the age of 71, shortly after the BBC broadcast Victor Lewis-Smith’s new documentary about Peter, for which Lin gave a rare interview. I got to know Lin in the Noughties, while compiling two biographical collections of her late husband’s work. It was an intriguing insight into the world of that strange showbiz phenomenon, the celebrity widow. Celebrity widows are a paradox – ostensibly public people, they’re actually intensely private. Lin personified this odd breed. Although I was in touch with her for over 15 years, when she died I realised I barely knew her at all.

I first met Lin in 2000, when I was invited to her home in Perrins Walk, a cobbled mews off Hampstead High Street where Peter had lived until his death, in 1995, aged 58.