So you found help and support through Winston’s Wish for the family.

Yes.

Individual counselling for yourself.

Yes through CHUMS for the family as well which was brilliant.

Yes. What happened at CHUMS?

The counsellor, wonderful man came and saw the children on an individual basis. Well he saw the older two children on an individual basis.

At home?

At home, and I can’t speak highly enough of this group in Bedfordshire. After they’d been seen on their own we then went to some family sessions where the little one came as well. There were several Saturdays where the children would talk about their feelings and lots of play therapy as well.

What happens in play therapy?

This was before we went to Winston’s Wish, and gave them an idea of throwing clay around, shouting, running and exploring their difficult feelings, making first aid kits and first aid kit would be, it was an elephant and they’d stick plasters on it and on the plaster would be written the things that would help the children like talking to mum, talking to a friend, playing, letting balloons go with; we’d write things on cards and tie them to the balloons and we’d let the balloons go. Making wonderful memory jars; I can show you my memory jar that I made.

Can you just say a little bit more about what you did when you went to the, was it a meeting of people at CHUMS?

Yes it was people who had been bereaved. It wasn’t necessarily bereaved by suicide. It was for people who’d lost, children who had lost grandparents who had been close to them. Children who’d lost a sibling and children who’d lost parents. And one of the things that they do at CHUMS that they do at Winston’s Wish as well and I think lots of other people, places do it is, you’re given a jar and you’re given some salt which you then divide up into piles and then you colour the salt with chalks, normal chalks that you just buy in an art shop, and each colour represents something to do with the person and then you put the salt back into the jar.

It’s beautiful. I didn’t know you could colour salt.

No. And then you get a label and you write on the label what each colour represents, so for us green for love of nature and where we live, pink is for Suffolk, it’s pink cottages and our annual holiday is in Southwold, yellow was for the Tour de France because the winner always wears a yellow jersey and your love of cycling, blue is for the sky and sea of the South of France especially Ceret, and purple is for our lavender hedges at the addresses we’ve lived at.

That’s lovely. Does each child make one or did you do it as a family?

No each child has done one as well.

And they put their own memories?

Yes, yeah.