Did you ever seek any specialist sort of counselling for your daughter?

Yeah, yeah. Well I, I got in touch with; my doctor was very good actually. He came over the day it happened, which kind of surprised me a bit. And he made a referral for emergency counselling for me and he gave me a phone number of the bereavement unit at the local hospital, which is apparently ground breaking, very, very good childhood bereavement. And I phoned them and asked them about breaking the news to her [my daughter] and about the funeral and obviously lots of other things. And their advice was for her to choose. So I showed her a clip from, I showed her the speech from ‘Four Weddings and a Funeral’, the funeral speech and I showed her a clip from Inspector Morse of all things because I couldn’t find clips of burials and there was one. So that she had just a general idea of what happens at funerals and burials. But she didn’t want to go so that was that. And then do you know, at least in the future I could, she always knows that she was given the choice and it was her choice.

That was an imaginative way of trying to explain what was going to happen.

I couldn’t think how to explain it otherwise. You know and we live in the age of the image don’t we so.

So did the hospital, this special bereavement unit arrange individual counselling for her?

They had, they did but it’s been a bit unfortunate that the counsellor’s father died not long ago so that it’s been a bit sporadic. And they couldn’t, they didn’t have funding to see people below the age of seven. Basically they had to have a cut-off point. They obviously don’t start at zero. Wouldn’t start, couldn’t. But the, the reasoning for choosing seven as the cut-off point is that children apparently don’t really understand death before that age (…).

They didn’t see her when she was five then?

No. They, they spoke to me and they gave me lots of very, very helpful advice but no they didn’t, they couldn’t. They didn’t have the funding for it. However when she was about seven and a half, which is obviously not that long ago, she started having bad dreams and crying in the night and stuff. So I phoned them up again and said, ‘Look this has happened’. They said, “Well, we’ll see her now”. And that was it.

And they arranged it quite quickly and we had about monthly sessions with a very nice lady who did memory boxes and there were various other things that they do. I mean I don’t, I wasn’t in on the sessions at all. So I don’t know exactly but [my daughter] appreciated, certainly appreciated it. She always wanted to go. And then as I say, the therapist’s father died and there was a big gap and then she came back and saw my daughter for one session and said after that she was leaving.

That’s a shame.

And so they’re looking for a replacement and I suppose a replacement will contact us.
You said that they gave you useful advice. Can you remember any of that useful advice?
I must be honest with them [the children], straight with them. Don’t hide things. Show your emotions… and let them cry and don’t be surprised if they don’t cry. Apparently they, they kind of pick up and drop grieving in a way that adults can’t. They did say a little bit about, you know you can read books sometimes with the children that will help. There’s one ‘The Sad Book’ by Michael Rosen which is supposed to be particularly good. Personally I didn’t really. I mean I offered [my daughter] to read them. She didn’t really want to so I wasn’t going to push it. Don’t push them. Don’t push them to do things they don’t want. Don’t take them to counselling if they don’t want. Take them to counselling if they do want. You know. Let them find their own way through it basically and give them choices where there are choices to be made rather than making them for them.