And you yourself, where did you find support at that time?

[pause]…I spent a fair amount of time talking with one or two close friends that I’ve got, but I think generally I went less that some other family members for external support. Whether it’s a male female thing, or me as an individual, I don’t know,but I think I found it in retrospect, very helpful to feel that there were other family members who also needed a certain amount of support, and that provided a way forward in a certain, a role as it were in what is obviously a difficult period. And there were certainly periods when I found that I wanted to not be too overt about my own emotions, because of the feeling that other people needed support. I have a lot of family background in Africa where I was brought up, and having seen a lot of people in Africa whove been bereaved, whove lost children; that it’s a very normal thing for many people unfortunately, I think I’ve always been struck by the extent to which family members are able to deal with that. And to provide mutual support, so I suppose for me that was more of a feature of my coming to terms with what had happened than seeking external support, I suppose I’m just basically more private about it perhaps than some of the others.

And in the hospital or afterwards, would you have, you or your husband, would you have liked to talk to family members who had been through something similar or a counsellor or someone from the hospital, or not from the hospital?

No, me personally not, no I think my husband, he’s more of a private person and would talk to somebody that he really knew rather than a complete stranger he’s not so good on sort of complete strangers. We were offered every single bit of help and to come back and talk to anybody that we need. The offer was there, there was an awful lot of support if we needed it. But I didn’t feel the need to talk to a complete stranger. I knew that I had my friends.

Has your husband been able to cope as well, like in the ways you’ve been thinking?

No, because he doesn’t open up and talk. I make him sometimes. We sit down at the table and have a meal, and I try to remember the things that we’ve done with our son and I look across the table and there’s just tears streaming down his face. As I say, we are all different but he does give much more concern so I can’t, by being stronger, it’s the way I’ve got through it because I’ve got a purpose. I’ve got a purpose for looking out for him and trying to take care of him. And I know I can call on anybody, any of my friends and family, I can have a real good moan to a girl friend and they’ll listen to me and then we can go out and have a cup of coffee and talk about you know other things. But my husband hasn’t really got that soulmate and that’s what I think is very important, really important that you’ve got somebody to talk to. He has spoken to a friend of ours who does a little bit of counselling. She’s not terribly qualified but she’s just one of these natural people that has a flair for situations like this. And he finds comfort in her and he will start talking but not for very long, not for very long.

You said you went back to work, how did work colleagues handle this, did they know what had happened?

Yes, oh well yes, I’ve already said that one work colleague told me actually what had happened in detail because he’d been listening to the police radios. Yes the colleagues were very good, the colleagues yes, were very good yes. When I say that they were supportive I suppose. They were willing to talk about it, well some of them were, not the youngsters, we had, I was working with the youngsters and older people. It was generally the older people who would talk about it not the youngsters, they, they, they were not willing to talk about it.

Mm.

Although in fact we were, I’d probably told them, I did find I was telling people what had happened, and whether they liked it or not.

Mm.

And then one saw their responses, so people yes the work people were good, but work was, work was good, I’m, I’m fortunate in that I enjoy the work I do, did, and I think that that was, very, I was very lucky to that extent, and probably that’s why it was much harder for Jane who was not, who although she was in fact, again, well yes she had her horses, and I think her horses helped her too, as occupations somehow, other occupational therapy.

Did you seek support anywhere else?

I didn’t no.

You didn’t have any formal counselling?

No, I had no formal counselling; probably you know I’m a bit reluctant and a bit cynical about counselling.

Well life after suicide, I began to write a book, Life after Suicide. A mother’s inner cry. And the days of going to work, ah, they were hell. I couldn’t eat, I couldn’t live on my own, I couldn’t sleep on my own, I became a chronic fear, I became ill, my whole life came to an end, I couldn’t go out on my own, my friends from church who I call my adopted parents they, they took me in and, I slept with her in the bed [crying], at night, it’s all right, I slept with her and she comforted me and

This is a friend from church?

Yeah, and the church, I’m a Christian and the church helped me, I lived with them for a while, I couldn’t live on my own, and I began to write because the counsellor in my work place she encouraged me to write and when she was leaving, so I had to go to work every day, so I lived with them and they would look after me in the morning and push me out the house, and it was really good because it meant, they, they, they really did that to, to, to get me to continue with my life.

Was there any opportunity to meet with other people whod been bereaved, or didn’t you look into that?

I didn’t look into that actually, no. As I said, I knew lots of other people who knew the person who killed himself, and talking to them about it was a great, was a large part I think of what helped me. Partly because they knew him so we could actually discuss, you know, the actual details of what happened and our memories of him and, you know, like shared, we had a shared history and re-living that was obviously quite a meaningful thing. But also, seeing how other people were reacting was also, was a useful thing as well. I think, as I’ve said, you know, I just felt generally happier when I was with other people than not, and I think that was not, that also was the case when I was with other people who had been bereaved by my friends suicide. Some of whom, you know, were taking it possibly even harder than I was, and in some ways talking to them and feeling that, you know, I was perhaps the stronger one of us was also quite an affirming experience too.

So you felt you were helping them?

Yes. And that was if felt that, I don’t know, I guess that’s almost like a normal thing in life to do, perhaps that was a, a bit of normality that, you know that was something that brought a bit of almost normality back into my life again as well.