In the time we have been bereaved we were fortunate to have each other for support but we learnt that, for us anyway, that the best thing we would do is to be in contact with other people who had lost a child or someone to suicide for extra support. In our opinion talking about Darren and our feelings and listening to other people’s stories and also the hugs we received was the way through it. When Darren died in 1998 the internet was still in its infancy, you could’t do a search on Google. The vicar, Canon Dick Lewis, from our parish was going to do the funeral and on one of his visits to discuss the service he gave us two leaflets. He said to us that we might think we don't need them but he suggested that we put them away safely and when we felt we needed them they would be there. They were leaflets about two organisations that offered support after the death of a loved one, more specifically the loss of a child and also to suicide. One was about a self-help support group called The Compassionate Friends (TCF). This group supported those who had lost a child, grandchild or sibling, The other leaflet was for Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide (SOBS), they were similar to TCF but they supported any one who had lost someone to suicide be it a child, parent, sibling or even a friend.

 

TCF was formed in Coventry in 1969 when a young pastor, Simon Stephens, got two sets of parents whose sons had just died in the hospital to talk to each other. 50 years later the organisation is world-wide with various forms of support. SOBS were founded in 1991 by Alice Middleton MBE, who is now their founding patron. Following the death of her brother and finding little support available, she placed an advert in her local paper seeking to make contact with others who had been bereaved by suicide.  She started the first support group from her living room in Hull.

​

We did as Canon Lewis suggested and about two months later, Lynda said she needed to speak to someone about our loss. We got the leaflets out and I started trying to find a group near us and we reached someone from TCF who ran a group at North Finchley which is about 12 miles from where we live and they had a meeting that evening. So we went and we got so much from it that we kept going back. In fact they met twice a month and most months we were able to make both.

At that time SOBS were not very active near us but we went on a few things organised by other groups that were open to people from other areas.

​

After a few years we decided that a group of some sort would be useful to be held in Watford so we started a TCF group in Watford but as that progressed we realised that we also needed a support group for survivors of suicide and we started talking to various people we had met at other support meetings.  A lady from the Gloucester group of SOBS asked us to start it as a SOBS Group because it would be open to other people besides parents so we did.

​

One of Darren’s friends (Jimmy) parents were supporting us a lot as well but they were going to be emigrating to Australia, so they said you could always keep in touch by email. So I went and brought one of the early iMacs to enable us to do that. Whilst searching the web I came across the Compassionate Friends America page and they had a forum, “chatting” to them someone suggested I try a site called “A Thousand Deaths” which led me to a website “Parents Of Suicide” (POS) which is an international Internet community and e-mail support group for bereaved mothers and fathers whose sons or daughters took their own lives.

All communications are done by email so not face-to-face like the other support groups, but the real benefit of POS was the fact that no matter what time of day there was always a possibility that somebody would be on-line at the same time. Also writing things down is a good way to release some of the pent-up feelings and so emails were ideal. POS was formed by a lady named Karyl who lived in South Georgia, USA, and she had found other parents on the web. I was the first international member of a group which now has members all over the world, including Australia, Canada, Chile, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Japan, New Zealand and South Africa, as well as Scotland, Wales and of course England.

​

You can find contact details and what each organisation offers on the pages that are accessible by moving your cursor over the Support Groups button and a drop-down menu lists the different groups and you click on the one you would like to find out about.