Tag: life

You can depend on me

Various photos taken across the Doin’ Fine Encore Tour

It’s been a year since my last blog about my Jason Donovan escapades. But 1 June is his birthday (and also Tom Holland’s before my daughter rolls her eyes at me for not mentioning). And while 2026 wasn’t quite as excessive as the Doin’ Fine 2025 Tour, this tour was just as special. Although it did highlight more than ever the North-South divide between the Posh Southerner and Northern Nutter.

We’ll start in February in Watford. Just over a year since the tour started in 2025 when we learnt just what a fab setlist it was. Although at the time we had no real inkling of just how much fun we were going to have over the following seven weeks. But back to 2026. Who knew that trying to get a Northerner out from Central London to Watford would be so tricky?! And before anyone tells me off for stereotyping or generalising, I’m really not. It’s just so blinking hilarious how different the two of us are. She moans about the tubes, the rudeness of Southerners, the constant rushing about of people in London and how hot and loud it is (we’ll come back to the pigeons later!)

But eventually she made it. And I went and collected her from the station. I’m good like that. But after we checked into the hotel and then sat down over a drink before heading out, I stopped. For the first time in months. I looked at her and said, “this is the first time I’ve stopped since Christmas.” To which she responded, “I thought you were going to say since 6am!” And this is the gift that being a Jason fan has given me this year. The gift of time. The gift of stopping.

You see from December onwards, life had been pretty full on. My daughter had sustained a knee injury (not great when you’re a performer), my nan’s house had been sold in mid-January and as a family we’d been having to empty the house to get it ready for sale, including multiple tip runs every weekend, I’d been having challenges regarding Nan’s care, I’d been working full time and all the usual aspects of being a widow and solo parent. At the end of January, life had been so overwhelming that I’d literally broken down in tears at work and needed to recalibrate. Just the week before the Jason concert in Watford plans had the potential to be thrown into disarray due to my daughter’s knee. So, even getting to Watford had felt like an achievement.

But as we sat there over a Bottomless Brunch at dinnertime (seriously, how can it be called a brunch in the evening?!) I stopped. I just relaxed. For the first time in nearly two months. We put the world to rights. We had random conversations. We had our standard photobooth photos. We had fun. And all this was ahead of the main man the following day.

Again, the following day, I relaxed. I sat in PJs for most of the morning and didn’t have to rush around. It’s a privilege that doesn’t happen often when you’re a solo parent. After I’d spent a lot of the day stressing and overthinking what I was going to wear, we then headed off for our Meet and Great ahead of our first night on Doin’ Fine 26 Encore Tour. We got there a little bit too early (another North-South divide) but somehow this meant we ended up first in the queue for the Meet and Greet. Seven-year-old me would be so excited at going in to meet Jason and hearing his tour manager say, “you obviously know Vicky and Emma.” Imagine that. Nearly forty years after decreeing I was going to marry him, this was how I was introduced. It was as fun as ever. He didn’t have his glasses so had to borrow Vicky’s. He jabbered on too much to get a sensible, smiley photo and then signed my memories of 2025. Whoever said don’t meet your idols definitely lied. That night Jason wore glasses that recorded footage of what he was seeing… and just a few days later that footage was live. For anyone who had ever wondered what a Posh Southerner and Northern Nutter look like at a Jason concert, now they could find out. My child said I looked special; I didn’t believe that this was a compliment. But what this video showed was me dancing and having fun like it was 1988. Relaxed, carefree Emma. Not juggling widow and solo parent Emma. Jason sings ‘You Can Depend On Me’ and I really can. I can depend on him to to make me forget about all my worries and stresses for an evening.

Just two weeks later, we did it all again. In Skegness. The intervening period had been standard for me. Tip runs, physio appointments for my daughter, working, juggling life and everything in-between. And we were now also in March. One of the two months of the year I find most difficult. And this year was proving just that tad more difficult. Because six years after a death means that everything falls on the same day it does when the death happens. In 2026, everything was hitting on the same days as in 2020. Plus my birthday at the end of March was one I felt that I was rapidly heading towards and didn’t want to happen. Because then I would turn the age my late husband was when he died.

As in 2025, being able to be seven years old and relieve memories of a time when I didn’t have a care in the world was so well timed. Skegness saw a spoon of truth, a visit to the Seal Sanctuary, relaxing in a hot tub, putting the world to rights and finding snacks that even spelt Jason Donovan! But as the two of us got ready for our Meet and Greet, I just couldn’t help but feel how lucky I was. My sister had once again travelled with me. My Northern Nutter and my adopted Mummy were there. The latter are only people in my life because of Jason.

Unlike Watford, we were the penultimate people to go into the Meet and Greet. Again, seven-year-old me had to pinch herself at getting this opportunity. I honestly do struggle to believe it at times. The banter, the chat, the selfies. It’s what I could only dream of in the 1980s. I know people think we’re mad. I know people question why we do it. And I guess we probably are on a level when it comes to Jason. But we all have our vices don’t we?!

And just a few days later, we had the final night on this tour. But this one was that little bit more special. Because this was the first time that my daughter had come with me to a Jason gig. Yes she’s done musicals before not never a gig. Although she made no attempt to hide the fact that she was only coming because my sister and the Northern Nutter were coming too. Once again, the North-South divide was evident. I had to travel across London to rescue said Northener from the pigeon that attacked her. Who knew they were so scary?! But unlike the previous two dates, I didn’t really switch off to begin with as I needed to make sure my daughter was sorted to get to us. And of course, life doesn’t go to plan. The train was running late, and then they changed the route so that she couldn’t get off at the station she needed to. Cue a rescue mission from my sister which meant that only then could I finally relax into my evening. As we went into the venue, I knew that any shred of credibility I might have built up over the years was about to disappear. In a flash. Because I knew that once my daughter saw me at a Jason concert, her opinion of me would no doubt change forever.

Yet for once in my life, I didn’t let my overthinking stop me being me. I danced as I usually do. Because I wanted to give her a little indication of me when I stop worrying about the world for a few hours and enjoy myself. I didn’t stop being me for fear of embarrassing her. I just knew I’d deal with the consequences. And she was as brutal as her father would have been had he ever come with me to a Jason concert. The response “yes” to the question “did I embarrass you?” said it all. But this response didn’t really bother me in the way it might have done once upon a time. It just meant that I’d been me and she’d been able to see a side to me that she hasn’t really seen before. And one she certainly didn’t see for a very long time because I was in survival mode.

Nights like that and weekends away like Watford and Skegness felt beyond unachievable in March 2020. I’d never have believe that six years later I’d be doing things like this. I felt that the world would be shut down forever and I would never have a normal again. I had no concept of when I might be able to smile or laugh again. The fact I’m able to and a lot of this has come down to Jason means so much to me. That my birthday gift from the northerner was the lyrics to Talk You Down, the song that became our song over the course of this tour means so much. Even if my late husband would be rolling his eyes at it all!

We’ve got one more Jason date lined up this year and then that’s it for 2026, unless of course someone would like to apply to take me to Australia to see him in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. We then have nothing lined up for 2027…. yet!

However, as part of my aim to try to live a little more deliberately before I become older than my husband ever got to be, I’m hoping to weave Jason in somehow before January 2027. A suggestion was made by a fellow Jason fan that one of my moments should be a meet up with as many Jason fans as possible for a day out somewhere random and I love this idea. I’m yet to figure out how to make this work, or even if it’s possible, but it’s definitely something I want to try to do. I’ve already got one amazing friend as a result of being Jason fans, why not mark The Time In Between with many more?

A new hope

Various images of Emma Charlesworth and her daughter taken on 4 May over the years

Star Wars Day. May 4th. For someone who has famously never seen Star Wars, there is a certain amount of irony given how many things have happened to me on this day to make it memorable:

  • 2004 – Started my PwC career.
  • 2009 – Found out I was pregnant with our first child.
  • 2010 – Met some people who’d become incredibly important to me.
  • 2016 – Won a magnum of vodka.
  • 2024 – Held the second CharlieFest which saw my daughter sing with my late husband.

Quite a list eh? It’s weird looking back at it all now. I had no real concept of where my life was going to go. Did I envisage still being at PwC 22 years later? No, I don’t think I did. Did I envisage that I’d be solo parenting my first child? No, I definitely didn’t.

It’s why in 2026, I’m taking stock a little bit on this day. I turned 45 at the end of March and somehow, we’re now in May. I’m not entirely sure where April went. Is this a sign I’m getting old? Or just a sign that my life has been insanely busy lately? I think back to my birthday, which is also the anniversary of my late husband being taken to ICU, and realise it was almost a sign of where the next month was going to go. Numerous conversations with solicitors regarding the sale of my nan’s house. A hospital appointment with my daughter. A trip to my late husband’s memorial bench. And the innocent question from my daughter, “why are you crying Mum?” Nothing like spontaneously bursting into tears on your birthday while driving down a motorway because life gets too much for you.

And that’s how my life has been lately. A bit too much for me. I haven’t really stopped in weeks. I don’t consider myself special, so many people have chaotic, busy lives. But I do consider myself to be in an unenviable position of trying to juggle widowhood, solo parenting, working full time and caring for my grandmother against the backdrop of vaguely attempting to build a life for myself in my own right. The latter is something I’m becoming more and more acutely aware of as my daughter ages. Just last week I had to accompany her to her college enrolment. She’s thinking about learning to drive in a matter of months. And this week her main GCSEs start. It’s a pretty intense six weeks coming up.

Yet as her future starts to take shape and new beginnings happen, as a family, endings have happened. We’ve said goodbye to the house my grandparents bought in 1964. Just a £50 deposit secured that house back then. But for a multitude of reasons, it was time to sell. I underestimated just how emotional it would make me on those last few days. I’d been able to be quite productive at emptying the house, doing multiple tip and charity shop runs and managing all the administrative side of things But the penultimate day I was in the house, I burst into tears. It took me by surprise. I’m well aware that the material and physical items don’t really give you the memories but leaving the house that had been a constant throughout my life was tough. And despite material things not being the most important, I did have a smile to myself on Saturday when my grandad’s barometer showed me what the weather was going to do. I remember being fascinated by it when I was a little girl and it was one of the very few items I took from the house to keep. It doesn’t go with anything in my house, it’s incredibly old fashioned but it goes with me. It goes with my memories. It’s a part of my history.

The day the house was completed, I didn’t really have time to think about it or process it. As luck would have it, work was exceptionally busy and so I was able to distract myself. This was also the day after the sixth anniversary of my late husband’s death. There felt something poignant that the last day we owned the house as a family was his anniversary. Maybe April 19th will start to become a date for me going forwards as May 4th has been. But to be fair, my main memory of this date is no doubt enough to last me a lifetime.

I wrote on that sixth anniversary about the power of love and hope. And that is what continues to carry me through my life. I know from one of the last conversations I had with him, someone who would have been eminently proud of me for knowing that the first Star Wars film was actually called A New Hope. In a way that’s what Star Wars Day symbolises for me. A new hope.

Let’s look back to 2004. Starting at PwC was scary. I remember feeling that I needed breadcrumbs to find my way around the office in those first few days and weeks! It feeling like home and being such an important part of my life wasn’t something I really considered. There was a certain element of hope in joining the firm though. Hope that I’d find my path. But looking back now, I viewed it as work. Not necessarily a place I’d forge a career and do multiple different roles. I’m now halfway through my latest role and it’s teaching me so much. It’s been so good for me. And it’s also brought me into contact with new people. Just a couple of weeks ago, I had a conversation with someone who didn’t know my story. It’s a bit weird when that happens now, I’m so used to working with people that do know what happened to me, that I almost forget that not everyone does. For so many people the pandemic feels like such a long time ago, that hearing my story can take people aback.

And another new hope happened in 2009 with that pregnancy test. Don’t get me wrong, I was incredibly scared too (flashback to 2004 and being scared at PwC). But the hope outweighed it. Hope that we were finally going to be parents after a considerable time waiting for it to happen. I remember looking in shock at that pregnancy test. When you’ve longed for something for so long, when it finally happens, it’s hard to believe it’s real. But real it was and at the start of 2010, our daughter was born. The juggle of parenting and all of life’s challenges began in earnest!

But that juggle took on a different meaning for me in 2020 when my husband fell ill and then lost his life. If I thought starting at PwC or becoming a new mum was scary, that was nothing compared to the fear I felt when my late husband died. Could I really parent our daughter without him? I like to think I’ve done an ok job over the past six years, but that juggle is ever prevalent. Take last week for example. Work was the busiest it has been for a while, I thrive on it in a way, but it meant that I was working very long hours and barely contactable. “Is this an emergency or are you just saying hello?” was how I answered the phone or started a call with my daughter if I noticed a missed call from her. Fortunately, she’s very understanding and we made it work but it didn’t mean that I didn’t feel the mum guilt.

Except it’s not just mum guilt I’ve been feeling lately. I’ve felt daughter/sister/friend/author/blogger/volunteer guilt too. The notifications mounting on my phone because I’ve needed time or headspace to deal with them all and I’ve just not had either lately. I’ve lost count of the messages or calls I’ve started with “I’m officially rubbish” because that’s how I’ve felt. The guilt that I haven’t done enough to market my book and to continue my late husband’s legacy. The worry that I should be doing more in my volunteer roles. For the avoidance of doubt, this isn’t a woe is me blog. I don’t want you to get the violins out. This is simply a real and honest blog. Because of how I’ve been feeling lately. The pressure to juggle has felt a lot. The fear of change and worry for the future and what comes next for us has been intensifying. If you’ve been one of those people thinking that I don’t seem like myself or you’ve been waiting for a reply from me, know that I really am sorry. It’s honestly not you. It’s me.

But as well as being insanely busy last week, I also had a moment of clarity. I simply cannot be all things to all people and do everything at the same time. Hope returned. Because while selling my grandparents house is inherently sad, it’s also meant we’ve been able to guarantee some stability for my nan. That in itself is freeing. Yesterday I went and visited her in the care home, safe in the knowledge that there are no battles for me to face for her for a while. We sat in the garden and made the most of the weather. My author life might have taken a hit lately, but that’s because my energy has been in my PwC life and giving that all that I have. I also said no to something a couple of years ago I’d have been adding pressure to myself to do. I spent a lot of Saturday doing some self-care. I sat in the garden and let my life pause for a little bit. No pressure. No overthinking. Just being. Yesterday I finally dealt with all those notifications and responded to people. I felt a bit more in control. I could breathe again.

I guess what I’m trying to say as I look back at my life on this day over the years is that there have been so many similar emotions. Fear. Hope. Happiness. I know that I felt all of these at CharlieFest in 2024, as I watched my daughter sing with my late husband. It was quite the moment for everyone in that room. I suspect there’ll never be a time when I’m not juggling all these emotions. Because despite all I’ve managed to achieve since I was that nervous 23-year-old in 2004, I’m still nervous. I don’t think people see it so much anymore, but I am. In a way I’m probably more fearful and scared now than I was either back then or in 2009 when I learnt I was going to be a mum. Because now a lot of what I’m doing and the decisions I’m making, I’m doing so by myself. The pressure to do the right thing and make the right decisions is magnified now. It still feels surreal despite being a widow for six years. I wonder if that will ever stop. I still wonder where we’d be had COVID-19 not entered our lives. But more than where we’d be, I wonder who I would be. That’s probably a question for another day in all honesty.

I don’t know whether today will bring anything that I’ll look back on in years to come as being of note and to add to my memorable Star Wars Day anniversaries. But I’m incredibly grateful for all this day has given me. The anniversaries I am able to celebrate. The friends I have. The person I’ve become over the years. And who knows. Maybe one day I’ll even watch A New Hope to commemorate this date. By all accounts it’s a bit of a classic.

The power of love and hope

The words Dear Charlie are written in white on a black background.

And so, we’ve completed another trip around the sun without you. Six years since that fateful day when I got the call to tell me that all hope was lost. Since we had to say goodbye to you via a Skype call. Since I begged people to help me make sure you weren’t forgotten.

Every year since then, I’ve written a blog to mark this day. I’ve tended to write them in advance so that I can tweak them as I go. Make sure I’m completely happy with them before I post. Not this year though. This year, I’ve struggled to write one. I’ve just not known what to say. And I always said I would only write when I had something to say.

I’ve been beating myself up a little bit about this over the last 48 hours. Why haven’t I been able to think of something to write to mark this day this year? It’s certainly not because I care less. I guess in a way it’s almost just snuck up on me, and I can’t actually believe we’re here again. Maybe that’s a sign I’m getting old. That time is going quicker.

Or maybe that’s a sign as to how we all grow around our grief. It’s still there, ever present but life continues around it. And I think that’s why I’ve struggled to write something before now, because life has just been so full on lately. The juggle has been beyond real. Time hasn’t really been my friend.

But yesterday, something started whirring in my brain about what I could write today. It happened in my grandparents’ house as we were doing the final clean. As I was thinking about the fact that today is the last day this house will be in our family. I couldn’t think of a more poetic day really. Tomorrow it’s gone. It’s the right thing to do but that doesn’t mean it’s hurting any less. That I didn’t stand in the lounge and cry. But I know it’s the right decision. Because it’s time.

And there you have what clicked for me. Time.

I started thinking about you and the early days of the pandemic. Listening to the then Prime Minister say, “I must level with you, the British public. Many more families are going to lose their loved ones before their time.” The heated discussion you had with someone about this statement (side note, she was right though). Your frustration at this was borne from your belief that if people died it would mean that it was their time. Your firm belief that we’ve all got our time on this earth.

You might have had this belief, but I still don’t really understand how it was your time. 45 years old just doesn’t feel right to me. And now I’m 45, I’m understanding it even less. I can’t imagine my life being extinguished and over this year. God willing, it won’t be. But there’s just no sense in how much time we have. While their house might be being sold, Nan is very much alive at the age of 95, Wednesday night’s A&E trip with her proved that. She’s probably going to outlive me to be honest. Because it’s baffling how everyone’s time is different.

I wonder what you’d be doing now if it hadn’t been your time. Where life would have taken you. How many more board games we’d be trying to find homes for. How many more Jim Shore ornaments we’d be trying to put out at Christmas. What you’d be making of having a teenage girl in the house. You’d be eminently proud of her I know that much, but teenage girls are a law unto themselves!

I wonder where life would have taken me if you were still here. I thought about this while have a cuppa and watching my WAY Widowed and Young running shirt blowing on the washing line. Don’t fall off your chair, I haven’t taken up running but was wearing it at PoundFit yesterday. I wouldn’t have known about this charity, become a Trustee and met some fabulous people. I certainly don’t think I’d have started writing in the way that I have. Funny where life can take you.

There’s so much about our life that’s still the same as it was before this fateful day six years ago. The family photos that still adorn the walls. The lounge wallpaper that you chose. The same friends. The two-hour video calls going down tangent boulevard on more than one occasion (I’m sure you can work out who with from that description). The juggle of the dance runs and rehearsal schedules. My commute to London.

There are, of course, differences too. The dog we now have (can’t help but wonder if you’d say he was a proper dog because he’s not the biggest). The Jason Donovan photos that now adorn the walls, to be honest, I still consider this to be my biggest rebellious act since you died. The house renovations I’ve made. The new people in my life. The fact that in less than two months our daughter will leave school. The fact that I am now a published author. I often wonder what you would make of it all.

Yet what I underestimated about this last point is how much this would help with this moment from six years ago today:  

I made a few more calls that night and did speak to some friends and family. I’d love to be able to tell you exactly who I spoke to, but I simply can’t. Trauma and shock were already putting me in a protective bubble. Letting me function but not really knowing what I was doing. I dread to think what I said to people. I like to hope that I came across as vaguely coherent, but I can’t swear to it. All I can really remember from each of the calls I made was begging people at the end of the phone to help me keep his memory alive. To help me help Rebekah to remember him. I just kept saying, “Please don’t let him be forgotten.”

That’s a paragraph I wrote in Is Daddy Going to Be OK?, the book I published telling our story. The reviews from people telling me that they feel like they made and lost a friend when reading it. The people who have told me that they feel like they really got to know you by reading it. Never in a million years did I expect that this would happen. I just wanted to tell our story, the real story of the pandemic and make sure you had a legacy. I didn’t really join the dots between writing a book and you never being forgotten, I thought that was something that only family and friends could help with. Because only they knew you while had your time on earth. The fact that this book has helped with people feeling like they know you is humbling. I like it. It makes me happy to think that your name is being spoken by so many people.

That’s what matters. The legacy and memories that we leave. I’ve felt this even more so recently. Emptying a house that’s been in the family for 62 years and only keeping a couple of boxes. Doesn’t mean we’ll forget any of the time that we spent in that house, or the memories that we made. But my grandparent’s material things don’t mean anything to us. That’s not what’s in our hearts.

It’s really made me think about what we do actually “need.” Six years on and I still can’t bring myself to do anything with your CDs, music was such a big part of your life after all. But do I need these to remember you? I do know the answer to this really. I’ve started sorting and getting rid of the board games, some of which didn’t even arrive until after you’d died, but the CDs I’m oddly attached to. Even though the majority of them haven’t even played since April 2020. I’ve got my “Dead Charlie Box” (nothing like being blunt is there?) which has got items in that I deem to be important, the Marvel lounge pants you were taken to hospital in, they have been washed, don’t fret. But in the years to come when our daughter has to sort through my belongings, I know it won’t be the material things she remembers about you or me. The Jason Donovan photos will no doubt be the first things to go in the bin.

Because what she will remember and hold onto will be the love. The love you gave her for those 10 years will be more important to her than the CDs. She’ll hold onto the memories we made as a family of three and then as a team of two. The time we had together. Six years ago today, I felt that all hope was lost. I couldn’t see a way forward without you. I didn’t know how to live after loss. How to make sure love would live on. The enormity and magnitude of what had happened to us was just too huge. But I think in that moment I forgot one thing. I believe in hope. It’s everything. Without it, I don’t think I’d have made it this far. And I know that once that house is officially sold tomorrow, we’ll be ok. However much it’s been stinging this weekend.

I can’t work out whether you’re eye rolling me or nodding along with me at this. Whether you’re thinking what is she blithering on about now? You should count yourself lucky that you’ve missed my perimenopausal era. The random waffle and forgetfulness that is part of my everyday now.

Yet it hasn’t made me forget you. The life we had. The memories we made.

After all this time? Always.

The cost of being a widow

I’m going to talk about something in this blog which might make people feel uncomfortable. Because it’s another one of those topics that can be fairly taboo. We don’t really talk about it. And it’s not a three-letter word which would definitely make my daughter feel uncomfortable, but a five-letter one.

Money

As well as the grief and all the emotional aspects of being widowed young, there is also an incredibly practical impact too. The financial impact. And the perception that people have around this. I’m pretty sure that there are people out there who think that I’m the merry widow living the life of Riley and mortgage free because my husband died. This isn’t just me speculating, I vividly remember bumping into someone who knew my late husband about a year after he died to be met with the comment “you must be laughing now you don’t have a mortgage anymore.” There is so much wrong with this sentence, I don’t really know where to start. I also had a friend say “well, you have been spending a lot of money lately” in 2022, two years after my husband died. To be fair to them, they were right, we had. My daughter had danced in Disneyland Paris with her dance school, we’d been on holiday to Florida and I’d been doing some house renovations. But I’d only had been able to do this because my husband died. Would I rather have not been spending the money, not going on holiday and not renovating the house but have my husband alive? Yes. That’s an unequivocal yes.

Because in short, while I might spend money, I’m not laughing. Because I do still have a mortgage. The Florida holiday and house renovations were paid for out of the life insurance, I didn’t use it fully on my mortgage. The irony of my late husband’s life insurance does still cause me have a wry smile. We’d changed and updated our life insurance policies about nine months before he died, but, because of his previous cancer diagnosis and the fact his cholesterol wasn’t great, the monthly premiums were high. We didn’t take out a policy for him which would have meant that the mortgage would be paid off entirely in the event of his death, opting instead for just a big chunk. Had we both known we’d only be paying it for nine months I think we’d have swallowed that monthly cost. But that’s the thing with insurance, isn’t it? You don’t ever really expect to be making a claim, do you? I’m just so incredibly grateful that we did at least have something in place; because in the immediate aftermath of his death, it meant that my daughter and I were able to stay in our home and not have to deal with selling and moving on top of everything else we had to navigate.

I’ll openly admit I entered quite a lengthy “life is too short” era when the world opened up again following lockdown. My daughter and I had a “F**k It Week” in 2022 where we saw multiple shows across a week and went away. I’ve been reluctant to say no to things for fear of us missing out. I’ve tried to make as memories as possible as I can for my daughter because ultimately memories are all we have left. Have I made the best financial choices since my husband died? Probably not, no. It’s something that I’m dealing with. But can I look back and smile at the adventures we’ve had? Yes. And that’s what’s most important to me.

Yet nearly six years on, our lives are about to change and enter a new phase. On top of the increases in the cost of living. Money is something that is incredibly prevalent to me right now. For the first time since my late husband died, I’m feeling an enormous sense of responsibility to make the right decision for us. So many decisions were taken out of my hands in the early days that I didn’t really feel the pressure. But now I am. Should I find a new job? Should I sell my house? Should I take out extra on my mortgage? What can I do on my own to help fund the additional costs that I need to find from September this year? It’s actually quite mentally exhausting. Although, sorting and selling on Vinted and eBay is quite therapeutic (running joke that I can’t leave my house without a parcel to send) and I am getting a little bit of enjoyment from finding all the yellow and orange stickers in supermarkets when they sell off their food at the end of the day to help save costs. I think eight large sausage rolls for 25p has got to be my best find to date!

But putting levity aside for a second. My situation is not unique. There are thousands of young widows across the UK who suddenly find themselves without the salary of their partner or struggling financially. There are so many different situations. The families who didn’t have life insurance for a myriad of reasons. The families with ill health preventing them from working. The families where the parent has continued working but grief has been incredibly difficult for them so they don’t perform as they once did and so don’t get a pay rise or bonus. The families who are forced to sell their homes because they can’t afford to stay there. The families who desperately need to join WAY Widowed and Young, but can’t afford the £30 membership for the year so need to make an application to the Memorial Fund which was set up in 2017 to assist members to join the charity.

Like I say. Money. It’s an uncomfortable topic, isn’t it?

For those who haven’t been in my situation, you might also be thinking “but surely there is some benefit or support for widows.” And to be fair to you if you are thinking this, you’re right. But it only lasts for 18 months. The financial support I received for my daughter ran out towards the end of 2021 when she was 11-years-old. Assuming she stays in full time education until she’s 18 and then goes on to do a degree, that financial support will have run out 10 years before the end of her degree course. This will be funded out of student loans, my salary and my salary alone.

Let me tell you a little about the support that is available. It’s called Bereavement Support Payment (BSP). It was introduced in 2017 and replaced Widowed Parent’s Allowance, which provided weekly payments until Child Benefit ceased. BSP has not been updated since 2017 and indicative figures suggest that it is now worth £3,726.49 less in real terms for bereaved families with children. And even more staggering is that until February 2023, the Widowed Parent’s Allowance and BSP were only available to people who were married or in a civil partnership when their loved one died. It was only following a decade-long campaign by WAY Widowed and Young, the Childhood Bereavement Network, the Child Poverty Action Group and a coalition of other bereavement charities, that the government finally changed the legislation in 2023 so that cohabiting parents were entitled to the same support. Imagine that for just a second. You’ve been with your partner for a number of years, you have children together, you’ve built a life together but because you weren’t married or in a civil partnership, you were deemed ineligible for financial support from the government. I still find it absolutely staggering and am so grateful to everyone who campaigned for this change.

But back to what BSP does provide. The most you can get (depending on circumstance) and what I received, was a one-off payment of £3,500 followed by 18 monthly payments of £350. And while BSP has been extended to cohabiting couples with children, unmarried couples without children are still being denied support. People are still being penalised for their life choices in 2026. People are still suffering financially due to the death of a partner. Something needs to be done.

And that’s why I’m so supportive of Caroline Booth and Widows Fight. Caroline is spearheading a national campaign to reform BSP, which she says is “morally indefensible” in its current form and failing thousands of grieving families. She launched a petition a few weeks ago which has already received over 15,000 signatures. The government does now have to respond to this petition because it has to respond to all petitions that get more than 10,000 signatures. This is a great achievement so far. I only hope that it continues to gain momentum and leads to a real change for anyone who goes through what I have.

Continue reading The cost of being a widow