Yeah, yeah, yeah, he basically went to work in the morning and you know didn’t come back. So, he had a heart attack. It was really traumatic. Because we were really, really close – we were extremely close – and we had an incredible relationship. And he went to work – he was working in [University in the UK] – and he had organised a basketball game with his friends and he didn’t come home at the time that he was supposed to come back home, that 8pm. He was never late. And he didn’t like carrying a mobile phone because he just didn’t, and basically when he didn’t come back by 10pm I realised that something really bad had happened, so I had to have, I had to call the police to look for him. And yeah, it took another three and half hours to be told that he was dead in a hospital in [city]. So it was really, really traumatic. I remember you know we had a lovely house and I remember standing at the bottom of of the stairs to go to sleep one night and kind of seeing my life in front of me you know reduce… You know those images they show of Coventry after the bombing? You know, Coventry is reduced to just like you know like rubble. That’s how my life felt. I felt that I was standing in front of my life and it felt like that you know. It took me a long time to recover from that. And I think that is as I said before, for me… I did therapy, you know I did talking therapy after that and I once told my therapist, ‘I am not alone, I am lonely’. It’s very different. People think that you know people who are alone are lonely. Not everyone who is alone is lonely and not everyone who is lonely is alone. They are two very different things. So you know that’s when, you know I was very lucky; I had, I had a lot of support from many incredible people. But you know it’s very different from being like with someone you can actually share stuff like all the stuff with, so yeah.

Yes. It’s just like basically, you know for me it was a trauma you know. I cannot tell you how traumatic it is to have the police knock at your door and tell you your husband dropped dead you know, it’s just like literally. As I put it to my friends, in morning I thought I was the happiest woman in the world, in the evening I thought I was the unhappiest woman in the world. So it’s just like you know, basically you have to, your life lies in front of you and you’ve got to start rebuilding like from scratch…you know because I mean not really from scratch, but it does feel like it is from scratch. So, So yeah, that’s what I would say they are very related, PTSD and loneliness. In my case, at least.

So, for instance, you know I know this woman who lost her husband close to [name of husband] death, but she was in her 70s. I always say – or 80s, or whatever – and I say, I always say, ‘You lost a lot of past, but not so much future’. ‘I lost a lot of future and not so much past’. You know it’s very different problematics. It’s very different to be on your own when you let’s say in your 70s and maybe you are a grandparent, and you have a completely different role in life than when you are you know just a young person who had their whole life to go.

And I think that’s when you experience loneliness. It’s just like when the weight of the world is just on your shoulders. It’s like every single decision is yours. I mean it also has to do with the fact of not being able to see people. It’s like the loneliness that I… during the first lockdown I literally spent two months on my own. Completely on my own. I don’t wish that to my worst enemy. It’s just like, it’s really, it can really harm your, your mind, you know? It just feels like that, it feels like ‘Ok, all the decisions fall on me’. If you’re sick, you know I have needed help with being sick. You just feel that, ‘Okay, it’s just me dealing with this’, you know. I have friends who have helped me, but you don’t have that… You know but you always feel like that it’s not their obligation, where if you’re with someone else you kind of expect it because, you know ‘I do it for you today and you do it for me tomorrow’ you know these kind of things.

You briefly talked about groups.

I haven’t talked about anything briefly.

You just mentioned that a lot of people that you know, a lot of your friends, suggested that you go to groups. Whether that is walking groups or… You seem to have an adamant opinion against going. Why?

I have adamant opinions about everything. I don’t have adamant opinions about…you know against going you know for other people. It’s just like I personally think that many of those groups are formed by people who are all looking for someone to do stuff with. So, for instance – I have done things in groups that have worked really well, and I have done things in groups that haven’t –So for instance I wanted… I had to be on crutches for ten weeks in 2017 and, very much like someone in prison, I gave myself hope with aholiday. So, I said, ‘As soon as I am okay, I am going somewhere’. A year later, when the doctor said to me, ‘Okay, you’re good you know. That’s it, we’re done’. You know I was sitting in front of the doctor and said like, ‘Doctor, I am going to Africa’ and he is like, ‘Really?’ and I was like, ‘Yes!’. ‘Is this a posh safari?’, I said, ‘No, there’s nothing posh about it’. So, you know I basically went to Africa for four and a half weeks and I joined a group in Nairobi. They put us in a converted lorry, and they drove us all the way to Victoria Falls. And you know it was amazing. I had never been in Africa, I had never gone camping, I had never travelled in a group. It was brilliant. I found a great group. I tend to get along… In my head, I am 35 so you know it’s like I get along with people who are in their 30s, you know I always get along with people who are in their 30’s. And you know it’s just like I don’t see the difference between us, yes I’ve been in the world for longer than you, but honestly, you know in terms of my goals, the way I behave, the way I communicate, the things I like, I see no difference. This group, the people were from 32 to 22, 21 and I had a great experience. And like my closest friend in the trip was at the time 21, you know a girl from the Netherlands. We became really really good friends, and we still are really really good friends. And you know it was an incredible experience, but you know basically I don’t think the group was formed on the basis of loneliness. The group was formed on the basis of an interest. Everyone wanted an adventure, everyone wanted to see Africa in a different way, you see?

When you go to these groups, the walking group and all of that stuff, they are very stereotypical, you know it’s very stereotypical. So for instance, I joined… when I arrived in my town – I live in a small town with 24,000 people. So, I speak several languages and I met some people that you know were English but spoke other languages, so they started language circles. So there was one for Spanish, one for Italian, one for French and I joined all of them. I found that all the people who were coming were all people who were retired and you know it’s just like, ‘Oh my God, really, really?’. You know we didn’t have the same interests. And you know basically they do it… I don’t know why they do it, but you know many people do it just to fight loneliness. I think when you get together with people because you’re trying to fight loneliness, it just doesn’t work because you mix people who don’t really have the same interests but are just there because they have nowhere no one else to be with. I think that… If you can join a group of people who goes climbing you know maybe that’s different. You have to find something that you all like and that maybe works. I personally… you know I haven’t found a lot of success in that kind of thing.