On the afternoon after burying my son I went for a run. With the rain pouring down I ran across the Clifton Suspension Bridge, into Leigh Woods, down to the riverbank and then back up the side of the Avon Gorge via Nightingale Valley. Running up the valley is a challenge. It’s rough track, in places it’s very steep, and it just goes on and on and on. The only way to approach it is to attack. So I did. Ran at the gorge rather than up it. 

Since that day in February 2006, I ran half marathons, cross country and fell runs, an 'ultra' across Dartmoor, even an 125 mile kayak paddle non stop from Devizes London. Until I ran the 2010 London Marathon I never did any of them for charity. Never raised a penny to fund the hospitals which cared for Gus in his short life. 

I couldn’t raise money because fund raising involved facing up; going public; talking about the cause you are campaigning for. I couldn’t do that. Because I couldn’t talk about Gus. So I could go running, and I could think about him. In fact in many ways those races and the training I did for them were where I did my grieving. For away from them I had to be a supportive husband to Gabrielle; father to Cecelia and Beatrice. But talk about the trauma of losing your son? No chance.

Now this was quite unhealthy – mentally that is, as pretty soon I was as physically fit as I’d ever been in my life.  So was my wife, Gabrielle, who had also embarked upon a rigorous exercise programme. But Gabrielle wasn’t in as great shape mentally as she could have been either. As the warm, open woman that she is Gabrielle could talk about Gus. But who to? To family and friends obviously, but where were the trained therapists and counsellors who could help us begin to make sense of the trauma we had been through? Nowhere to be found. So I continued running, and Gabrielle kept crying and not sleeping, and life, which had seemed quite bad, got by degrees, a little bit worse.

Gus had hypoplastic left heart syndrome, which is complicated. Our first explanation involved diagrams and little hope. He had successful operations, which would, in time, have given him the chance to have more operations. But sadly he contracted MRSA in Birmingham Children’s Hospital. We got him home to Bristol for Christmas, but he never shook off the infection. He died after emergency surgery. The surgeon and team battled for as long as they could, until, finally, we were led into a small, empty room and had the ‘nothing more we can do’ conversation. The tubes in his arm, and the one threaded down through his nose and into his stomach were gently removed and he was handed over to Gabrielle, being kept alive by a handheld respirator operated by a nurse. After a few minutes, we took the respirator away and Gus died. His body was taken away. We left the hospital and walked home. We were asked to come back the next day. When we did, we were asked if we would like to see his body. Given a leaflet on burial options. Asked if we wanted to have brass casts made of his hands or feet. Our answers were no to each and we left the hospital to do what it does best – caring and treating for the living, while we went back to our families, our marriage and our daughter, Cece, then three.

Gus’s funeral was delayed for many weeks due, apparently, to the chronic shortage of paediatric pathologists and the consequent delay in the post mortem. We had sensitive and thoughtful meetings with the clinical team wherein we discussed his condition, the MRSA infection, and his death. What we didn’t have, and we were not shy of asking for it, was any professional psychological support. Until that is, we were lucky enough to have Child Bereavement UK recommended to us.

Its founder and patron Julia Samuel says “the terrible pain of the death can’t be prevented, but the surviving parents and children deserve, at the very least, appropriate well informed psychological support at such a difficult time.”

Julia helped Gabrielle and I to talk to Cece about what had happened. We were helped to understand how men and women process grief differently, and that there is no right or wrong way to do so. About how anger is natural, and must be released. We were also relieved to learn that we didn't have to get divorced - as every piece of advice we'd had up to then had warned us to expect this. Finally, we learnt how hard the death of a child can be on grandparents, who have to suffer the double upset of losing a grandchild and seeing their own child in such distress.

Even with the help of CB UK, it's taken me another five years to come around to being able to try and help them. The trauma and pain of that time was, and is, so great that it's extremely hard to talk or write about. It's easier to say nothing - and after all, it is a little like lobbing a grenade into a conversation if someone asks 'Don't you ever wish you'd had a son?'

This year Child Bereavement UK enters its 21st year of helping families to rebuild their lives after bereavement. I decided to mark this anniversary and the passage of ten years since Gus’s birth to undertake Ride London to fundraise for them. My knees have gone since the 2010 marathon, so a bike ride appeared to be the best option. I apologise to those who gave so generously back then that I return once again rattling the charity can. All I can say is that this is not simply a cause close to my heart, but one that sits within it, and which helped keep it beating back in the darkest days.

£10 enables them to answer a call from a father unsure how to tell his 6 year old daughter that her mummy is dying

£40 provides an hour's telephone support to a mother whose baby died soon after birth

£60 provides a couple with a support session after their teenage son has died by suicide

£100 enables them to train a volunteer to help in our children's support groups.

£130 helps them train a police officer or paramedic to offer support after a sudden death.

£300 enables them to run a group session for parents to share emotions and experiences in a supportive environment, after the death of their baby or child

Many thanks.

Peter