It was quite overwhelming to find the roots of our story were as the result of one incredible lady's inspiration and determination - and what a coincidence that Alfie Tate, one of the characters in the book had drawn a bird on his copper leaf, in memory of his teacher, because they had both "jumped for joy when they saw the first swallows of summer."

I meet so many people frighteningly close to their own date with ending it all. So many. Far too many. I came very close to my own, so close, far too close. That date when it is too late to say the unsaid because the unfinished has now been finished.

When our friend Stevie rang us up to say he was ill and couldn't come down for the weekend we didn't think much of it. He'd been taken into hospital but was laughing about it with his usual dry wit. He'd rang us on Thursday. On Sunday he was dead. He was 24.

Therapy, counselling and spiritual advice have been my key to adult happiness. Many of us put on a brave face and try and rationalise inner pain. If it's there it's there and needs treating. I owe a lot to the stability my husband has created in my life. Thanks to this pillar of strength I was able to open my Pandora's box.

Knocking on someone's door to tell them someone close to them has died - possibly a husband, wife or child - is one of the most difficult jobs the police do. In the Metropolitan Police it was called a 'death message'.

If anyone does take the time to read this, unless you are a dog lover then this will probably all appear to be a load of old tosh. There are many of us however that actually take the time to study our dogs in the hope of understanding them a little better

I had no idea about burials laws until coming across Wendii Miller, a Cambridge graduate, who carried out her own DIY burial for her 98-year-old mother Doris, even digging the grave after collecting her corpse from Grimsby Hospital mortuary and driving her mother's remains back to a burial site outside Harrogate.

Symptoms of grief could be diagnosed as depression, rather than as normal reactions, states an article on The Lancet. In the past, the American Psy...

"Grief feels like fear" - wrote C. S. Lewis and when my phone rang one morning three years ago, I knew instinctively that something was wrong. My daughter's best friend had gone missing from school the day before so when the Head of Pastoral Care told me that Naomi had died I was shocked, but not surprised. She had committed suicide. She was just 17.

In psychiatry, we make a distinction between "normal" grief and "abnormal" grief. The latter condition has other aliases such as "pathological grief" or "morbid grief". Should psychiatrists meddle in such a natural human reaction?

Suffering from a broken heart is more than just a figure a speech, according to scientists - and women are up to nine times more likely to be hit by t...

Saying goodbye to a parent is the most difficult experience I have ever gone through. You never really know how hard it will be until it happens.