Channel 5. Living with grief.

It really is a most lovely, sad and hopeful and positive programme.

Hope it helped MissA. I intended to watch but was diverted so will try catch-up .

I only watched the first 30minutes as have work today. I have recorded it and will watch over the weekend.
The part I saw was very moving. I certainly identified with keeping items. My parents died a few years ago and I have a lot of their furniture which I'm happy with. Clearing their house was awful as it felt as though throwing the person away. It helped to take photos of items I hadnt room for. Everything that could be went to a good home/charity.
It really helps to have someone with you who not quite so emotionally attached. I know I had a bedside table that I had no room for and only kept for sentimental reasons. My daughter suggested an upcycling shop. It was lovely to see it slightly modernised with a sold label on.?.
I know people make cushions out of a special item of clothing.
My father was an enthusiastic photographer and saved all sorts of mementos from his life from school reports to telegrams he received on his 21st birthday during WW2. I have some lovely scrapbooks to pur them in. I have sorted the photos into decades/families but havent really done anything else yet. I understand how Ester felt. I found it's been a gradual process,the first time I went through them was very emotional but it gets easier. I hope in the programme she finds the same.
My father also kept a diary since WW2. I have them all. They are not particularly personal but it just felt wrong to throw away. I've decided to use snippets in the scrapbooks for births etc. I did have an address in London that uses them for social history but misplaced it,hopefully Google come to rescue!

I watched it, I thought it was sensitively done. I do wish people were more comfortable talking about death. It was brave of Esther to watch her birthday video, she's lucky to have so many, I only have one video of my husband.

I didn't see this programme because I don't like Esther Rantzen.
I wonder if she pursued the subject of the grief felt by abandoned wives and children when their husband/father leaves them for another woman?

I have never forgotten an interview with Desmond Wilcox's daughter, given after her mother died, in which she described how Esther Rantzen pursued her father relentlessly, how her mother was devastated, and how she and her siblings were forced into publicity shoots with her stepmother to show Esther at the heart of her (Wilcox's) loving family, to the great distress of her mother. She did not want her private life discussed or to be the object of pity, so her daughter waited until her mother had died before she presented the other side of the picture.

Well said Eazybee ?

That aside, it was actually a lovely programme; well worth a watch for anyone living with grief or not.