Were there any practical things you had to cope with?

There were practical things, I was self employed and I did not know the benefits system. The Social Services sent me a letter six months after his death to tell me that three months after his death I should have claimed £2,000 widows benefit but now it was too late. And I was really struggling financially because I had taken two and a half months off because my mother was, was in a coma following a cancer operation.She went into a coma in intensive care with an infection the day of Nicholas’s death. My family didn’t tell me that but at some point they must have done because I then went out to see my mother.

Dealing with utility companies was awful. I needed to change the bills into my name, but it was so hard. I spent hours on the phone. They double charged me.I couldn’t claim the money back, I was so exhausted. You have no energy when you’re bereaved and these organisations, nobody’s responsible, you know, it’s none of their problem and I think really when somebody has died, particularly when somebody has died suddenly, there ought to be someone who sorts these things out for you. There should be a Government organisation that helps people. Just imagine what it must be like for older people, I mean I was quite young and still I had no energy, I just gave up, you know, and luckily I had help from my sister-law, helping me with an insurance claim and that took years and that dragged on and on I suppose insurance companies never want to give you money so they give you a hard time but to give you a hard time when you’re bereaved just feels very cruel.

Yes.

And I just don’t know if there’s any way to make things easier but I certainly could think that from a practical point of view if there were Social Services, a social worker could come round and take you through, to see exactly what a new situation you are now eligible for. And for someone to sort out some of the basic matters with Gas, electricity, phone, and, you know, because they know, they would then know very well what, they couldn’t run rings round you, as I feel they did because I was, and any other bereaved person especially if they’re elderly, they’re just victims of circumstance and so they give up. Lots of people don’t claim what’s their due because they can’t be bothered to, they can’t be bothered to fight for it.

You never got the benefit you could have had?

No, that was £2,000 apparently, I didn’t get. But I was lucky because I had family who gave me some money.

When, when my son was killed back in April 2005 the employer purely sent his pay slip and his P45 and he was killed, he died on the 13th April, so they paid him from the 1st to the 13th April. They didn’t even pay the month. So my daughter-law was left with two children and no money because she didn’t, she didn’t work. She was left with two children, and no money coming in at all. Just that, just that 13 days pay.

So having worked in the civil service and having a sort of idea of you know what was involved, unfortunately I was the one that had to go round with my son’s temporary death certificate, not realising how difficult it was, if, if I hadn’t had the background that I had, and the contacts that I, I was able to have I don’t think my daughter in law would have got the benefit, so I don’t know how people manage now with the they have made it so difficult, so difficult for people. I mean years ago widows benefits were paid out as I said within six working days, we prided ourselves we could get money out to a widow and there was a lump sum paid to tide her over, a widows allowance for so many weeks, and then the widowed mother’s allowance if she had children. Now it’s a basic for the well it’s parents, it’s widowed parents, it’s men and women who get it now, but there’s no sort of lump sum, there’s no allowance, they just get a payment for themselves. To get paid for the children you then have to go to the Inland Revenue and make a claim for family tax credit, separately for the children.

So you have to go round all these different offices with this death certificate, trying to do it on the phone, oh it just, it was just, that was just a total nightmare, an absolute nightmare. I was able to call on the help of people that I knew in the department and at one point my-daughter- in- law was being under paid, and I knew she was being underpaid, again from my past experience, so I phoned up and spoke to the Customer Complaints Manager, in a particular department, and she told me I was wrong, and I said, No, I think you’ll find I’m right, I said, If you go to a certain court, I said, You will find that in there, and I think you will find I am right, and that you are under paying her. And the next day she phoned back and she said, I’m really sorry about that, you are right, I didn’t know that. Now if I hadn’t had that experience.

So it’s not a standard amount for a widow?

No. No. No, it depends on your National Insurance Contributions.

Oh I see.

That the person whos died has paid.

Oh.

No it depends on the National Insurance Contributions that the, that the, the person whos died has paid into the system. How much, how much they get.I mean if I hadn’t, if I hadn’t had that past work experience, I knew that these things were, you know, that what, what was being paid, and what was being said was wrong, then no-one would have connected it.

If health and safety make charges, would there be any compensation due from the company?

My daughter in laws solicitor is dealing with that, he has been dealing with it since 2005. That again, the employer has been really dragging his feet again, you know, every step of the way they have been coming up with arguments and whatever, so she has not received any compensation as yet,which is almost four years.

The fund they set up and all the rest of it was terribly well done. Yes, and all of that was amazingly well done and I do feel that some people had been a bit disingenuous about that, I mean we were all given rather a lot of money actually. Every time I opened my post for a while I seemed to have been given some more money, I mean okay that’s fine but, you know, I think I didn’t really see how people could argue that they weren’t getting anything, I suspect the people who were worse off were the people who were actually injured particularly the badly injured. I mean the bereaved it seemed to me were treated, I mean the, it was set up well, it was well organised and it was, and it wasn’t bureaucratic at all and it was run down, you know, when it needed to be. I mean I was very impressed by how un-bureaucratic it was.

Who set the fund up?

I think the Mayor’s office did originallyI think it might have been a mixture of people actually, but it was very well run and very efficient and I, and really, I mean when you read things in the press I’m not sure I really agree with that. I think it was very well run and I think we were pretty well treated. I mean some of the other stuff, the initial stage [such as lack of information] was far worse, much worse.

Do you automatically get Criminal Injuries Compensation from the Government?

Yes you do.

You get £11,000?

Yes you get that automatically and I suppose, I suppose, you know, we just got it, I mean in a way you sit there and think, you know, gosh, you know, and what would you do, well you take it obviously, I mean I gave it to my daughter, I think probably but you just think it’s this money life thing, you know, because it’s easier for me to say possibly than it is for some of the other people concerned, I understand that.

Did you have to apply for that money or is it just sent?

Not really, no, no, no I think they knew who we were. We had to fill in very minimalist details and we were just given it basically, I don’t, you know, particularly the money for me, the London Relief Fund or whatever it was, the criminal stuff was a bit more, I think was a bit more complicated. But quite honestly it was all very pretty straight forward. The other thing that was really good actually directly afterwards was our solicitor dealt with this of course, but for example, James still owed some of his student loan and the student loan company wrote it off immediately the next day, you know, and really, what was fantastic I felt, was that people like that acted whereas we had far more trouble with, I can’t remember, I think he had an overdraft, it wasn’t a huge overdraft but, you know, two or three hundred pounds, I think but I think we had more problem with whoever his bank was suggesting they might like to write that off too. I mean our solicitors were very keen on that they said, they should really write off everything, but I was impressed by the student loan company because it was actually very efficient and I think people perhaps, in these circumstances these things can actually be quite important if you were, you know, if you think you are going to be, having to sort out that kind of thing as well, so I think it’s always as well to actually go and see a solicitor to make sure that, that kind of thing is dealt with actually because it just adds to the trauma of the whole thing I think.

It must have had a big economic impact on you losing your wife as well?

Yes, Steph had two jobs, she was training to become a nursery nurse, and she, she’d just passed her NVQ3 in Childcare, which is a really good achievement for her,I worked in retailing in the weeks, and played in this band at weekend, which was sometimes quite good money. I’ve, I’ve basically been living off some life insurance we’ve had, which has sort of been whittled away, it’s quite a big chunk of that gone because I just found it too difficult to go back to work, a lot of that sense ofpurpose has gone. When Steph was here and I was working, you felt you were working for something, you know? You were quite proud to go out to work and at the end of the week, the end of the month whatever we had left, you know, that was a little bonus for us to treat ourselves. But you, you obviously, you have a more sense of purpose bringing the children up, making sure, you know, you think of, you think everything’s just going to go on as normal, they’ll get to 18, 20, then they’ll move out, they’ll get married and you’ve kind of done your job as a parent. And I thought that was what life was all about, but since I’ve lost Steph and faced with, especially my daughter, she’s so young at the moment, the future’s a really scary place, I know my sense of purpose has gone if you like. All, all I see now is getting through from one week to the next, making sure she’s healthy and well fed and that her clothes are ironed and she’s doing well at school, and the house is as clean as I can possibly make it. I struggle with the housekeeping, but that’s been my purpose in life since the accident. And the things like work seems very trivial to me, for, apart from that you need money to live, you kind of, like the sense of purpose has gone and nothing makes much sense to me anymore, because I know we’ll all end up in the cemetery like Steph is. Can you understand that?

You’re caring for your daughter though.

Oh, yes, she’s my number one priority. I gave up work to get her through the first couple of years, and the only money I have coming in is a is a widower’s allowance which is I think only about £50 a week, or something like that.

Is that from the state?

Yes. The rest of it has just been some life insurance we have, I’m just trying to be as frugal as I possibly can.

Would it be very, would it be possible to get back into a part time job if you wanted to?

I’ve tried, well I’ve tried with music because there’s some well paid musician jobs out there, but organising the baby sitting’s just, it’s like a military operation, you know I have to pick her up from school at half three, and I, I’ve tried it a couple of times, I’ve not tried day time work yet, the school holidays obviously, you’d have to pay for some kind of child-minder. As she’s getting older now I’m getting more ready to go back to work, but I’ve tried like my hobby job if you like, which was as a musician, it, oh it’s like a, it’s like a military operation, I was so tired by the time I’d got her to the baby sitters, and got all the stuff ready for the weekend, and I come back and I’ve loaded all my car up, and I’d go and do this gig somewhere, and I’d have to be up at the crack of dawn to get her from the babysitters the next morning, I was too tired and after what I’d spent on child-minding fees, it wasn’t really worth it.

And then I suppose there were other practical that you have to worry about? Sort of changing bank accounts.

Yeah, bank, all of that bank accounts, house insurance, that was, that was a massive piece of work, but probably what was an even bigger piece of work for us, which was personal is that he was a collector and had more collections of things to do with transport than you could ever begin to imagine, and we’re still sorting those. And that’s been a task of just humungous proportions, an attic completely full of trains and boats and planes and vehicles. More magazines than you can ever be, and something, we counted 120 magazine titles.

Ah. Goodness.

Collections of, and thousands of books, all of which have had to be catalogued and showed, and sold in specialist places because they were all specialist things.

And actually dealing with all of that has been another of the things that I feel that has made this whole experience even more drawn out. Because you’ve got, and back onto this split personality business, you’ve got the need that you have to do this clearing out and yet on the other side by clearing out you’re throwing him out, disposing of him, the things that were his life, excitement. So you’re torn, you want to throw it out, or, I don’t mean throw it out, you want to dispose of it.

Yes.

That’s a better term, and some of the things, something that cost £150 you don’t want to give to a charity shop, because when there were 40 of them that’s a large amount of money tied up in artifacts, that you can’t afford to give away or throw away, and so getting rid of them in a specialist way, you’re desperate to do, but you’re desperate not to do because the doing of it is somehow denying him his retirement pleasure. And so that’s another split personality thing, which is still going on, and I think will probably go on for another year or so at least.

Can you sum up the particular problems there are in bringing back, or finding out about somebody whos died overseas?

Yes, well I mean from a purely practical point of view, I know I’m going to sound like the Foreign Office Website, but you need to have insurance because if you don’t have insurance then there will be an argument, and there will be a financial liability somewhere down the line.

The Foreign Office I’m sure nowadays have much more sensible procedures and will help. You need to know before you go anywhere, and I always do now, how to contact Air Ambulance, how to contact local, local you know our man in wherever it is, the Embassy or the Consulate or whatever. You need to have those details; you need to have medical insurance, and you need to be persistent. I think when, when you are involved in a situation where you have to bring a body back from overseas, the last thing you want is the burden of worrying about whos going to pay for the coffin, and putting it on an aeroplane, when all you’re trying to contend with is your grief in having lost some, lost somebody. So if you can make sure that you’ve got all the sort of basic organisational things sorted out, then the grief will take its natural course. I think it’s where all these other complications combine with the grief to make it so much worse.

Yes.

People get angry, and then start blaming everybody for things and, I can’t believe that that helps the grieving process. I know that there are a number of people who, from the Bali experience were, they perceived that they had a poor service from the Foreign Office and that, to this day they’re angry people and it’s sort of almost as if they’re blaming the Foreign Office for the, for the explosions. And that isn’t the case, you have to take a, you have to take a, I was going to say a sensible, you know, how can you be rational in those circumstances. I think you have to take a view that it isn’t anybody’s fault other than the people that pulled the trigger, or caused it and you know everybody else there is genuinely there to help. they’re not looking to stand in your way. So I think that, I know that the Foreign Office understands that grief is, has a particular effect on many people and that they have to do what they can to sort of mitigate that, and I think they do.