But what I did do as well I had counseling, partly because one of my best friends is a psychotherapist and she said I think it might be a good idea, but I found counselling very helpful, I think I found it, I felt the man I got was a funny old chap actually, but I think he let me talk and I think he also, obviously with counselling and I’d never really experienced it before, I was able to talk about things that I, you know, about my family and my background and about James properly, you know, my concerns about him and how we’d, you know, gone through this kind of, you know, breaking the umbilical cord bit, which was very real to me at the time but I have to be, yes I think I was, I found counselling, I mean I had counselling for about, I don’t know four months I think, once a week and I found that very helpful and at the end of the four months he said to me How are you feeling about this? I said I think that, I think that you’ve done for me what you can do, you know, I think I’ve, you’ve perhaps allowed me to talk in a way that, I mean I’m much more of an advocate for counselling now than I used to be, to be honest. It enabled me to talk about other things and about James but I began to feel that I was repeating myself, do you know what I mean and it stopped being useful.

So he was a professionally trained therapist, he wasn’t a Cruse counsellor?

No, no, no I went to the doctor and this was the worst experience I had of the whole thing, if you could get doctors not to do this it would be fantastic, I went to see, not my, I mean it’s a large GP practice and I’ve never had much to do with any of them, but the woman I saw, she was a Chinese doctor, she was, I think she’s one of the partners now and I cried and she said, Oh you’re obviously suffering from grief and I looked at her and I thought Yes, I think I might be and she referred me to this counsellor and said, This woman is exhibiting signs of grief, and she made it sound, she made it sound, it was extraordinary awful, you know, I, she made me feel, In fact the counsellor said to me, I think I may be having to have words with the practice about this, you know, the way she’d written the referral, of course, you know, in the way counsellors are he was very non-committal about most things. I have to say that was the worst part of it because I felt like some kind of rather pathetic specimen at that point, you know, and it was just down right unfair frankly and unreasonable and I do get the impression, in fact with the GP who is head of the, he’s the main, I don’t know what they are, he’s a very nice man and actually wrote me a very nice letter, because he’d had something to do with James, I think when he left University because I was a bit concerned about whether he was depressed or not, and so he knew James quite well and so I think he was, he was better but I just got the impression that if that was the standard of the way Gps dealt with those circumstances, it was really appalling. Because, you know, some of the people I have met, some of the other people who have been involved with the 7th July they’re, you know, they obviously have had appalling problems about getting, you know, leading any kind of normal life and actually, you know, really accepting that you have to try, you know, and perhaps not being able to. I mean because obviously we’ve been, there’s a lot of stuff going on at the moment about the memorial and so forth and some of those conversations are very difficult.

Did the GP refer you to the psychotherapist that you went to?

Yes.

That was, was it the National Health Service?

Yes it was, it was a National Health Service referral. I mean largely because that’s what this friend of mine suggested I did. I mean she said, But only do it Rose if you really feel that’s what you want but I’m glad I did, but the actual process itself was awful, really awful. I mean I really was made to, made to feel that a) was it really necessary, I mean it’s bad enough being told to go and find your own physiotherapist but I did think that on that occasion I thought yes I would like you to refer me please, you know.

Did you have to wait a long time?

No I didn’t have to wait at all actually, I had to, I think I got an appointment the next week actually. And it was all, the actual counselling was fine because the chap, you know, wouldn’t have been everybody’s cup of tea, I can see that, he was quite elderly but I quite liked him.

Did he describe what he did in any particular way, I mean did he talk about Cognitive Behavioural Therapy or anything like that; he didn’t describe himself as a particular kind of counsellor?

No he didn’t, no, I mean in fact actually it was, that was, that was okay but, I mean I think for someone like me whos lived as long as I have and never done anything like that before perhaps, perhaps slightly more direction would have been better, I don’t know. The benefit I got from it really was just sitting and talking to him, he did ask, to be fair though and I’m I mean he did ask me some pretty probing questions about the way I felt about things and my relationships with various people, including my mother and things like that but, you know, it wasn’t, I didn’t really I felt that what I got out of it was, because I talked to him, you know, really rather than because he didn’t, he never suggested anything at all really except he did, he did, at one point we came onto the fact that I hadn’t had a dinner party for a long time, I remember I thought and I said I hadn’t really felt like it and he said it might be an idea if I started having them again but anyway, I mean it sounded as if I did it all the time and I do remember that particularly because it struck me as being rather amusing about that I could rush off and make a dinner for somebody [laughter]. But you know I think in the end what, what’s really valuable is having somebody, I mean both the Vicar and the Psychotherapist who, who were not exactly paid to listen to you but were you felt that you could take up their time.

I was consumed with rage. In fact so much so that I think possibly at that time I could happily and quite easily have gone out and killed the man who killed my son. It became a kind of overwhelming feeling, and my husband actually was quite worried because he thought I would do it, so I went to a counsellor, a private counsellor, I went to a counsellor then, and she was excellent.

Was she a professional counsellor?

Yes, yes,

How did she describe her sort of counselling, did she talk about any sort of particular therapy?

She probably did yes, she probably did, but to tell you the truth I can’t really remember, because you know, you’re brain tends to sort of just shut down, I just knew I needed, I needed to talk to somebody out with the family, you know that I could say all the things that I wanted to say, at that time, because the rage was just taking over.

This was mainly listening?

She was listening, yes. She was mainly listening. And she made me kick things, and punch things and you know get it out that way. And eventually I kind of got to the point where I thought well what’s the point of killing him, it would possibly give me some satisfaction, some momentary satisfaction, but it would just bring more grief on the family so..

Did you have to pay for that counselling?

Yes, yes. Uhuh. No, there was no help from the, no help from the NHS at all, and don’t get me wrong, my doctor here but we were living down, we were living down south, the south of England, but my doctor here is, I mean he’s a very nice, in fact he gave me some diazepam at the beginning, but he said, I don’t want you to get into the habit of that. So I had a couple of diazepam, just for the first two or three weeks.

Did you ever explore the idea of getting more counselling, paid for by the National Health Service?

I did, I went to the doctor, he sent me to, oh I can’t remember, to a clinic, I saw a psychiatrist, one visit and I explained it all to him, and he said, You know, he said, Really, he couldn’t help because he said, You’re not suffering any kind of mental illness, he said, You’re not suffering from a depression he said, You’re, you’re suffering from grief, and he said, And I can’t really, I can’t really help. So that was, that was really. I had no counselling with the NHS, again you know, I don’t know because I know other people have had NHS counselling you know where they’ve lost someone you know through cancer or through whatever, so it’s very different, the whole experience of losing someone where it’s a death at work, is totally different.

How many sessions did you have with the counsellor privately?

I think I probably had about 10 sessions with her.

So that was quite expensive.

It was, uhuh. I also went to a hypnotherapist telling a lie, the hypnotherapist came here, to the house, that was expensive also, it was £60 a session. But that was wonderful, you know. But it was mainly, again it was specific, I was having flashbacks, I couldn’t, you know, when I slept I just saw Mark being consumed by flames, so I couldn’t sleep I would sit up at nightdrinking coffee or whatever, so that was specifically counselling, it was hypnotherapy and we concentrated on relaxation techniques, and being able to try and get these flashbacks out of my mind, and it was quite successful, and she, you know, she sort of showed me how to relax, partly so that was, that was again it was just specifically for that, for that purpose.

Did she put you in a state of hypnosis?

Yes. Yes.

And it helped you to think back, think in a different way?

No, it was, it was mainly the kind of, putting me in a place where I felt comfortable and relaxed and able to feel, not quite happy but peaceful, basically.

How many sessions did you have to have with her?

Again I probably had about 10.

And that helped a little bit?

It did, it helped with the sleep, and the flashbacks, but then obviously you know the flashbacks have tended to come back, while we were going through the evidence for the, preparing for the inquest, you know, reading it all, I began to get these flashbacks back again during the night.

I’m so sorry.

Anyway that’s difficult.

he family liaison officer had put me in touch with Camden Victim Support, and I got allocated a counsellor who was really very good and had got some training in traumatic incident counselling.

Was she doing it as a volunteer?

Yes, I think so, but she was really fantastic, a maverick but that in a way helped, because we weren’t as a, as a group we weren’t really formally offered counselling for two years, because in so many ways all the institutions were completely unprepared for Bali. The Foreign Office was unprepared for it, didn’t know what to do. The British Government didn’t know what to do. All sorts of organisations were just not, were just caught completely off guard, and took a long time to galvanise. And in the meantime a lot of damage got compounded arguably. One of the extraordinary things about an event such the traumatic, I mean people have often asked what’s the difference between, losing somebody in a bombing and a, a different sort of bereavement. I think one of the things that, I mean death is, everybody’s death is loss, an equal loss and there is no hierarchy in bereavement, but there are particular aspects that come out of a terrorist bombing, one of course it’s a crime, it’s murder. There’s a massive police investigation. Two, identification of survivors and bodies and victims is quite a complex thing, and isn’t always very straightforward. I know that some people had to wait a very long time just before Christmas and I think the last British person was identified, formally identified as being dead. And the legal aspects of what happens when a load of young, young, young people, most of them, most of the people being British, the British who were killed were between 18 and 35, they were all killed in the middle of their lives, most of them hadn’t got wills, and so there was a huge, and they never knew they were going to die, so they were killed in the middle of their lives, completely unprepared. And there were huge problems sorting all of that out.

How long did you go on having counselling, sort of regular counselling for?

Probably a year.

Was that weekly?

No, bi-monthly, because I had to pay for it.

Did you?

Oh. So victim support
Oh the first, no the first, the first six months I think were free and then the counsellor left Victim Support, so, and I followed the counsellor.

So she was doing it on a voluntary basis to start with?

Yes, and then, yes. So, but I mean, essentially you’re pretty much on your own.

And then when I came back into the country, it was the one year anniversary, and I’d come back to give evidence to Jon’s enquiry. The enquiry into what had happened to him, and I found myself roaming the streets of North London, and I realised that I was near the mortuary. I don’t know how I found it I didn’t look it up or maybe I did, maybe I did, but my memory is I used to walk around the mortuary, and there used to be squirrels there, and they’d come up really, really close and it was an old cemetery as well, and I found myself up there quite a few times near the first year anniversary, and as I was walking home one day I passed a Victim Support Office, and I knocked on their door, and a lady answered and she said, Can I help? And I said, Yes my husband’s been murdered, I need to talk to somebody. And she invited me in, and she sat with me and I used to carry photographs of Jon everywhere, even if I got in a cab I’d show the cab driver photographs of him, and she went through the photographs, she just let me sit, and she let me talk and she referred me then to the voluntary bereavement services. So she sort of held me together until my referral you know came up and I saw somebody on a more permanent basis.

Was that organised by CRUSE as well.

No that was bereavement voluntary services, and I saw a lady there for about two years maybe, yes, I used to see her,

And for how long did she let you talk?

Well it was an, I mean I’d begun to campaign at that time, you know I’d become quite public because of the enquiry and everything, but it was somewhere that I could go that just allowed me to, it’s almost as if what you do is you carry around with you, you, you, you’re functioning and people look at you and they see that you’re functioning and I was working very, very hard at the time, and its almost as if you open a door and you walk into it, and you say, This is, this is the horror of what I’ve been carrying with me. Here it is, and you know they’re not going to say, Well let’s put the kettle on and talk about something else. They really, you know, what that experience of victim support has done, and the voluntary bereavement service did for me, and subsequent counsellors, is just they have the capacity to sit down and listen to what you’re carrying around with you. Because if you, you can’t, it’s almost like you can’t feel it in everyday life, because you wouldn’t be able to function, so it’s as if somebody has; opens the door for you and says well, Well? You know? Lets you know, lets you explore how it’s affecting your life. But I think it took a long, long time for me to realise, years in fact, I was really, really focussed on what had happened to Jon, you know that this was a young man who had lost his life, he was in the prime of his life, you know he was a professional drummer, he had so much ambition and creativity, and then it must have taken over five years when it suddenly started to, even more than that, it just suddenly started to dawn on me, hang on a minute, something’s happened to me as well. I didn’t really sit down and think, this has happened to me, you know, oh I’ve been made homeless, oh I’ve lost my husband, oh, you know? I’m bereft, or you know, I didn’t, it didn’t really dawn on me that I was a secondary victim or a survivor, all I could think about for a long, long period of time was perhaps having some more dignity for Jon, because he died so publicly and so violently and indiscriminately, he, he was almost obsolete. Do you know what I mean?

He just, it was just another statistic, you know? And I was very, very concerned that Jon had some dignity in his death really, that people realised the kind of man who had died and that his death in my eyes was preventable, and predictable because the man who had killed him had been violent in the past. I mean it was almost like saying, Hang on a minute, there’s this major event that’s happened in my life, to Jon. I want you to know about it, and I want you to take it as seriously, as seriously as you can. You know, and that’s where my energy was taken up, and it took me a very, very long time to think, hang on a minute Jayne, something’s happened to you. And then to start to look at that, really, and to realise the kind of impact it had had on me.

So was the counsellor a professional trained person?

Yes.

Or a volunteer?

No. She was a, she was a volunteer but she was a professional.

Professional trained?

Yes. Yes. She was an expert, you know, and she was very warm and welcoming and she wasn’t, you know the, the feelings that I described about people being overwhelmed. You know that, the feeling that you have are so raw that people don’t know what to say, and people don’t know what to do and you know people start saying to you, You need to move on now. You know people do say things like that, in fact even after a short period of time, but you go into a counselling situation with somebody who is an expert, and they will be able to bear witness to that, you know, that they will, they will let you, you will feel safe enough to show how raw you can possibly feel following something like this.

Did she visit you or did you have to go somewhere?

I went there.

They had their offices somewhere?

Yes. Yeah I went there once a week and I only left because she was leaving. I wouldn’t have stopped the relationship with her; I would have continued to go. But she left.

I think about, oh, nearly a year after Lewis had died, I decided that maybe I needed counselling, and I approached the counsellor at the time and I went for I think it was twelve sessions, and this was done once a week, and it took about an hour.

Was this NHS counselling?

NHS counselling. Yeah.

Did you go to the hospital for that?

I went to the hospital yeah. It was the same hospital that had treated Lewis.

And what happened during a typical session?

Well we talked about, you know, how Lewis was killed, and my feelings towards the people that had caused his death.

And just, you know, how I was coping with it and, you know, she made me do stuff like drawings and things that at the time I thought to myself well this, this is stupid, you know, it’s getting nowhere. But towards the end, it, it, it’s like a jigsaw puzzle, it started to all fit together then, and so it did help me, and my son was having counselling as well, and we were sort of at the same time, you know different days obviously but we did that and then we sort of encouraged my wife to have it, you know, and she sort of, as we finished she was just starting hers, I think I was having two sessions and my wife had done about two then, but she, she, her, her sessions went on a bit longer than ours. But I think all in all it was good, you know, and it did help.

So that was professional counselling with the NHS?

It was professional counselling with the NHS, yes, yes.

I think just trying to get back to some sort of normality was hard. It was difficult; I found I couldn’t speak to my wife about what had happened to Lewis, and that’s what prompted me to do the counselling because I just wouldn’t speak about Lewis, I wouldn’t you know, I wouldn’t discuss things, it was just oh saying his name, it brought great pain back you know. All the feelings would come back and like most men, most men don’t like to cry, and I would find that just the mention of his name I would start you know filling up and ready to cry. I’d have to say the first two years was really hard, I wouldn’t say you get better at it, you just get better at dealing with it as time goes through. It still hurts as much today as it did back then, and we’re talking about 5 years ago. It’s a pain that’s always there, it’s always just under the surface you know, and it can be anything that brings it off, it could be a sad film, it could be something happening to something, something you say and you just start, but

Did you allow yourself to cry sometimes?

I didn’t at first. It was really only when I went to the counselling and you know, and she said to me, Don’t be ashamed you know, you know, its, it’s everybody’s right to cry and grieve over the death of one of their kids. And I found, I found well, I found it hard to cry in front of somebody but as the counselling sessions were going on, every counselling session I cried, I think probably the only one I didn’t cry was the last one. Although I would be upset, but it was going through that process, of letting your feelings out, I found the hardest, I, I’ve always been a person for keeping personal things to myself and not showing emotion. When my brother was killed, you know, I don’t think I actually cried for that either. I went, the other side,I went to do the practical things, I went to sort out the death certificates, and the funeral arrangements and I got myself busy with that.

Why do you think you felt you couldn’t cry?

I don’t know. I, maybe it’s a man thing. I just, didn’t want somebody else to see me in tears you know. I’m a man you know, I should be sort of stronger with my feelings and hold it back. But that’s the hardest thing and it’s probably the worst thing to do.

I’ve now since learned that you let your feelings go. You know, it’s okay to cry, and sometimes I do.

And can you talk about Lewis with your wife and family now?

I can now, yes. I mean we talk about things that you know, things that happened in the past, we talk about things that, that happened now, and we say well, Lewis would’ve done this, and Lewis would’ve done that, so yes, it’s easier to talk about now, because it’s not bottled up anymore. You know I’ve taken the cap off.

So the counselling really helped you with that?

The counselling did help yes. And I, and I was a skeptic, I did think that, you know talking about my son’s death wouldn’t be any help, but there’s so much more to it than that.

Do you get any professional counselling?

I did. I went, I went to the local centre and I saw a lovely lady for 12 weeks.

Was that paid for by the National Health Service?

Yes, it was paid, the police I think paid for it, yeah.

Did they? And can you describe what happened? Did they say it was any particular sort of counselling?

Bereavement counselling.

Yes.

And I saw a lady who did some what you call CBT, cognitive behavioural therapy, and visualisation, to help me relax.

So I would sit there and close my eyes and pretend, say I was on a beach somewhere, because I was stressed all the time and like I said my heart palpitations and things. Talked a lot about the grieving process. And, and how it was affecting me and my children and things. She’s really good. She just listened. I did most of the talking. And she sort of guided me. I don’t know what I would have done without her to be honest.

I think that’s really important. Can you, cognitive behavioural therapy, can you explain a little bit more about what actually happened during a session?

She well I had a phobia that I was going to it sounds daft now but I kept thinking that I was going to die.

I had this terrible fear of death all of a sudden. And I used to go to bed at night and have my mobile and the landline by the bed because I was convinced that I was going to have a heart attack in the night. This just came out of grief. They said it was grief that had caused it, because I’ve never had any problems like that before. I was also frightened of getting in the bath because it, I don’t know where that came from, I just, I always had this thing that something was going to happen to me while I was in the bath. It was bizarre really what, what you’re brain does to you. And it was all to do with my heart and it was because everybody kept saying, Oh, you’ve got a broken heart. And she said that this is where this heart thing’s come from. You’re thinking broken, it’s not going to mend and something’s going to happen.

So she used to say to me, and it sounds daft but it worked, Whenever you get a flutter in your chest, point to your heart and say, ‘Look, stop it now, there’s nothing wrong with you and I’m getting on with the rest of the day’. And I did. And I used to feel daft. I used

And you felt daft?

Yes, I used to get in the bath and think, flutter, flutter, flutter, it was anxiousness. Because I look back now and I know, but at the time I didn’t, and say, ‘Right, enough. And she said, Take the phone away from the bedside cabinet. Nothing’s going to happen to you. Take your phone away because the fact that it’s there and you’re rolling over in the night and seeing it and then it’s bringing you back to the fact that you think something bad’s going to happen.

So I did everything that she told me and it worked.

She helped you to think in a different way.

Yes, yes.

And then the visualisation? She

That was just helping me relax. There’d be, what, one session I’d be on the beach somewhere, another timeit would be walking through the woods and there’d be a stream and lots of green grass and sunshine. And just to take your mind off things.

It sounds really good.

Yes, she was great.

How have you found help for yourself? Did you go to your GP or did you seek any counselling?

I did have counselling, because people were a bit worried that I wasn’t facing it, because, because I wasn’t grieving very much, or, I wasn’t openly grieving and crying and a sobbing wreck like most of my family. Well, my Mum in particular.

Who arranged that counselling? Was it the NHS?

Two of my counsellors were from my college because I was a student nurse at the time. And one was from my Gps surgery. And I didn’t find them particularly helpful. I tried, I tried the counselling because I thought well it might help. And I always found that for the time I was there I would talk to them about, I’d try and focus to talking about Lloyd rather than other problems that are going on and things like that, but I always found that, yes, I felt really good because I got it off my chest, and that feeling would last for about an hour until I got home, sat down, had a cup of tea, and then it would be back to normal, you know, it wouldn’t have really made a difference. And I tried it for a couple of months, and you know after going through three counsellors none of them really helped me that much, you know, not for want of them trying you know it’s not their fault it’s just me in particular, how I deal with things. I didn’t find it particularly helpful.

Were they professionally trained?

Yes, they were professionally trained counsellors. Even the ones at college they were properly trained counsellors. Obviously the one through the Gps surgery she was properly trained.

Group psychotherapy was not so good. PeopleI seemed suited, with my personality, I help other people and I’m not one for asking for it for myself too much. So I found myself helping other people. But to me I was desperately trying to stay alive. And they were talking about irrelevant things like their mother not liking the curtains that they’d just made. And I’m just thinking, Get real. I’m just gripping on and what are you on about [Laughs].

So what happens in group psychotherapy, could you explain?

It was, it was just silly to me.

How many people sat round?

There were four or five of us.

The therapist would just sort of open it up and it.. maybe she’d sit there in silence for a while and just wait for somebody to speak [laughs]. It could just be like whos going to go then? And then people would just bring up what was bothering them that particular week. And it could be something really petty. They, the rest of the group just could not get where I was coming from. There was one other girl and she was trying to stay alive as well. She hadn’t gone through what I’d gone through. But you know she had her own things that were very serious and she was trying to stay alive. Me and her, we were like, What isthis is just silly And then we’d, we both got art therapy separately, one to one. So that was good.

Did you have any individual psychotherapy?

No, that wasn’t available. There was a waiting list for thatsoyeah, at that time. I had to wait for the art therapy too. But that can through a lot quicker and that was a better thing for me.

So there was no individual counselling or psychotherapy available for you?

Well psychotherapy’s different to counselling anyway.

Yes.

But there was none available not for a while no, no.

Not free on the national, national health services?

No.

Only a year ago I was invited onto course called, Escaping Victimhood’, which I’m sure you’ll find the details on the website at the end of this interview. But I found that an absolutefor me it was like getting into a jet aircraft, it took me from where I am now into the future. And the support and help from the professionals on that course are second to none. And at the moment II am going to represent Escaping Victimhood’ in the future. it’s a positive course, open to all. Unfortunately it needs government backing. And there are only twenty-four places as far as I know available in one year. And I was fortunate enough to be one of them a year ago.

Is that a day course?

No it’s a residential course, which lasts three to four days.

And one of which is taking place in London very shortly. it’s a very positive course for people bereaved by murder and manslaughter, and one that should be available to a lot of people. But I think by clicking on, onto the website you’ll be able to find more information about this.

And then people can apply to go onto it?

Yes they can.

Do you want to just sum up what actually happens during those four days?

During the four days on the Escaping Victimhood’ workshop, they take you from where you now, through various processes of your own psychology, and the circumstances which have led you to go on that course.

You get one to one attention?

Yes. it’s a group course but also one, one to one. it’s a very intense course, but also very relaxing and very uplifting.

Are they professional people running it?

they’re, they are very professional.

Are they psychologists, psychiatrists?

Psychologists. We have an expert on posttraumatic stress disorder there. And all the, the support network of Escaping Victimhood’ in my opinion is second to none.

And it really is worth pursuing if you are the unfortunate person to be like me who is a victim of murder or manslaughter.

Do they keep in touch with you afterwards or is it just a one of?

Yes. Afterwards there is a follow up weekend, which is to find outthere’s a number of weeks, how you’ve progressed after your workshop. And the twelve people on that course I’m still very friendly with, all the people. And very recently we spent a weekend together. So it’s a very uplifting, very bonding sort of course.