The message that flashed up on my iPad this morning felt like a punch to the stomach. It was a reminder from Facebook that it was my best friend’s birthday, urging me to send her good wishes. I burst into tears.
There would be no more birthdays. Last week I went to her funeral and I’ve never felt so lost, lonely and heartbroken.
Yes, I’ve encountered grief before. My grandparents died when I was in my 20s and my parents in my 50s – of course I grieved for them and missed them, but the grief I feel now is overwhelming in a way I’ve never felt in all my life.
You prepare yourself for losing the older generation of loved ones, it’s the expected order of things, but nothing prepares you for losing a contemporary who’s been so close for so long.
She knows all your secrets as you know hers. She’s always there to share life’s ups and downs and make you laugh during those times you can’t find anything to laugh about.
Her death is a stark reminder that none of us is immortal as we like to think.
It was not exactly a shock when Griselda’s son and husband called me early one morning in late August to tell me she had died at around 5am.
I knew she’d been very ill for some time, but in a jokey email a few months ago she’d promised not to die. She knew full well how much she meant to me and didn’t think I could live without her.
Griselda had had breast cancer ten years ago, so we shared that ghastly experience as we’d shared everything throughout our adult lives. I’d had it ten years earlier and thus far I’ve been lucky. I worried all the time that it might metastasise. I still do.
My friend was not so lucky. Her cancer went walkabout and attacked her liver and her lungs. She suffered terribly, despite wonderful, attentive care in the efforts to get rid of it. But no amount of chemotherapy managed to knock it on the head.
Palliative care and Macmillan nurses eased the pain and she never lost her sense of humour.
Our last communication was a couple of weeks before her death. She’d posted a picture on Facebook of a sale of redundant stuff that had taken place outside her house. I asked her how on earth she was managing to do it when she was so ill.
‘I’m directing operations from my bed,’ she said. That was her – always busy, full of energy, determined to be involved in whatever life had to offer.
When we first met at BBC Radio Bristol in 1973, she was far superior to me. I had joined as a lowly newsroom copy taker while she was a trained reporter who had worked for a number of local radio stations previously.
She said, over drinks in the BBC Club one night, that she thought I might have the qualities that would make a broadcaster.
She was my mentor, only a couple of years older than me, and soon she had become my best friend. I never forgot her reporting lessons and they stood me in pretty good stead for the rest of my time in broadcasting.
Our friendship blossomed and we shared our agonies in our 20s when boyfriends came and went. She met the man who would become the father of her children, as did I.
Our jobs took us to different parts of the country, but we met whenever we could.
I did a bit of TV in Southampton; she in East Anglia. I went to her wedding and was reminded by a friend at the funeral that I’d been instrumental in making sure her make-up was perfect.
She and her husband moved to South London and she insisted it was time I did the same.
Griselda had no fear of the metropolis, but it terrified me. I was a Northern working-class girl; how could I possibly fit in there?
I spent many a weekend with her going to parties, getting to know the city and waking in her flat in the morning for a dance around the sitting room to the Electric Light Orchestra’s Mr Blue Sky.
Even the dullest day had sun and blue sky for her. The music was played at her funeral. She’d have loved it.
We’d had our first babies, a son apiece, within a couple of months of each other.
It was concern for the education of our children – two boys for me, a boy and a girl for her – that persuaded us to move close to schools we thought would benefit them.
We moved to the Peak District and they to Kent, but for what feels like years and years we stayed in each other’s homes as often as possible. The children became friends and all was well with the world.
In the 50 years of our deep, loving friendship, we only fell out twice. First was in our late 20s when we went shopping in Selfridges. I, at the time, was earning a better salary and infuriated her by drooling over expensive jewellery she could never have afforded.
She said I was selfish and we didn’t speak for a week. (She was right.)
The second time was the incident of the large Stilton at a party at her mother’s house. I cut a slice for myself. She was furious. Didn’t I know that a Stilton should be spooned, not sliced? I didn’t, but, as always, I learned from her. She knew everything.
It seemed everyone in town came to the crematorium last week. She had always been involved in campaigns such as keeping the local Creek clean and unspoiled and making sure a small public garden was cared for.
She was universally loved and admired.
For me, the sight of my beloved best friend in a wicker coffin was unbearable. She was the light of my life, full of talk and enthusiasm, and she’s gone. I have never felt such emptiness.
I know who I’m backing on Strictly
I wasn’t sure about watching Strictly, given all the scandal surrounding the show. But of course, I did and can now look forward to cheery Saturday night viewing until Christmas.
I do hope blind comedian Chris McCausland is wrong in his prediction he’ll be the first out.
Introduced to fellow contestant Dr Punam Krishan, he said, ‘None of us can believe we’ve managed to get in the same room as a GP.’ Good dancer or no, he’s too funny to lose.
I haven’t lived there for a while, but I still have a deep affection for my home town of Barnsley. I’m proud it will lead the way in dealing with worklessness. A Pathways to Work Commission report found most people not in work in the town would try with help and support.
It’s 40 years since the closure of the pits which once guaranteed a decent wage for men like my grandfather. The loss of the industry knocked the stuffing out of so many. Barnsley people are not lazy. They just need a kickstart.
Huw should be jailed for his crimes
I never met Huw Edwards, even though we were both key presenters at the BBC, but I am sickened by what he has done.
I can’t believe he wasn’t sent to prison.
Those poor children in the images he saw were horribly abused. It wouldn’t happen if men like Edwards did not provide a market for such perversion.
He should be jailed to show others such as him that the crime is serious and must be punished.
London Fashion Week and you expect to see models who look as if they’ve never eaten a proper meal. So three cheers for designer Karoline Vitto, whose catwalk show used no models under a size 14.
