Lucy Eastbrook is well known for her two best selling books - When the Dust Settles and Come What May - both detailing the wisdom from her years of expertise in the disaster and crisis management field. So I asked her what lessons for bereavement can be drawn from her wide experience?

Nina Nannar - ITV's Arts Editor - found her life turned upside down three years ago when her husband of 23 years, Steve, died after complications caused by kidney disease. She talks movingly here of how she managed to continue with her high-pressured, public facing role having been plunged suddenly into deep grief.

In many of these episodes we've learnt how finding people who've been through a very similar experience can be the best help in bereavement.  Here, Maxine and Marilyn who've both found help from their local bereavement group Oasis, describe how helpful t's been.

Dr Bill Webster - Grief Counsellor, and author and founder of The Grief Journey - is on tour in the UK at the moment presenting seminars on his experience of grief and loss and his advice for the bereaved and those who surround them.  He shares his long and wide experience with us.

Most people who are widowed will talk afterwards about how they flailed around, went numb, didn't know what they were doing or how they were feeling in the early stages of grief.  And yet it's at that time when decisions have to be made, action taken. Suzanne Elvidge drew on her own experience to set up the Widows Handbook and talks about it here.

Richard Chalmers and friends recognised a need in their community for bereavement support some 20 years ago.  Since then, they've been running regular support groups for the bereaved - where people come together to eat/drink and mostly chat.

Most of us who've not experienced death worry about what it's going to be like - whether that's our own death or that of our loved ones.  Doulas can help take fear of the unknown away for people at the end of life - and their families.  Catherine Beer joins us again to explain more here.

Lee Wakeham has a horrendous story to tell - of being abandoned by his mother aged two, of abuse during his first foster care placement, leading to years of offending and time in prison. So how did  he turn his life around after such huge losses? He now runs successful pasty-making business - HMPasties - that employs ex-offenders and has been taken under the Co-op's wing via its incubator scheme - the Apiary.

Louise Dillon's son died from an aggressive form of leukemia just after his 14th birthday.  Her own experience of how difficult it was returning to work, prompted her to offer training to businesses on how best to support grieving employees and how to give the bereaved a voice in how they'd like things to go.

Peter Cooper got in touch after listening to  episode 27 featuring his mother talking about the death of his father.  He mentioned that he felt there had been unacknowledged grief underlying his childhood and how it has left him unsure if he 'does' grief well.  We explore that together here.

Pippa and Grace were only 16 when their fathers died.  They didn't know each other at the time but met through the counselling offered by Thames Hospice and have since become firm friends.  Together they're passionate about raising money for the hospice so that others can receive the same care and help they value so highly.

Baroness Glenys Kinnock and Lord Neil Kinnock were together for 60 years - the most high profile political couple of their generation.  "It is like losing a limb" says Neil. "Glenys suffered and died of Alzheimer's in 2023 and the only real relief of Alzheimer's is that people slip away. They almost give you a rehearsal in loss.  It does mean that you suffer a real death and years before that a sort of death."

NOT talking about death and dying is 'a profound act of societal self-harm' says Toby Porter CEO of HospiceUK. We mark Dying Matters Awareness Week by talking to him about why we don't talk about it more, about hospice care, assisted dying and the recent loss of his mother.    

For Easter week, we're talking to the Reverend Sally Lynch about the Christian Church's approach to death and dying and the significance of Easter in the Church of England.

This is to mark Sudden Death Awareness Month in March.   Lucy Potter's 2 year old son Gibson didn't wake up one morning. She bravely, and eloquently describes here the horror of trying to administer CPR, of accompanying him in an ambulance, and of willing him to live while watching in stunned disbelief as medics tried and failed to revive him.          

Ginny Daly had to experience the heart-breaking ordeal of giving birth to her baby boy knowing that he'd died in the womb.  She talks openly of that nightmare, and how, years later, her mother's death exposed her to a completely different kind of grief.

Suicide is often described as cruel. This is not what our latest guest Fiona Duffy thinks. She describes here how her experience of suffering losses, including her brother to suicide, inspired her to go into the Funeral Care Business with the Co-op.

Mark Shepherd  performs an extraordinary service for the parents of babies who are still born, or who die soon after birth.  He visits them soon after their loss to take professional photos of their babies for a charity called RememberMyBaby. He tells us here how he got into this amazing work.        

Natasha's Foundation is launching a new campaign to provide education about allergies to children in primary schools around the country.  The foundation is named in memory of Natasha Ednan-Laperouse who suffered a fatal anaphylactic reaction in 2016 on her way to a holiday in France with her father and best friend.  She'd unwittingly eaten a baguette containing sesame seed bought at the airport.   After the inquest, her parents Tanya and Nadim campaigned for a new law, Natasha's law, so that all prepackaged food must list all ingredients with the 14 allergens in bold.  They went on to launch the Foundation which funds research into allergies and helps raise awareness.  Tanya Ednan-Laperouse OBE shares her story here.  

Gini Hackett, founder of @BucketListWishesUK, believes that encouraging her Mother to put together a bucket list helped prolong her life from the projected 3 months to 11, and describes some of the fun things they did together during that time