Hairy Biker widow says 'live the life they can't'
Megan Paterson/BBCThe widow of Hairy Biker Dave Myers and the author of detective drama Vera have urged people to speak about grief after the deaths of their husbands.
As part of Gateshead's Festival of Compassion, Lili Myers said she wanted to show people "there is life after losing someone".
Dave was one half of the TV duo along with Si King and died in February 2024 from cancer, while writer Ann Cleeves lost her husband Tim in 2017 to a heart condition.
The festival held events aimed at giving people the space to talk about death and grief.
Myers met Dave, who was from Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria, while he was filming in Romania for the first Hairy Bikers series. They were together for almost 20 years before he died.
She released a book last year about their relationship as a way of dealing with her loss.
'Earth is crushing you'
Myers said: "We are not very comfortable talking about loss and as soon as I experienced my loss, I started to be a little bit more vocal about it and tried to educate people that there is life after losing somebody.
"As hard as it is, and it is hard, and at some point you feel like the earth is crushing, you're crushing, life goes on and you have a choice to hide or to live your life and make the best of it and also to honour the person that you lost by living the life they can't live."
During the festival, Cleeves, who lives in Whitley Bay, shared how reading had given her an escape when life suddenly became unfamiliar after her husband's death.
"It took me quite a long time just to work out how to live without him," the crime writer said.
"Everyone's grief is different. I think we have this perception that people can bounce back quite quickly and actually the sense that grief comes in waves."
Megan Paterson/BBCCleeves said her daughter was a midwife and had compared grief to labour pains.
"You know they come in waves and you think you're doing alright and then you're hit by another one and you're swamped," she said.
The events were organised by Compassionate Gateshead in partnership with community charity Edberts House and the palliative care team at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital.
Julian Prior, project manager at Compassionate Gateshead, said: "We really want to make sure that nobody faces death or dying or grief alone.
"It's all about connection to other people who've been through it and can help, who can just point you in the right direction to be able to support you through what is the most challenging part of anybody's life."
Family Handout