GRAPPLING WITH GRIEF

There has been a lot of death in Catherine Mayer’s life. Even though the American-born British journalist and activist is just reaching 60, she was shocked to realise that she knew no fewer than 27 people – family members, close friends, even best friends, colleagues – who have died during her adult life.

But nothing prepared her for the death of her husband, Andy Gill, founder member of UK post-punk band Gang of Four. Just back from a tour that took in Australia, New Zealand and then China, he became ill with suspected pneumonia at the end of 2019. Some years earlier, he’d been diagnosed with sarcoidosis, so he was vulnerable.

On his return from the trip, the couple assumed he would spend some time in St Thomas’, a large hospital facing Westminster on the edge of the Thames in London, before coming back home to their cool Clerkenwell apartment a few miles’ walk away. Packing for hospital, he insisted Mayer include his computer and external drives so he could keep working on projects and no time would be lost to this latest skirmish with ill health.

“I felt very strongly about people’s misunderstanding of grief, the way people were awkward about us as widows.”