REVIEWS

The MADNESS OF GRIEF

A Memoir of Love and Loss

Written by: The Reverand Richard Coles

Published by: Weidenfeld & Nicolson

Price: £16.99

The Reverend Richard Coles, ‘Britain’s best loved vicar’, the ‘Strictly Rev’, a former Communard, is an instantly recognisable face, whom his partner David, who died in December 2019, teasingly called a ‘borderline national trinket’. This gives an account of three weeks in Richard’s life between the end of 2019 and early 2020 and of David’s death at the age of 43 from internal bleeding and liver disease brought on by alcoholism.

It is a remarkable book because Richard writes so well and is so humanly observant of a range of feelings, many of which most of us have experienced or will experience ourselves. It is a story of shock and disbelief when David’s bleeding occurs. It is about management of crisis and the immediate practical kindness of friends. It is about reversal of roles, as the priest who so often was the giver of comfort, finds himself the recipient. It is about the gathering of family and the decision to remove ventilation (as surgery was not possible). As sometimes happens, David did not die immediately.

Richard shows how when death is drawn out, focus changes agonisingly, as it has to, from the person dying to the support of those clustered around. Richard’s reflections on those few days of suspended living speak powerfully, as they were intended, to those of us who wait, watch and pray as someone we love dies. Death is a finality, the last act of life’s drama. Richard tells of how David had reinvented himself again and again and ‘like so many who undergo invention and reinvention he was unable to go back’.

Richard tells us, ‘If you ever wonder what the relevance of the Christian faith might be for people today, try a deathbed’.

David … ‘was going from us, the hard fact that we shy away from, medicalised or palliated …, but we need to know’. It is a story about loving a person through their own denial of addiction (and addiction, whether to alcohol as here, or to drugs or porn is so endemic). Addiction is the earlier loss. There were subsequent losses of different kinds, the clearing of clutter, the empty bed and heartbreakingly finding homes for some of the dogs who had shared their lives. It is a profound and most moving book.

Iain Torrance

52 ADVENTURES FOR DADS AND THEIR KIDS

Written by: Andy Frost

Published by: Care for the Family

Price: £9.99

Children grow far too quickly – and keeping them engaged with faith during the ebbs and flows of a global pandemic has probably never been more important.

Written by the father of two young children – and published by the Christian charity, Care for the Family, this book seeks to offer ideas to dads in particular (but not limited only to them) to make memories – and share and deepen faith with children.

The author has created a helpful resource of 52 ideas – principally for children aged three to 11 – with a list of relevant bible passages and possible questions accompanying every adventures.

The book is divided into four sections: Great Outdoors, Seasonal Adventures, Adventures at Home and Everyday Adventures and features a helpful checklist to allow users to tick each adventure off.

Activities range from the traditional – such as New Year’s Day Pooh sticks and egg rolling at Easter – to the contemporary – with ideas such as stone stacking or a night hike – and include making lemonade and a cardboard fort along with everyday ideas such as upcycling and a car boot sale.

Each idea has been deliberately designed to be low cost or free to make the book as accessible as possible.

In an introduction, Frost writes: ‘This book of 52 faith adventures is based around the idea of creating some special moments with our children where we can share what we have learnt about God.’

The book would also be useful for those working with some of the smallest people in church families in discovering different and new activities to engage with young minds and deepen faith.

SILVERWING

Written by: Kenneth Steven

Published by: Neem Tree Press 

Price: £8.99

The author, Kenneth Steven, requires no introduction to regular Life and Work readers.

Although this is a work of fiction aimed at children, its themes of bereavement, bullying, paternal relationships and the restorative power of art and nature, will resonate with many. It is the story of Douglas, a ten-year-old boy who has lost his mother. The book charts how his love and care for an injured Greylag Goose helps him bond with his grieving father and overcome the hateful bullies at school, whilst finding freedom in his love of art as he comes to terms with the death of his mother.

The book is illustrated by Ishy Walters with beautiful black and white drawings mainly of Silverwing – the goose featured in the title – which break the text for young readers.

Spiritual connection is a running theme of the book, which is aimed at readers aged eight and above, but could equally be enjoyed as a bedtime story for younger children. The book also includes a section at the back to allow readers to make notes or further explore some of the themes of the book.

Lynne McNeil