Captain Sir Tom Moore's daughter, Hannah Ingram Moore, talks National Grief Awareness Week

Virgin Radio

2 Dec 2021, 14:34

Hannah Ingram Moore at Virgin Radio

Hannah Ingram Moore at Virgin Radio

With National Grief Awareness Week beginning today, Hannah Ingram Moore joined the Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky to talk about the grief she felt at the loss of her parents, and what The Good Grief Trust is all about.

National Grief Awareness Week runs until next Wednesday, 8th December. Hannah told Chris: “Unfortunately, grief is a club that we all end up in, it just depends at what stage of your life it happens, and The Good Grief Trust came to me and said would I please launch the campaign for them, of course mostly because people know that my family and I grieved on a global stage, and that grief is hard.”

The Good Grief Trust’s campaign bus has been in London today, acting as an information hub, to offer help and signposting to bereavement services. The London Eye will also be lit up in orange, and the hope is that other major landmarks up and down the UK will do the same, with people also lighting an orange candle in their homes and using the hashtag #spreadsomewarmth.

Captain Tom Moore famously raised over £30 million for NHS Charities Together by walking 100 lengths of his 25m long garden, supported by his walker. He passed away on April 21 this year. When speaking about her grief, Hannah said: “Of course, everyone asked me about the grief of losing my father. Nobody asked me about my mum, because she died and no-one knew. And, of course, the grief that I felt at losing her, when I’d just had young children of my own, to lose my mother as I’d become a mother, was the greatest loss I think I could ever have felt. And I still feel pockets of anger about it. I still feel sorrow about it, and grief never really leaves us, we just become more able to manage it.”

She continued: “The grief of my father was so different, because he lived with us for 13 years. It was like the deafening silence in our house, and that’s a grief that’s really hard to deal with, because I would open the cupboards and he was there, and everywhere I went he was there, and yet he wasn’t there. So I hope what we can do is encourage people to talk and encourage people to seek out help and support.”

During her conversation with Chris, Hannah talked about how hard it can be to talk to others about grief, for instance, when you return to work after compassionate leave. “People can’t say, ‘No, it’s not okay, I feel terrible. I don’t know how to deal with it’, because the expected response is, ‘Yes, I’m fine, thank you’. We have to change it, because it’s no good for our mental health. We are not seeking out a good path for the future if we don’t allow people to talk about it, and we have to be better at listening. We need to listen to learn.”

As the UK’s leading umbrella charity for bereavement support, The Good Grief Trust has over 800 bespoke support services listed in one place on their website. They facilitate peer-to-peer grief support virtually and also at pop-up cafes. Hannah explained how people can get involved: “Anybody can be part of this network. You just have to say, ‘Here we are, we are open, and we are open to talk,’ and anybody can do it.”

National Grief Awareness Week runs until Wednesday 8th December - find out more at thegoodgrieftrust.org.

For more great interviews listen to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with Sky, weekdays from 6:30am on Virgin Radio, or catch up on-demand here.

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