My Mourning Year by Andrew Marshall

In 1997 Andrew Marshall’s partner, and the only person to whom he had ever truly opened his heart, died after a gruelling and debilitating illness. Unmoored from his old life, and feeling let down by his family, Marshall struggled not only to make sense of his loss but to even imagine what a future without Thom might look like. In his diary, he wrote about what set him back – like a rebound relationship – some weird and wonderful encounters with psychics and gurus and how his job as a journalist gave him the chance to talk about death with a range of famous people, a forensic anthologist and a holocaust survivor. Slowly but surely with the help of friends, a badly behaved dog and a renewed relationship with his parents, he began to piece his life back together. Although his diary was never meant for publication, Marshall did share it with friends and colleagues dealing with bereavement, who found it immensely helpful, so to mark the twentieth anniversary of Thom’s death, he has decided to open it for everybody to read. My Mourning Year is a frank and unflinching account of one man’s life for a year after the death of his lover. In turn heartbreaking, frustrating and even sweetly funny, this is no step-by-step guide to dealing with bereavement but a shoulder to lean on when facing the unknowns of death and a resource for those left behind.

Andrew was born in Northampton and went to Bedford School and Warwick University. His original career was in radio where he was a journalist at BRMB Radio in Birmingham. He has presented daily programmes on Essex Radio and Radio Mercury (where he was also Programme Controller). He was Deputy Programme Controller of Talk Radio UK.

His plays have been performed at the West Yorkshire Playhouse (Coming Around Again) and have toured all over the UK (Caruso and the Quake, Caruso and the Monkey House Trial, Madam Butterfly Returns). In 1985, he was selected and trained by Relate as a couple counsellor but is now in private practice.