The Madness of Grief: A Memoir of Love and Loss

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Such a moving, tough, funny, raw, honest read. The beautiful articulation of Richard's grief will be a comfort to so many— MATT HAIG Richard Coles' civil partner, David, died in December 2019 due to complications arising from his alcoholism. Whilst Coles had grown accustomed to David's quirks and side-effects due to his illness, his death was sudden and unexpected.

Much about grief surprised him: the volume of 'sadmin' you have to do when someone dies, how much harder it is travelling for work alone, even the pain of typing a text message to your partner - then realising you are alone.That said, there are a number of very amusing anecdotes and his writing style is warm and friendly. Relating all this, Coles dredges up a memory of the bizarre and unprompted thought that skipped through his mind as he bent to kiss David’s body one last time. “The cliché says, oh, they’re going to be icy cold. But they’re not, they’re room temperature actually; they’re just cooler than you would expect them to be. And I remember kissing David and thinking, ‘Ooh. He’s chambré.’ Which, um, is some sort of word from a sommelier’s lexicon. I mean! What a peculiar thing to say about your just-departed partner. But I think it was the fact of Dead David. I could only glance at that fact. It was too much.” Add into the story that Richard has 5 dachshunds (I have one) and I just couldn't help drawing an affinity for his journey. I was ultimately left feeling very touched, and not quite alone.

Over the years, the couple learned to accept or at least tolerate one another’s major vices: in Coles a need for public attention, and in David an increasingly prominent drinking problem. “The great pathos about David, as an alcoholic, was that he was grimly determined to keep his drinking secret. But drinking is a thing that’s very difficult to keep secret. And he failed, spectacularly.” Whether it is pastoral care for the bereaved, discussions about the afterlife or being called out to perform the last rites, death is part of the Reverend Richard Coles' life and work. But when his partner, the Reverend David Coles, died, shortly before Christmas in 2019, much about death took Coles by surprise. For one thing, David's death at the early age of 43 was unexpected. Like many in the UK, I like Richard Coles and know of him as a presenter of Saturday Live on Radio 4 every Saturday morning as well as having enjoyed his participation in Strictly Come Dancing a few years ago. Some may not realise that he is also a musician and was in the Communards in the 1980s with Jimmy Sommerville. He is a ‘national treasure’ or a ‘national trinket’ as we learn his partner David once commented. He is also a parish priest of a village parish in Northamptonshire. The importance of language is something Coles knows so well, and he says it always surprises him that in a society that prides itself on being so open-minded and liberated, so prepared to discuss anything and everything, we use euphemisms like “passed away” when it comes to death. “It’s a fate we all share, but we’re uneasy to share it. Aristocrats and Irish Roman Catholics handle death the best, the English middle class not so well. The language intimidates us, as though using it will put us in danger, and makes death more real.” For man who has chronicled his own tempestuous journey so poignantly in two volumes of memoir, witnessed so many of his friends succumb to AIDS, had personal encounters with depression, and is such a skilled observer and commentator, it’s no surprise that Coles has recorded the events of his husband’s death and the first year of his own agony with such style and craft. The Madness of Grief is honest, beautiful, and compelling. But it’s not a guidebook, nor some clerical or first-hand manual on how to deal with the numbing ache of bereavement. The Madness of Grief: A Memoir of Love and Loss, by The Reverend Richard Coles (Weidenfeld & Nicolson, April 2021)Jane learns to find her truth within her family’s history of lies and deception and the breakup of her first love. After reading the first chapters I was rooting for Jane and certainly proud of her for the woman she becomes despite the traumas and heartbreaking obstacles she had to endure.

He says he never had any issue reconciling his faith and his sexuality – being gay was just “a variation on the universal theory of human sexuality” – and he has had nothing but support from his congregation and his C of E bosses (although some parishioners did leave Finedon when he was appointed vicar in 2011). The Church of England’s stance on LGBT equality, in particular same-sex marriage, has left Coles struggling to represent it at times, however.

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Captures brilliantly, beautifully, bravely the comedy as well as the tragedy of bereavement' The Times

Again, I feel spoiled, having read such a wonderful piece of art. As I read the book, the words seemed to melt into my mind and put me in the place as Jane. The author somehow can put himself in the place of Jane, as well... even as a 16 year old girl. He can, seemingly magically, grasp the most inward feelings of all the characters and lead you through a maze of grief, surprise, unrest, fright, and happiness. He attempted suicide and was diagnosed with clinical depression; he was admitted to St Andrews psychiatric hospital in Northampton. “Life seemed to be pretty futile, and I just couldn’t see why you would want to do it.”Conor bought me this for Christmas. Not your usual festive gift but the book is written at Christmas time so I’ll give him his dues. Coles at the vicarage where he lives with his dachshunds Daisy and Pongo. Photograph: Fabio De Paola/The Guardian I spent Christmas with Charles and Karen Spencer at Althorp House, who have been so kind to me. They also have a wall around the house, which helped because I was getting some unwelcome media attention at the time. On Christmas Day I went for a walk in their grounds, and there was Diana’s grave, the resting place of someone whose death had been so public, so known. That rather focused it all. Coles laments the fact that he couldn’t marry David. The Church of England forbids same-sex marriage and doing so could have led to both men losing their bishop’s licence, which allowed them to work as priests – they planned to wait until they had retired. I've had to subtract David from the future. What am I going to do? Play the accordion and go to bed at 10 past six? Rev Coles could now have known that he would be writing about my own story - not just the grief, but his and my partner having to yell "Do you not get it?"