Beef, I had a dinner invitation last week, and when I called my babysitter she asked, ever hopeful, if I had a hot date. I told her it wasn’t so much a hot date as stone cold date, as it was the annual memorial dinner for Charlie. Tamsin told me she couldn’t look after my girls and brought on a substitute in the form of her sister, Claire. Both girls are stunning and make me feel wrinkly and plain, but they love my girls and are prepared to go to extraordinary lengths in order to keep them amused.

One night I came home and asked Tamsin if the girls had behaved themselves, she smiled sweetly and said they’d been fine. It wasn’t until the next morning that I discovered that my two little angels had tied their babysitter to a chair, blindfolded her and then fed her assorted horrors from the back of the fridge. She didn’t mind the honey, loved the horseradish sauce but I think she took exception to the capers. None of that would have happened if she’d done as I suggested and locked them under the stairs for the evening (before social services pay me a visit I want to say that I didn’t really tell my babysitter to lock my children under the stairs…I told her to put them in the barn).

Back to the story: Claire, the babysitter arrived and I left for the dinner, which is always a wonderful event; a time when those people who worked with Charlie can get together, eat rare beef, and laugh. The dinner was a fairly sombre affair in the early years, but gradually it has evolved into a celebration. Two Four is now a hugely successful company, and its multimedia arm is responsible for producing and maintaining this site. I wouldn’t have a clue how to design a website, but I am lucky enough to know people who do, and when I want to make alterations, or add a new feature, all I have to do is call Jim, and he does the rest. Jim doesn’t know about the profound effect that this site has upon the people who read it, but he knows how to make a ‘pop up’, which is a wonderful skill for any man to have...

You may be wondering where I’m going with this story, so I would like to reassure you that it is all about growth and development. When I tell despondent widows and widowers that death gives us gifts, I know they think I’m either delusional or hopelessly optimistic; I don’t like to refer to my own situation when giving advice, but on this occasion I want to use my personal development to illustrate the point.

At the first memorial dinner I was Charlie’s widow and nothing more. But, gradually, over the years, I have developed in ways I could never have imagined. Life seemed totally hopeless when Charlie was taken from me, but having to face life alone has been a revelation. In the last six years I have refurbished my house, written two books, produced an Internet survival guide for young widows, and have been featured in articles in a wide variety of national newspapers and magazines. If somebody had told me that I would be asked to appear on an Irish chat show, Sky news and The Simon Mayo Show, all within the space of a month I would have laughed, but sometimes real life really is stranger than fiction.

Publishers have told me that my writing has no merit, but I believe there is merit in what I do. I may give all this up when I fall in love again, but for now I know that my life has purpose. I am happy to help those who write to me in any way I can. I have made many friends through the website and I have seen desperate and inconsolable people flourish into strong, confident, happy individuals; men and women who now know that there is a future and there is hope. All this has been given to me since I lost Charlie, and although it would be foolish to speculate on what I’d have achieved if he’d still been alive, it is important to recognise that his death has made me the woman I am today.

I got an e-mail this week from a man who had heard me on the radio. He wrote, as many people do, to tell me his story; that how, after suffering the loss of his wife, he had gone on to find happiness with another woman, and adding that he wished that I too would find love again. He told me that having read the site, he would love to hear news of how I was progressing. He finished by saying that if he ever wrote a book he would start by describing what it is like to have to iron a netball skirt after driving a lorry all day. I immediately had in my mind a picture of a Yorkie-crunching trucker, tired and hungry after a long day on the road, bending over an ironing board, delicately pressing each pleat of his daughter’s skirt in order that she could wear it for netball practice the next day. That is true love; that is devotion, and that is what thousands of widowers are doing in homes all over the country, every day, day in, day out. They may not see it as an achievement, but it is. So here’s to you, Roger Hussell, and here’s to the future happiness of us all.