Support group for widowers set up

One of the three men, Paddy Ferguson, told the Sentinel of his difficulty coping after his wife passed away and the reason he feels a support group specifically for widowers is necessary.

He said: “It’s me and two other men – John and Oliver. We’re all widowed men, what we’re saying is that there’s not enough things for men.

“Men would find it very hard to speak. Me and another man were best friends and lost our wives within nine months of each other so we had that to fall back on and then we were joined by another man and we felt, could we not set something up for men because we were all in the same position and some felt that it wasn’t for them because the people they were talking to weren’t bereaved and hadn’t lost their wives, and they felt that they wanted something related to them.

“We wanted something where someone would say ‘I know how you feel.’ This is the group we’re trying to set up, it’s a cross-community group.

“We got the bereavement person from Foyle Hospice and said we’re looking set up a group and how would we go about it. We have a priest, a vicar, we have a counsellor, we have a man who tried to set it up seven years ago and it never took off, but I think it didn’t take off because it was based in the Derry side and it wasn’t cross community.

“We decided that it would be cross-community so that anybody that wanted to come could come. We have based it in the Playhouse. A man has made the donation and paid for the Playhouse for a year. What we hope to do is to get people together and get them talking.

“It’s confidential. Anything that’s said in the room, stays in the room. The next date is April 10. It’s based in the Playhouse because it’s central and everyone can get to it.

“Before, there was nothing out there. This was why we set it up. There was nothing for men to talk and get together. There was bereavement but people wouldn’t say to you, I think you need a bereavement counsellor, if you go looking for it they’ll give it to you. It’s a one on one. I never went to it but my two friends did and what they said is, all they do is let you talk and they said they got nothing out of it.

“Because we were together, I was saying because my wife died first I was nine months ahead of them it was: ‘How did you cope at this stage, at this stage, how did you cope with this?’

“We could bounce it off one another. Not that it was the same, everyone’s different so they’ll grieve differently.

“We could get a doctor one day to talk about illnesses to do with men. How to cope with depression. If people come up they don’t have to talk if they don’t want to, they can just sit there. We held a meeting, last time, and we had four men up but one man that talked, he needed to talk, he had so much anger in him and it worked for him and he’s looking forward to the next one and we understood where he was coming from because we could relate which is why we wanted it to be widowers only.

“If there was someone who had lost their mother, we couldn’t understand that unless someone had lost their mother.

“It’s not an organisation, it’s just ordinary men. There’s no counsellors that are going to be in there.

“We have a steering group in case there’s a problem we don’t know anything about so we can put them in touch with someone.”