The Death of a Child

Peter Stanford is a writer, broadcaster and biographer, whose books include biographies of Lord Longford, C Day-Lewis, Cardinal Hume and The Devil as well as The Extra Mile. A former editor of the Catholic Herald, he makes and presents TV and radio programmes, some based on his books. He is a frequent contributor to The Daily Telegraph, The Independent on Sunday and The Observer and has a regular column in The Tablet. Augusto Odone on losing his long battle to save his son Lorenzo, despite finding a cure for his illness, known as Lorenzo's Oil and the subject of the Hollywood film of the same name; Catherine Dunne, award-winning Irish novelist, on how her still-birth began her writing career; Carol Drinkwater, award-winning actress and author of the best-selling 'Olive Farm' trilogy, on her experience of miscarriages and how she mourns the children she lost; Barry Mizen, father of 18-year-old Jimmy, who was stabbed to death in 2009 in a knife attack in south London; Wendy Perriam, English novelist, on the death of her adult daughter from a rare cancer; Mary Craig, biographer and author of the spiritual classic, Blessings, on nursing her severaly handicapped son Paul for 10 years and how grief mixed with relief at his death; Lady Louise Patten, English financial thriller writer and the first woman to chair a FTSE 100 Company, on how the death of her teenage brother set her on course for the City; Robin Baird-Smith, managing director of Continuum, on the death of his son in a car crash; Joanna Moorhead, Guardian columnist and writer on family life, on the death of her sister, when they were both toddlers, in a hit and run incident.

Editor's introduction; 'Mid-Term Break' by Seamus Heaney; 1. 'Carrot' by Carol Drinkwater; 2. Eoin by Catherine Dunne; 3. Jennifer Jane by Sarah Brown; 4. Clare by Joanna Moorhead; 5. Paul by Mary Craig; 6. Charles by Louise Patten; 7. Tracy by Kim Meade; 8. Archie by Robin Baird-Smith; 9. Jimmy by Barry Mizen; 10. Cosmo by Richard Davenport-Hines; 11. Lorenzo by Augusto Odone; 12. Pauline by Wendy Perriam; Afterword by Dorothy Rowe; 'Sad is a place' by Michael Rosen; Glossary of useful addresses.