This is recognised in Page 130, when Richard recognises that he "should have been kinder, loved him more strongly, made him happier.

There was a lot of name dropping (aristocracy and of the clergy) and a lot about church procedures, and a lot of day to day stuff like going to see the film cats and going for meals.The Rev Richard Coles describes his grief at the loss of his partner so eloquently , sadly and occasionally with a touch of humour. The author has a knack for creating simplistic stories that quickly veer off the easy country road and speed away into metropolitan freeways that twist and turn. The author doesn’t hold back his feelings though and at times it felt like I was prying into his grief.

He spent much of his youth as an atheist (even setting up an atheist society at school), but after the years of fame, drugs and grief, he consulted a psychiatrist, who suggested he see a priest.This has perhaps been the most remarkable symptom of grief, Coles admits: an occasional, unwanted sense of relief. It was so honest and the way Coles spoke about his life with David, it is like you could get to know him. David became a vicar – at least before his alcohol addiction brought that to an end – and, the other day, Coles says, he came across a drawer of David’s collars, the strips of white plastic twisted together into the shape of a bird’s nest.

I feel the book needs to be better promoted as a memoir rather than in the spirituality section as it is focused on his own experiences of loss. She saw his distress and invited him to give treats to her corgis to help him recover his composure.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. What they soon realise is that, while there may be some mildly helpful devices and techniques available, there are no genuine cures and solutions. But remember that it is a book about secrets and identity, and realness and fantasy, grief and recovery, and what masquerades as fantasy often is a disguise for despair. Chatting today from his study in the vicarage, sitting at “a desk covered in crap” on a bright afternoon, he will be frank about his marriage, his bereavement, and his year of grief to date.