”I Sat In The Car For An Hour” Neil’s Story Of Loss And Finding Support At ellenor’s Bereavement Cuppa

‘You don’t realise what loneliness is until the person you love is gone.”

Neil Duguid sat in his car for an hour before he could walk through the door.

He had driven to ellenor for something called the Bereavement Cuppa – a weekly gathering where people who have lost someone close can meet, talk and support one another over tea and conversation.

But when he arrived, he parked outside and stayed there.

“For about an hour,” he says.

He watched people going in through the doors while he sat behind the steering wheel, arguing with himself. Walking inside meant facing something he was still struggling to accept.

That his wife was gone.

Sharon died just five months after being diagnosed with metastatic colon cancer. Doctors couldn’t say how long they had. Looking back now, Neil says that if he had known how little time there was, he would have spent those months simply being with her instead of continuing to work.

People think grief is sadness. It isn’t. It’s the sudden absence of a voice you heard every day. Walking into a room and realising there’s no one there to talk to anymore. The quiet that settles into a house and doesn’t leave.

The men who come to ellenor’s Bereavement Cuppa talk about that quiet.

They talk about silence. It fills a house after years of conversation. It sits beside you on the sofa, in the empty chair at breakfast, in the life you thought you would grow old together in.

For many men, the hardest part of losing a partner isn’t the funeral or the paperwork. It’s what comes afterwards, when the world moves on, the calls become fewer, and you are left trying to work out what life looks like now.

Across the UK, many men simply carry the grief alone. They don’t talk about it. They don’t ask for help. They just get on with it. Research consistently shows men are far less likely to seek bereavement support after losing a partner. That’s why spaces like ellenor’s Bereavement Cuppa matter.

Once a week, people gather in a room with tea, biscuits and others who understand exactly why they are there. For some, it becomes the first step back into the world. For Neil Duguid, it almost wasn’t.

Before the Bereavement Cuppa. Before the house fell silent. Before the sleepless nights. There was Sharon.

They met at a Butlin’s music weekend where people throw on fancy dress, become someone else for a few days and lose themselves in the music. Neil arrived dressed as a Top Gun pilot.

A friend nudged him and said, “Can you do me a favour? Look after my friend Sharon.”

Neil bought her a drink. They sat down and talked. Hours passed without either of them noticing. Then the weekend ended and they went their separate ways. Neil didn’t see Sharon again for a year. Then one day a friend said something that caught him completely off guard.

“Sharon’s going to be upset you’re not going to Butlin’s this year. All she does is talk about you.”

Neil laughs when he remembers it.

“I’m a bloke,” he says. “I don’t notice things like that.”

So when he heard Sharon would be back there again at Christmas, he went.

He saw her in the bar. She walked straight past without recognising him. Neil tapped her on the shoulder. She turned and broke into a huge smile. They talked all weekend again.

Soon after, they started building a life together.

Neil describes Sharon as quieter than him. Gentle. The sort of person who didn’t always see the things he saw in her.

“She didn’t believe me when I told her how beautiful she was,” he says.

They married in 2022.

But their life together had already been tested once. Sharon had been diagnosed with cancer in 2020 during Covid. They got through it and she was eventually given the all clear.

Then last year Sharon began feeling constantly exhausted. Not ordinary tiredness. Something deeper. Tests followed. Then came the diagnosis that changes everything.

Metastatic colon cancer. It had already spread.

“From that moment,” Neil says quietly, “everything moved very fast.”

What mattered most to Sharon was staying at home. So Neil became her carer. He moved downstairs and slept on the sofa so he could hear if she needed him during the night. For the final six weeks he barely left the house.

Looking after someone you love at the end of their life isn’t easy. The everyday things change – helping them wash, helping them dress, watching their strength fade. But Neil never questioned it.

“You just get on with it,” he says. “You do it because you love them.”Sharon died at home. Neil was with her.

Afterwards came the messages, the funeral arrangements, the practicalities. Then gradually the outside world returned to normal. For Neil, nothing felt normal.

“The house felt wrong,” he says.

Everything was still there. The furniture, the photographs, the kettle in the kitchen. But Sharon wasn’t. The silence was overwhelming.

A few weeks later, a letter arrived from ellenor. Inside was information about the Bereavement Cuppa. Neil wasn’t sure if it was for him. But one Thursday morning he drove there. And sat in the car for an hour. Then he opened the door and walked inside.

What he found surprised him. Not a room full of sadness, but something calmer. Tea. Conversation. People who didn’t need long explanations.

“It gets you out of the house,” Neil says. “And when you’re grieving, that’s the hardest thing.”

ellenor’s Bereavement Cuppa takes place regularly in Dartford and Gravesend and is open to anyone in the community who has experienced the loss of someone close.

These days, Thursday mornings look different. Neil still drives to ellenor. But now he opens the car door straight away and walks inside. For him, the Bereavement Cuppa is a reminder that grief doesn’t have to be carried alone.

ellenor’s Bereavement Cuppa

Glentworth Ex-Service Club, Dartford
Every Thursday, 10am – 12pm
154 Lowfield Street, Dartford, DA1 1JB