This is my last message as NAW Chair. After seven years in post, I have stepped down. Our new Chair, Dorothy Turner, lives in Somerset. She is looking forward to introducing herself and sharing her thoughts with you as time goes by. Watch this space!

For me, this is a time for reflection but not for goodbye. I am still a member and am also a Trustee so I shall continue to be actively involved in the NAW. My best wishes to everyone who has been in touch with me over the years.

It is eight and a half years now since my husband died and eight years since, purely by chance, I found the NAW. I was at very low ebb at that time and the NAW was nothing less than a lifeline for me, as it has been for so many others.

Had someone asked me before I became a widow - happily married as I then was with no idea of what was round the corner - what I thought about an association that offered friendship and support to men and women whose partners had died, I would have said it sounded like a good idea but not something that I personally would be interested in.

Why would I need the NAW? I would have asked. I had a full life, a good job, a loving son, lots of friends, and no particular problems. Yes, I knew it would be terrible to face life without Mike but wanting the support of a bunch of strngers who happened to be widows…? No way!

How wrong I was! Experience gives us a different perspective: my job ceased to matter, my son was supportive but had a life to lead, and friends fell by the way side. Suddenly, I believed my life was over. I believed I would never be happy again. I believed had no reason for living…

Then I found the NAW. Gradually I came to realise that just as, before my bereavement, I had no idea of the extent of the isolation and devastation I would feel, so too as a new widow I had no idea that a new life was out there, that I would enjoy it and be fulfilled by it, that happiness was possible and that life was most definitely worth living!

So how did the NAW fit into all this?

The NAW offers its members a context for rebuilding a shattered life. It gave me the space to redefine myself, to make new friends, to talk without embarrassment to others in the same boat, to realise that I could have a future. One thing above all, the NAW made me realise that I was not alone. I have enjoyed the warmth and security of being with others, now my friends, who have gone through the same ordeal and have come out the other side.

There’s no going back. Forward is the only way. And it’s an easier journey when accompanied by other men and women who, no matter how different in other ways, understand us because of our shared experiences.

I commend the NAW to you.