Podcast S2 #09 is out - 'Pop Star, Vicar, Widower' Rev Richard Cole

"It's very shocking when you do lose the person with whom you were expecting to spend the rest of your life, it takes the future with them”. Rev Richard Coles

Reverend Richard Coles has led a colourful and vibrant life, forming the band 'The communards’ with singer Jimmy Somerville in the mid-'80s. He’s the only reverend in the UK and probably the world to have a number 1 hit. After some drug-fuelled years and witnessing the death of many of his friends from AIDS Richard had an awakening which led him to become a reverend for a parish in rural Northamptonshire. Richard’s civil partner David died in December 2019 at the age of 42. A year on Richard talks candidly about his extraordinary life, the madness of grief, and how he is doing now.

We discuss:

The madness and commonality of grief

Being a radical reverend

Princess Diana and the enormity of that grief

The language of death

Real connection rather than social media

The solace of lockdown

Death at Christmas

Letting go of someone’s possessions after their death

Podcast references

Book – Grief Works by Julia Samuel

Bronski Beat – Smalltown Boy

Funeral song – Liber Tango by Astor Piazzolla

Widowed and Young charity

Links

https://www.richardcoles.com/

https://www.widowedandyoung.org.uk/

This episode contains explicit language and a brief conversation about Richard‘s attempt to take his own life as a teenager.

Listen to it here