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Stolen Goodbyes

Author: Karen Rice

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Welcome to the award-winning Stolen Goodbyes with Karen Rice, foreign affairs journalist, and podcaster. 

Each week inspiring wives, husbands, partners, children, and newly-weds intimately recount the shock and anguish of death to Covid 19 without warning or goodbye. Each season we push the boundaries to explore, explain and uncover a myriad of aspects of grief to Covid 19.

Forced to grieve in isolation, these people detail needless mistakes and decisions that cost lives including patients being placed on Covid hospital wards when they were Covid-free or others condemned to an early death by the secret use of Do Not Resuscitate forms. Some were left to die alone, the ultimate social taboo. 

This unique, legacy podcast is a social history record of the widespread suffering caused by the Coronavirus pandemic of 2020, an infection that changed the world as we know it. 

It is also an important space where ordinary yet extraordinary people are remembered and celebrated for everything that made them quintessentially unique and irreplaceable.

The participants of this podcast have bared their souls in a bid to stop their loved ones from being written off as just another statistic when they were much-loved individuals whose premature deaths could help to save others from the same fate while holding those responsible to account. 

This Covid 19 podcast helps participants and listeners to come to terms with a grief like no other.

Created, produced, and hosted by Karen Rice, the Stolen Goodbyes podcast won gold in the fiercely competitive Best Lockdown category of the British Podcast Award 2021.

Stolen Goodbyes is described as: "outstanding ethical and trauma-informed journalism. Karen Rice manages to capture a historic event in real time by listening with empathy. Future generations will listen to this podcast and know what it felt like to live through this pandemic." Dart Centre for Journalism and Trauma.

Please listen to, review, and share this podcast with your network, it really helps!

If you would like to make a donation (no matter how small) to the running costs of this passion project, please visit: https://karen-rice.com/podcast/

You can follow Karen on Twitter @Ricekmc and Stolen Goodbyes on Instagram: https://bit.ly/3ITXSFC Facebook: https://bit.ly/3kGGwnG and Youtube: http://bit.ly/3Yq0jW5

Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes.



Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

35 Episodes
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On this episode of Stolen Goodbyes, Karen speaks to Emma Charlesworth who lost her husband Stuart, more commonly known as Charlie, to COVID 19 at the age of just 45. Emma speaks candidly about how Charlie battled and overcame testicular cancer when he was just 26, only to lose his life to Corona virus less than two decades later. Emma speaks movingly of how Charlie walked to an ambulance after suffering an apparent panic attack. Charlie never returned home. A hero dad, he left behind a beloved 10-year-old daughter. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Martin Addison

Martin Addison

2020-11-0332:07

Martin and wife Pamela had seven wonderful years together before he fell ill with Covid 19 while working as a speech and language pathologist in New Jersey in the United States. In this episode of Stolen Goodbyes, Pamela recounts how the couple met online and describes how inspiring Martin was as a husband, father and medical professional. Martin fell ill with a cough before being admitted to hospital where the initial feedback was very positive. However,his condition deteriorated, and the day he was supposed to get off the ventilator, he contracted an infection. He was just 44 when he died in April this year. Pamela relates how a nurse held his hand while Pamela spoke to him over the phone from home. The nurse told her that Martin squeezed her hand when Pamela told him she loved him. Pamela struggles with the sadness she feels about the fact their children, a two-year-old daughter and a five month old son, will never know their father. She also worries about their financial future now that Martin is gone. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
John Langford

John Langford

2020-11-1036:20

On this episode of Stolen Goodbyes, Karen speaks to Georgina Forsythe from Warwickshire who lost her fireman father John to Covid 19 on May 7 2020.John caught the virus while on a cruise to South America with his wife Linda where they were celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary. The couple went ahead with the trip at the beginning of March after the Foreign and Commonwealth Office advised that it was safe to do so.A cruel and inhumane set of circumstances ensued which saw Linda forced to leave her sick husband behind in a hospital in Miami while she caught a last flight back to the UK.John later died from the virus more than 4,000 miles from home. He was 63. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Kevin Morgans

Kevin Morgans

2020-11-1729:25

In this episode of the Stolen Goodbyes podcast, Karen speaks to Linsey Simmonds in the Rhondda Valley in Wales who lost her father, Kevin Morgans, to COVID-19 on May 3 2020. He was 65.Linsey speaks with a beautiful fondness about her popular father who was due to move into a granddad flat at the back of her home where he looked forward to being woken up by his young grandson every morning.An anguished Linsey describes how the hospital spent a month saying her dad would be coming home with a care plan before suddenly deciding to move him onto a Covid ward because he was having seizures although he had not tested positive for Covid. There was next to no communication from the hospital for a month when Linsey learned her father had signed a Do Not Resuscitate form without her knowledge.Linsey believes her father ticked too many boxes to fight for in the eyes of the hospital.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Roy Weeks

Roy Weeks

2020-11-2430:46

In this episode of Stolen Goodbyes, Karen talks to Shelly Weeks from Somerset, who lost her husband Roy to COVID-19 on April 11 2020. He was 73 years old. She describes the devotion the couple shared through the years despite nae sayers claiming the age gap between them meant the romance was doomed to fail. Shelly is angry and dissatisfied at the standard of care her husband, who suffered from dementia, received in the care home where he was resident. Her pain was compounded by the fact that following Roy's death, the home sent her a report she says was “full of lies”. Shelly also received a bill for chiropody treatment, dated before he arrived at the home.Shelly is determined to get justice for Roy.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Susan Porter

Susan Porter

2020-12-0128:20

On this episode of the Stolen Goodbyes podcast, Karen speaks to Neil Robinson from Durham who lost his ‘whirlwind’ partner Susan Porter to COVID-19 on May 1 2020. She was 58. Neil talks about some of the favourite memories he shared with Susan from as early as their teenager years to a chance encounter a decade later that resulted in them reuniting for 30 years. Neil struggles with emotion as he describes how Susan fell ill and was hospitalised with Covid 19. Her condition improved for a time before she took a turn for the worse. Neil’s voice breaks as he tells how Susan thought she was going to die and how they had to discuss her final wishes. Neil wanted to be with Susan at the end but a nurse held her hand as she passed. Neil watched through a hospital ward window as she slipped away. In their last conversation, Susan told Neil: "I love you, I’ll beat this and I’ll see you on the other side (of the illness)."Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Anna Shewan

Anna Shewan

2020-12-0829:08

On this episode of Stolen Goodbyes, Karen speaks to Eileen McNamee from Scotland who lost her mother Anna to COVID-19 on May 21 2020. Anna had been a fit 91-year-old who travelled the world cycling with her husband in years gone by. Eileen relives some of her favourite memories as well as describing her mother’s battle with the unforgiving virus.Anna recounts how her elderly father didn’t want any carers coming into the house when he learned about the pandemic. To protect him, the family decided against telling him his wife had later contracted and died from Covid 19. Eileen is left with sadness, despair, grief and worry and wishes people understood how tough it is to lose a loved one under these circumstances.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Trevor Gardiner

Trevor Gardiner

2020-12-1533:15

In this episode of Stolen Goodbyes, Karen talks to Sally Gardiner, who tragically lost her husband to COVID-19 in April 2020 just four months after their wedding. Trevor was 59. Sally describes their whirlwind romance, fairy tale wedding in Leeds castle and honeymoon to Venice. She tells how Trevor gave her so much happiness and a future she always dreamed of.Trevor, a diabetic, began feeling fatigue and nausea before being admitted to hospital where he was told that if he continued to improve, he would be home in two weeks. Sally watched Trevor's deterioration via WhatsApp video calls. When she was told he wouldn't make the night, Sally's world crashed.Even though Trevor was in a coma, he could hear his wife's voice, as his heart rate went up each time she spoke.Sally believes he knew he was dying because tears were rolling down his face.Sally is left emotionally broken following her loss and is angry at the government for not telling people to stay home from the beginning of March.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Violet Partington

Violet Partington

2020-12-2231:31

In this episode of Stolen Goodbyes, Karen speaks with Michelle Rumble from Pinner who lost her mother Violet to COVID-19 on April 9 2020. Violet was 78.  in this heart breaking episode of Stolen Goodbyes, Michelle recounts the shocking lack of care her selfless mother was subjected to after contracting Covid 19. Michelle describes how her teetotal, non smoker mother’s ultimate fear was dying.Hospital doctors told Violet her mother was comfortable and there would be no more news until the following afternoon but Violet died alone at 5am.Michelle says there are hardly any medical notes on her mother who she believes was left unchecked for long periods of time. The hospital put a Do Not Resuscitate in place for her mother without anyone's knowledge.Knowing her mum died on her own keeps Michelle awake at night. She wants justice for her mother.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Irene Cain

Irene Cain

2020-12-2930:59

In this episode of Stolen Goodbyes, Karen speaks to Carole Caudwell from Sussex, whose mother, Irene, survived four strokes only to lose her life to COVID-19 on 14 April 2020. She was 82. Carole speaks about the extraordinary relationship Irene had with the stars of Liverpool in her day including the Beatles and Cilla Black. After surviving strokes at the age of 81, her mother declared: “I’ve got too much to live for.”Carole recounts the struggle her mother went through with Covid 19 and her feelings of anger that her mother was placed on a Covid hospital ward when she was Covid free. Carole is left feeling robbed of everything that goes with a death and guilt that she couldn’t do more to save her mother. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Barry Lewis

Barry Lewis

2021-01-0523:01

In this episode of Stolen Goodbyes, Karen speaks to Debbie Lewis from Buckinghamshire who lost her father Barry to COVID-19 in April 2020. He was 74. His death came five months after she lost her mother Patricia to cancer. Debbie speaks fondly of her community-minded father who befriended the sick and lonely in his local area. A practical joker, Barry was never happier than when he was making people laugh. Debbie recounts the details of how her fit and healthy father fell ill with Covid 19 and how he insisted: “I’m not ready to go.” He kept how ill he really felt from his family. She struggles to cope with losing her father and not being able to say goodbye and then to have to grieve in isolation. The hospital asked the family to sign a Do Not Resuscitate (DNR) form. The family had heard rumours DNRs were being used to clear hospital beds.Debbie believes the government’s handling of the pandemic has been "absolutely shocking.”Following her father's death, Debbie has set up a nationwide support group called COVID-19 Families in the UK. She takes comfort from the fact she is helping other people in the same position. She feels guilty that she was unable to support her father and sister due to lockdown restrictions. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Terry Haslam

Terry Haslam

2021-01-1223:05

On this episode of Stolen Goodbyes, Karen speaks to Katie Haslam from Wiltshire who lost her father Terry to COVID-19 on 8 April 2020. He was 70.Katie speaks fondly of her kind and generous father who doted on his baby granddaughter but who had suffered a stroke in later life. Katie speaks of her utter shock and confusion after hospital staff said her father was okay despite testing positive for COVID 19 before he died a few days later.The pain of his death was made worse for Katie’s mother as she couldn’t say a proper goodbye to him as he thought he was coming home.Katie believes the government should have enforced lock down earlier.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Leo Adams

Leo Adams

2021-01-1930:24

On this episode of the Stolen Goodbyes podcast, Karen talks with Brielle Adams, the adoptive daughter of Leo Adams, who passed away due to Covid-19 in late March in the United States at the age of 85. Brielle recalls how Leo loved Brielle from the moment he met her and nicknamed her" "Piggy Boo."Leo went on to foster and adopt her despite being in his 60s. Brielle, who suffers from addition, explains how Leo became her rock in life and someone who always believed in her, always telling her: "Bri, you got this."Brielle now plans to keep her father's legacy of helping people in the community alive when she starts a new job as a teaching assistant. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Goff (Godfrey) Smith

Goff (Godfrey) Smith

2021-01-2643:08

On this episode of the Stolen Goodbyes podcast, Karen sits down with Jane Smith who lost her husband Goff to Covid-19 in April 2020. Jane talks about the reputation Goff had in their town of Farringdon, Oxfordshire, as a first responder and painfully revisits the days and hours prior to his passing. A larger than life character, Goff loved nothing better than helping people out. Jane is comforted by the fact Goff didn’t suffer, but she feels guilty about the fact she couldn’t be with him in his final days. Jane has had post-traumatic stress counselling to deal with the manner of her husband’s death. She feels that if the Government had locked down a fortnight earlier, Goff would still be here. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Muriel Bonner

Muriel Bonner

2021-02-0235:37

On this episode of The Stolen Goodbyes Podcast, Karen interviews Gordon Bonner, whose wife Muriel died on the 28th of April 2020. Gordon touchingly relates how they were long-distance pen pals before they embarked on a marriage that lasted for 63 years. Gordon was Muriel’s full-time carer after she developed dementia and before she was admitted to a care home after suffering a fall. Gordon movingly relates his anguish at being locked out of the care home before Muriel contracted Covid 19, the care home's lack of PPE and Muriel's titanic struggle for air before she finally succumbed to the virus. Although Gordon says he is now left in the hinterlands of despair and loneliness, he reminds us that grief is a price we pay for love.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Irma Marquez

Irma Marquez

2021-02-0935:02

On this episode of the Stolen Goodbyes podcast, Karen is joined by Guatemalan Mauro Marquez who lost his mother Irma, 72, to Covid 19, in Oklahoma, in the United States, on January 10, 2021. In a heart rending episode, Mauro recounts how they shared a very close relationship as his mother was deaf and relied on him to make sense of the world, while she helped him with his short sightedness. Tragically, Mauro explains how this most giving of mothers was unable to communicate with doctors when she fell ill with Covid 19, nor could she lip read as all the medical staff wore masks. Mauro also feels Covid 19 has prevented his mother from realising her last wishes to be buried with her late husband in Guatemala. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
En este episodio del podcast Despedidas Robadas, Karen está acompañada por el guatemalteco Mauro Márquez, quien perdió a su madre Irma, de 72 años, a causa del Covid 19, en Oklahoma, Estados Unidos, el 10 de enero de 2021.En un episodio desgarrador, Mauro cuenta cómo compartían una relación muy estrecha, ya que su madre era sorda y dependía de él para entender el mundo, mientras que ella le ayudaba con su miopía.Trágicamente, Mauro explica cómo esta madre tan generosa no pudo comunicarse con los médicos cuando enfermó de Covid 19, ni pudo leer los labios porque todo el personal médico llevaba mascarillas.Mauro también cree que el Covid 19 ha impedido a su madre cumplir sus últimos deseos de ser enterrada con su difunto marido en Guatemala.Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
James D Vance

James D Vance

2021-02-2340:111

On this episode of the Stolen Goodbyes podcast, Karen is joined by Jerri Vance from West Virginia, USA, who lost her husband James to Covid 19 on New Year’s Day 2021.Jerri tells how James spent his life serving others, first in the Marine Corps, and then as a police officer, and was a proud and protective father who always went the extra mile to make his family's lives better. Tragically, Jerri relates how a week after developing a cough, a fit and healthy James had been hospitalised with doctors telling her he had Covid Pneumonia which made his lungs look like blown glass. Jerri heartbreakingly shares how she always believed James was coming home and that doctors believed they could save his life, saying James was: “supposed to be our success story.”After his death, Jerri discovered phone messages in which James told friends how scared he was, but he never revealed his fear to his family, their protector to the last. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
On this episode of the Stolen Goodbyes podcast, Karen talks to Emma Charlesworth in Kent in the UK, and Pamela Addison in New Jersey in the USA, who both lost their husbands to Covid 19 in April 2020. Both of their husbands were in their mid 40s when they died. Despite the distance between them, the women have bonded through a shared sense of loss, support and grief including how both their husbands experienced their first Covid 19 symptoms on the same day, March 22.In this special interview, the two friends intimately recount the highs and lows of grief to Covid 19, how they are getting through daily life, how their children are coping and their hopes for the future. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
In this special episode, people who lost their loved ones to Covid 19 in the first wave of the pandemic recount how Boris Johnson's delayed lockdown in early 2020, has impacted their lives forever. The UK's first confirmed cases were on 31 January 2020 but Johnson waited almost another two months before performing a screeching u-turn to put the country into full lockdown on March 23. This was all too late for the following people: Linsey Simmonds who lost her father Kevin Morans on May 3, Eileen McNamee lost her mother Anna Shewan on May 21, Jane Smith who lost husband Gof on April 4, Sally Gardiner who lost husband of four months Trevor on April 27, Carole Caudwell who lost her mother Irene Cain on April 15, and Debbie Lewis who lost her father Barry on April 5. Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/stolen-goodbyes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
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