Gloria Hunniford explains how she’s using daughter’s tragic death to help others

Tragic Gloria Hunniford today reveals she’s become a shoulder to cry on for grieving parents.

The TV legend’s life was torn apart when her daughter Caron Keating died of cancer at just 41 in 2004.

Now Loose Women star Gloria, 78, is helping others who have lost a child.

She said: “People often talk to me about their grief. I have very deep and meaningful conversations with them.

"They bare their souls. “You’re both strangers and you might never meet again, but you have that moment. When you lose a child you become part of a club nobody wants to belong to.

But it does mean you share something unique. People know I know what they’re going through.

“Losing a child takes you to a level of grief you never thought was possible. You can’t get pregnant, carry that child nine months, and then see them go. I watched Caron battle cancer for seven years.

"I would have swapped places with her at any time. She was young and had two young children.”

It’s been nearly 15 years since Caron’s death, but Gloria said: “I think of her every day. I’ll often think, ‘Caron would have loved this event, she would have loved that dress’, and so on.

"You just can’t believe there’s that space at the table all the time. And she adored Christmas.”

Gloria now runs The Caron Keating Foundation, which helps those battling cancer. “It has been a joy because it is a way to carry Caron’s spirit forward,” she said.

“Setting it up is my healing because I’m doing something positive against something so deeply, deeply negative. That helps me through.

“I always advise people to do something in the name of the person they’ve lost.

"It could be helping at your local hospice, driving people to hospital to get their treatment, anything. It makes you feel better because you think that your loved one hasn’t died totally in vain.”

• For more info visit caronkeating.org

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