CRAIG

Hello, and welcome to the new series of Desperately Seeking Wisdom with me, Craig Oliver. This is a podcast for anyone who wants to lead a wiser, more fulfilled life, but is tired of all the snake oil and dubious life hacks that are out there. I talk to well-known people and some experts about what life has taught them as they share the wisdom they gained, particularly during tougher times. We've got some amazing guests coming up in this series, including the comedian and writer David Baddiel, the Reverend Richard Coles, actor Jack Davenport, the BBC’s World Affairs Editor John Simpson, and its Chief International Correspondent Lyse Doucet. Today's guests are two of the most extraordinary people I've ever had the privilege to meet: Nadim and Tanya Ednan-Laperouse. The couple lost their beloved daughter Natasha when she ate a Pret A Manger sandwich that wasn't labelled correctly.

NADIM

…losing your child, and going through that whole process in such a shocking way - it feels like part of your very own soul dies.

TANYA

And we've heard the saying that ‘broken people break others’. And that could easily have happened to us, I think we were both broken, and we could have just hurt each other so much.

CRAIG

It's a heartbreaking story. But seeing them support each other, hearing their honesty about how they dealt with the devastation and rebuilt their lives is inspirational and humbling. It's a tough listen too, but I promise you, their insights and wisdom will help enrich your life.

Great to see you both. This is the first time we've actually done two people. How are you both?

TANYA

We’re very well, thank you for having us.

NADIM

Yeah, really well and enjoying the view from this spectacular building in this bit of London.

CRAIG

I should let people know that you can see an amazing view of the Thames and Westminster and St. Paul's from this building.

I'd like to start by going back to you as a family before what happened to Natasha. Just give us some idea of what family life was like, how it was, that kind of thing.

TANYA

Oh, family life was busy. We had Natasha, and two years later, our son Alex was born. But life was pretty fraught in the sense that we discovered that Natasha had food allergies, when she was six months old. We gave her a tiny bit of banana - which is quite normal to give to a baby at that age, when you're just trying new foods out - and she had an allergic reaction that was so severe that she was hospitalised. We really thought we might lose her on that day. And that was our introduction to food allergies.

CRAIG

And that was at six months old? And Nadim, was that like that, from that moment where you’re just constantly having to be nervous about food, and how did that manifest itself?

NADIM

Well, it was an evolutionary process. And anyone with an allergic child will recognise this. It's that everything is unknown until the moment it happens. So you don't know what the next minute or hour or week will hold. And you start to go on a journey of, by accident, discovering what your child is allergic to, via process of them nearly dying, and in fact, or being hospitalised. And until you then go to a specialist clinic to get a diagnosis from a paediatrician, allergic paediatrician, to do tests to see what your child might be allergic to in a broader sense. And that takes time.

CRAIG

I imagine there's a kind of paranoia, is there, because when they're young, they're going to other kids’ parties, obviously, you've got to let them out in the world, go to school, there must be lurking in the background, a kind of constant worry and fear.

TANYA

Everything that you have no control - complete control - over is terrifying when you have a very allergic child. And of course, nothing is completely in your control. So it is a really scary situation to live in. I mean, for Natasha's first two years of life, she ate chicken soup for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We would cook up a chicken with vegetables, and as she got older, the pieces would be bigger. And it was her only food, but it was safe, because we were too scared to give her any other foods until she had been tested for what else she might be allergic to.

CRAIG

Yeah, no, I can't imagine having to live in that way. And then did anybody ever manage to explain to you why she's this way? Or is it just one of those things?

TANYA

For us it was very much nobody really gave us any explanation as to why, it was just, we were just told she's got allergies, and you need to make sure she avoids those foods. There was no support. There was no advice. At the time there was really nothing on the internet about it. There were no books. And so we felt we had to really just work it out ourselves, didn't we?

NADIM

Yeah, I think that’s right, it really was a hit-and-miss operation. And for me, being a CEO of a company, trying to be in control of things, generally, this part of our family life was very much, you know, unpredictable. And I'm not, I wouldn't say out of control, but certainly not within our control. And that, you know, it was quite stressful, to say the least, for us as a family, all of us, whether we're in the UK, or whether we went abroad on holiday.

CRAIG

So interesting, you saying that, because a lot of people we talk to on this podcast, when we're talking about experience they've had, they say that they want to control the world and try and get everything in a neat order. And part of getting a bit wiser about the way the world is, is to know, actually, that you can't do that. Did you feel that?

NADIM

I don't know if it is a male thing, but I can only answer it from my male perspective and as a father, is to say that it was very irritating and frustrating that things would go wrong, or were not possible, let's say within a family context, going away, going somewhere, going to meet people, we could never go away and stay the night somewhere, we couldn't go to a party with Natasha, or very difficult indeed to socialise with other families with Natasha because there's always an issue around food or something. And that was very different to my work life, which I was heavily involved in, where I had to socialise a lot in, around the world.

CRAIG

You've been used to being able to basically control things, and then here's something in your life that you can’t..

NADIM

Yes, I've been, self-believing, I think is a word, perhaps incorrectly so, that I was controlling a lot of things around me whether it was presenting to companies in Brazil, or in Japan, or wherever, or even being on stage with David Cameron at the time, for example, launching some business sort of, you know, kind of initiative, etc. And, and it was all quite, you know, managed in a way that I would’ve thought it would go, like a jigsaw that I could control and put together. But Natasha's health and everything around food allergy was really the complete opposite of that.

CRAIG

And did you feel that way too?

TANYA

Yes, I did. For Natasha as well, when she was one year old, we discovered she had asthma. But her asthma had an allergic element to it. That was really difficult as well. So on top of food allergies, and we know a lot of children with food allergies do have asthma as well, but it could be any sort of strong chemical smell, it could be someone wearing very strong perfume, and it would set off a really bad asthma attack - or swimming, taking her swimming to a public pool, and the chlorine might do the same. And until that happens the first time, you don't actually know when it's going to happen and what's going to trigger it.

CRAIG

I want to take you to the day in 2016 when it happened, and there's part of me that feels terrible doing that, because I just think like you constantly reliving it and telling the story about that. Do you feel okay doing that? Do you feel that it's the right thing to do to help people understand or is it.. it must be difficult?

NADIM

Well, there's no doubt, put it bluntly to your listeners, that reliving the death of your own child in front of you, and being completely helpless around it, is difficult. There's no doubt about it. There's no doubt that it is very hard to do it. But. But it's something that we, you know, as a mother and a father and family accept that we must do in order to help other people, so that they can gain some wisdom and knowledge around what they may do better than we did or prepare better than we did. Even though at the time we thought we were doing the very, very best possible. But reliving the story is difficult, because I had PTSD, and was suicidal for quite a while afterwards. Reliving the flashbacks of that. But I've had treatment now for it, and I'm much better. So thankfully, I can actually talk about it without jumping off a building.

CRAIG

I mean, that's amazing to hear. And I mean it really genuinely, it's very inspiring to hear somebody do that, because I do think it takes enormous bravery. So thank you. So please tell us about the day and what happened. And then we can maybe talk about what we learned from it.

NADIM

Yeah, so it was really the breakup of the school summer term in 2016. And breakup was on Friday. And Sunday morning myself, Natasha, our 15-year-old daughter and her best friend Bethany, who was from the same school, age 14, we were taking a five day trip to Nice in the south of France, where my parents have a home there, and we were basically going there to have a good time for the children. The two of them were really going to have fun, and I was going to be their guide if you like, because I speak French. I'm half French, actually. And Tanya, my wife, Natasha’s mum, were staying at home in London with our son, and likewise, she had some social things happening. And this was the first time we went our separate ways. But at Heathrow Airport in the morning, early morning for an early flight, tummies are grumbling, having got up early, we're all hungry before boarding the plane. And we… and Natasha was of course food allergic to a number of foods, including sesame seeds, well-known too, and we were very, very careful and she was very careful. However, we bought a sandwich in a well-known branch of a chain called Pret A Manger. And unbeknown to us, sesame seeds were inside the dough, the bread, baked inside the dough, the bread, invisible to the eye, and also not labelled on the ingredient label that was attached to the packaging. We all looked at it, we all thought that's fine, yep, let's, you know, spot-check, Natasha with her razor eyesight, as any young person would have, was fine with it. And she ate it. And we then boarded the plane quite quickly, for the first flight out to Nice on a British Airways plane, and rapidly onboard the plane after takeoff - it's a two hour flight - she became unwell. And when I say unwell, I mean, talking of having difficulty breathing. And she showed me her stomach and lifted up her shirt, her t-shirt, covered in really large red welts, which were raised up on the skin, a sign of a powerful allergic reaction. And she asked me, oh my gosh, I've never seen anything like that before. It was the first time I've seen that on her to that degree. And she said, ‘Daddy, get, give me the EpiPen’. And EpiPen is a brand name for an auto-injector of adrenaline, and we always had two of them on us. And we quickly went to the toilet - very quickly - and I injected her straight through the clothing into her thigh. Ordinarily, we were led to believe, as I think all parents are, of allergic children, that this is the cure, basically - it reverses the reaction.

CRAIG

Have you ever done it before, or you had to use it before?

NADIM

Never had to use it before, but I knew what to do. I mean, Natasha had experienced it before in younger age, but not through my own doing. It was -

TANYA

She'd experienced it once.

NADIM

Yeah, when she was younger.

TANYA

Yes. When she was six - it was the last allergic and anaphylactic reaction she'd had before this one.

NADIM

Yeah. So here we are. We're in the toilet behind the cockpit of a regular-sized plane, very cramped indeed. I've injected her thinking, wow, thank god for that, you know, I've got the medicine, it's all going to be fine. Not so - within minutes, she's saying Daddy, I can't breathe, get the second pen. I run back to the seat in the middle of the plane, grab the second pen, EpiPen, inject her with that one too. Now this is a double dose, adult dose, quite powerful stuff now. Now I'm thinking this has got to be working, but not so. And her last spoken words to me were ‘Daddy, I can't breathe, help me’. And those were her last words before she died.

CRAIG

When you were experiencing the moments leading up to that, and you were getting the bit, was there clarity or calmness, or was it just a blind panic?

NADIM

No, there was no blind panic at all. It was… I can literally go step-by-step, it was, I reverted back to I think how I would say was or am, perhaps, but in those days, quite measured. Having sort of experienced lots of things in my life - I don't mean trauma, but I mean, around people: very much a people-centric person. And kind of, step-by-step, right: I'll do this and I'll do it now, and I do it quickly, and I'll basically command the situation. I think that's what's sort of my nature, control the situation, you know, tell the air hostess, do this, move out the way, da da, da, da, etc. And take charge, essentially the sort of take charge-type of personality. And I thought I was doing everything okay, I was doing it swiftly and I had no sense that could ever, ever turn out the way it did. So what happened as the plane landed in Nice, this is nearly two hours after takeoff. British Airways flight elected not to divert to land, emergency land, but to press on. I found this out later. And Natasha had been unconscious on the floor of the plane for something like well over an hour, basically, well over an hour, and we'd been myself and a junior doctor, and I mean very junior doctor who had just qualified a day before the flight. We were doing CPR like crazy and monitoring her, but she was completely unconscious, she had swollen up to twice her size from the allergic reaction and gone into multiple cardiac arrest, basically, and it was very difficult situation, very.

CRAIG

And Tanya, when did you first become aware of what was going on?

TANYA

Sorry, it's hard to hear… So I got a call from you, didn’t I, when the plane landed Nad called me and said, look, Natasha is really ill, you need to get out here now. And it just didn't register, I felt like I’d literally just dropped them off at the airport and gone home. And I'd just done a bit of tidying up, and I just couldn't understand how, how it gone, that you were saying these things to me? And I said, no, no, surely not, no, she'll be fine. Because you didn't say allergic reaction straight away, but you were just saying no, look, she's really ill, just, just I've got to go but please just get a flight out here. What's happened, what's happened? And he said, she's had a serious allergic reaction, I think. And so I… and it was difficult, it was the first Sunday of the summer holidays, so there were no flights anywhere. And I have a son at home that I need to quickly get someone to look after, to take. And I managed to get a flight from Stansted Airport leaving that afternoon. And so that's what I did.

CRAIG

What was going on in your mind there, were you hoping that somehow this wasn't real or that something was gonna somehow change the situation?

TANYA

It was.. it's actually a bit misty, that whole... I can't put things in order. It's strange. I remember my emotion, but I was in shock. I couldn't quite believe this was happening. And at the point when I'd actually booked the ticket, and somebody had come to take Alex, a good friend, I remember just sitting on the sofa crying and just praying, just praying that she would be okay. And that she would survive.

CRAIG

You know, all of it is upsetting to hear and just traumatising, so, but just nothing compared to what you're going through.... I read about your son Alex, having a brief moment to try and say goodbye, that kind of thing - I mean, those moments are just so painful. How was he with it?

TANYA

Gosh, Alex, he… my mother was with him. And so what happened, my flight was delayed by six hours. And I had a call from Nad to say, look, I've put my phone by her ear, and you've got to say goodbye. And after you've said goodbye, I'm going to call Alex and then grandparents so they get a chance to say goodbye too. So you've got to be quick. And my mother was with Alex when his father called and said, you know, what he had to do. And he spoke to her. And my mom said that after that he howled… he… she said, he's just sounded like, to her, it was almost like a wolf cub sound. She'd never heard anything like that in her life. Yeah. And it was just, it was just raw, primal pain. Yeah.

CRAIG

And how is he now? I mean, that must have been a devastating experience for him. How is he coping now?

TANYA

Well, I think for young people, he was 13, he just turned 13 when this happened, he's been through a lot. But what we have now, we've got an incredibly sensitive, well-rounded 19-year-old who wants to do something important with his life. Through the experience following Natasha's death, he's been inspired by people that we've met, who we've worked with, and he's had a viewpoint of life, I think maybe that some young people don't get till they're a little bit older.

CRAIG

Nadim, I wrote down a quote, which really hit me, you said ‘I really love my daughter in a way that's like one flesh. As a parent, I’d die a thousand times, crucified, for her to live. I spent 15 years nurturing the most precious thing in my life’. And I think that that really captured the sense of what you went through, that, you know, that you have this thing that feels part of you, this person that feels part of you. And you went through that. So that must have been agonising, obviously.

NADIM

Very agonising, I think, and in many ways continues to be so today, but not only is there complete disbelief that such a thing can happen, I suppose people might call that shock, but it goes so into the root of your soul and in your heart that you could die of a broken heart. I mean, you could be physically fit but actually die of a broken heart..

CRAIG

Did you feel that that was a real prospect?

NADIM

I, yes, because I was having done, fit and everything, you know, kind of A1 health score, you might say, in general, at that time, I was having what would felt like heart attacks basically coming on. And after a lot of tests, they said, actually, it's a broken heart. There is such a thing. It's just not talked about very often in general medical terms, but, actually losing your child, and going through that whole process in such a shocking way, it feels like part of your very own soul dies, and is buried underground as well.

CRAIG

And I've never been through anything as traumatising as that, but I have been through experiences where you feel real physical pain around your heart, and that's obviously connected to emotional happenings. Is that what you're talking about?

NADIM

Yes, that's how I’d describe it. It's not something I've ever experienced before, at all, and of course you could say it was obviously quite worrying but I mean, the idea that I would then die, potentially, and leave my wife and our son, you know, and our wider family in an even worse place than the already terrible disaster had happened to us, you know, in itself was like, quite a scary thing. But yeah, actually, that agony is so deep, it goes into part of your body and your mind, and I'd say your soul, something you're not even aware actually exists until such a trauma happens. And you discover something about yourself, a sort of a depth of your humanness, if you like, that you would never discover unless you had probably some kind of a trauma of this magnitude.

CRAIG

And Tanya I read somewhere that you said that you spent a year on the sofa, which I read it sounding like you were effectively clinically depressed. Is that right?

TANYA

Yeah, definitely. I found it very hard to face the world - to face life. And I think as Nadim just explained, you feel such a big chunk of you suddenly breaks, you really aren't the same person anymore, and I didn't actually know how to function as a person. So what I would do, I would just sit on the sofa all day, and about 10-15 minutes before Alex would come home from school, which was about five o'clock, I would sort of get up, brush my hair and you know, tidy up a little bit or whatever. And I’d open the door, and he’d just look at me and he'd say ‘Mom, you've been crying?’ And I'd say no, I'm fine. I'm really fine. He said, but just look at your face. And of course, red, you know, eyes and everything. And it's hard to sort of hide things from your kids sometimes, isn't it?

CRAIG

And if you’re sitting there for those long, protracted periods, is it like time vanishes or..?

TANYA

Thinking, crying, I would fall asleep… it's a bit of a blur. But yes, it's… it's deep depression.

CRAIG

And a university friend of mine called Cath, we, I went to St. Andrews, and we used to have ‘academic parents’, and they were like a mother and a father, that were supposed to help you as a student through. And Cath was my academic mother, and she went away one summer and she ate a curry and it turned out it had peanuts in it. And she had anaphylactic shock and actually thought she'd be okay, and then collapsed and died. And I remember at that moment, hearing that she died, and hearing that her parents, you know, they'd seen her through medical school, she was towards the end of her time, that kind of thing. Just feeling the kind of complete pointless waste of everything… and is that what you felt too?

NADIM

Absolutely, I think if you imagine a really driven man as I was, in a sort of CEO world or whatever you want to call it, you know, then have been cut down emotionally completely and not being able to function at all, from being a decision maker, very decisive and fast and snappy, if you like, to being dysfunctional, a blubbering wreck, really, and not able to run a company anymore at all and lead people, and really, at a loss, you know, of what is the point of even being involved in a business? What's the point of life? What's the point of anything, it really in a wasteland of emotion. And it's only because I got help, that I actually was able to resurface - otherwise, I probably wouldn't be alive and talking to you today.

CRAIG

So that's what the extraordinary thing is, that you're describing a point, I think everybody listening to this will totally understand how broken you must have been - and yet you're sitting here. You know, when you came in, you know, you're chatting about your day, what's been happening, that kind of thing. And you also, your body language together is very, you're very close. You can see that in you and that you've obviously supported each other in this. How do you go from complete brokenness to this?

TANYA

I think that time on the sofa when Nad and Alex were home, Nad was having terrible PTSD in the first year for sure, and a bit longer than that. So anything could trigger that and he would just be on the plane, in the moment, and falling apart. So my role then actually had to be to help him. And actually that pulled me out, I have to say, so having to be a mum for Alex and also, making sure that you got through those moments, which were quite regular in the early days, became very important. Also I think I heard, I either heard it, or I read about it, somebody once said that they lost a sibling when they were young. And the day they lost their sibling, they also lost their mother, because she never recovered. And when I heard that, I really made a conscious decision that that wouldn't happen to Alex. And so in that year, as I sat there, I would think about these things. And so when I was on my own, I would be on the sofa, but when my family were home, I would pull myself together. And as I did that more and more, it actually pulled me out.

CRAIG

And so many people actually, that we talk to talk about the importance of community and friendship, and that kind of thing as a sustaining thing. But it's interesting that that's what helped pull you through.

NADIM

Before, I was very much someone who did things, you know, ‘my will my way’, that shall, it-will-be-done type of person, you know, which is really a false, a false illusion, let's make no, I mean I can say that now, not just for myself, but for many others really. And it only lasts so long anyway, even if it works. So I was kind of, quite an atheist, generally, you know, I didn't have any belief in anything other than myself to make something happen. And it kind of worked for me so far at that point. But when Natasha actually died in front of me, very, very powerful vision came, everything blacked out, as in all the paramedics, everything in that moment who were working away, and five angels just appeared, made of yellow light. I've never seen anything such before, and I'm not someone who drinks much, certainly no drugs, and I don't smoke, and no prescription drugs. So I'm the least likely from that point of view to have, you know, any kind of illusions or visions, appeared in front of me, these five angels hovering above her body. And I was so shocked by it, I shouted out on the plane, whooshed them away, basically like that, and saying ‘it's not her time’. And as I did that, they were gone. The light was gone. And I was watching, seeing everything as it was previously, but nobody was moving. The paramedics all looking down, and the heart monitor was gone. And I realised she had died that moment.

CRAIG

On the angels thing, I don't want to diminish or deny it, you experienced it, you saw it, you know, I have no reason to question it. But I think what a lot of people would say at that moment is that there's probably no more stressful situation than you were in. And in those circumstances, the brain does do interesting things. Do you think that it's possible that it's that or you actually think there is a spiritual thing?

NADIM

At that point, I didn't: it just went by me because then was back into the crash situation if you like, but… that was on Sunday morning. It took us five days, to be able to bring Natasha's body back in a specially sealed transport coffin, on the same plane as we came back on, you know, as a mark of respect that we will fly her home - we’re the captain of the ship, if you like. And I walked into her church, where Natasha had been going for a number of recent years, the following Sunday, so literally seven days after she died. And to find out why she went to such a place, cause I didn't like those places, never had been, and if I'd ever seen a Bible in all my international hotels, as they usually were, first thing I chucked into the drawer and closed the drawer. But it led me on a journey elsewhere. And I distinctly remember that the same year, so it would have been, let me just, sorry, apologies - two years later, after Natasha's inquest, I'm just going to fast forward, when Theresa May at a party political, a Tory party conference, so that would probably be October, to guess, mentioned Natasha, basically, at the you know, and I heard that she had mentioned it and I was at work at the time in a dark room downstairs because it was winter and very low light, and that it was very dark. And I was so shocked by Theresa May mentioning my daughter, because it wasn't something that I’d imagined, I actually just prayed. I went, ‘Thank you God’, you know, literally crying and incredibly the whole room lit up in this yellow light. I was so, getting so taken aback, it was just another time, I've had many of these experiences, well, many a number, and I went, I was just so taken aback and I realised what that meant. It was actually and I truly believe, whether, you know, listeners can make their own mind up, that actually it was God saying ‘I hear you my child’, basically.

TANYA

Well, it's all such a strange journey, isn't it? So Natasha had started going to a church, she used to go to youth group in a church. And then when she was 15, in that January, she started going on Sunday mornings, to Wimbledon, which is bit of a way from where we live. And I was a bit worried actually, why is our 15-year-old daughter going to church, is it, you know… a bit strange. So I said, can I come with you on Sunday? And she said, yes, sure, mom, come along. And I did. And it was not like a church I was used to, I'd been to like Anglican, Catholic churches, etc, which, only Christmas and Easter, that sort of thing. But this was quite different. And I can understand why she liked it. It just felt very different, and she had lots of friends there. And I started going with her on Sundays. Nad had no interest, Alex had no interest at all. But Natasha had a real faith, and I think I was looking for faith.

CRAIG

One thing that is definitely true in your story is that, you know, bad things happen to good people. I mean, you're good people, and a very, very bad thing happened. So however you cut it, whether there's a God or not, we live in a world where this sort of thing can happen. And I just want you to reflect a bit on that, because I think a lot of people come crashing up against, you know, that how unfair it feels or wrong, but actually the way things are set up, these things happen. And just what was it like confronting that reality, particularly when you've got a faith?

NADIM

There's no simple switch or light switch, per se. So you've heard what I've said, however, against that, for two years, I was raging with anger, I was boiling over uncontrollably, I was, every possible expletive around God came out of my mouth with, you know, with vengeance and with horror, I mean, much to the malaise of everybody around me, I might say, you know-

TANYA

You were angry at the world.

NADIM

I was angry at the world, wasn't I, very much angry-

TANYA

Me as well.

NADIM

- for that my child, having been taken away from us, it really, really was very, very powerful force, very dark. And I blamed very much the company and the boss of the company around that, who as it happen, turned out that had been hospitalising a number of people from the same food and hadn't done anything about it. And so that was really the, my anger was that way. But incredibly, just as you think, the very impossible things, or are unimaginable, do happen in this world, and I think I've already alluded to some of those already - one day I was in church, and I had a vision - I say vision: something came in my mind, that's another way, that I actually would forgive the very man that I blamed for the death of my child. Now, that's unbelievable, considering my position of anger, is just untenable. Lo and behold, I imagined it like a piece of theatre in my mind, like we can all do that. And four days later, met the man in a meeting, and as he went to leave, I went up to him, I put my hand on his heart, and the other one on my shoulder, I said, Clive, I forgive you. I want you to know, I forgive you for the death of my child. I do this to set you free, so that you as a man, and who is a father to two children, two daughters, you can therefore be the best father to your two children. And that the horror of what's happened in this tragedy does not continue to flow down.

CRAIG

And how did he react?

NADIM

Well, he wasn’t, he is an Etonian, and a very, rather, sort of, very English gentleman, if you like, quite reserved, his eyes welled up and he started to cry, he probably never heard such a thing in his whole life.

CRAIG

I saw a clip actually of him and he was describing the inquest and the moment of having to sit there and hear some very, very difficult things. This is again, nothing like what you went through, but I imagine he went through very deep, dark moments.

NADIM

Oh, absolutely. I can say, if you'd asked me this a few years ago, I would have you know, had a whole another view basically and would be uncaring or unsympathetic towards him as a man, as a human being. But you asked me now, and I'd say he's just like me and like all of us in, now. You know, he's a human being. None of us really set out to do harm to others in this way that we're talking about. You could say it's a mix of poor judgement and eye off the ball, and any other thing, but he still deserved to be forgiven for even the most horrific thing.

CRAIG

And that forgiveness is a weight off him as you described, but a lot of people talk about forgiveness in, when I'm doing these interviews, and they also say it's a way of setting themselves free a bit that you can, do you - you're nodding - Tanya?

TANYA

Oh, a 100%, I think, Nad, as well as all this blame, you've really blamed yourself. I mean, you were with Natasha when it happened, and you just couldn't get past the fact that you'd actually paid for that sandwich, even though it looked completely safe and you know, Bethany and Natasha, both thought it was safe as well by looking at the ingredients label. And it was only really after Nad was able to forgive, and I would say, both yourself and Clive, actually, that you could actually start healing. Because before that happened, it was just impossible, you were just eaten up by anger and grief and pain, and you couldn't really function properly.

CRAIG

And another big word that comes up in this podcast, talking to people that what they've learned from big, often traumatic experiences, is acceptance. And a lot of people really struggle with that concept of how do you accept that this happened, that you live in a world where bad things happen to good people, where people make huge mistakes and allow certain things to happen that perhaps they shouldn't have done. Was it a journey towards acceptance as well?

TANYA

I think learning to live a life as a family of three and not four was very difficult. It was a whole new way to live, wasn't it? And it's not one we wanted really, it was very difficult. We wanted Natasha back.

NADIM

Very much. I mean, yearning… I mean, just put this, try to visualise it for listeners. You know, you’re a family of four. Okay, myself, I'm a single child. Tanya comes from family as single child. When we marry, we said we'd have two, to break that and have two children. We were blessed with a boy and a girl, we know, fantastic. You could say perfect in that sense. Natasha disappeared off the face of this Earth. We're left with incredible, obviously, sorrow and horror. And every day, we laid the table for dinner for four. Because that's what we were used to for 15 years. And we kept doing the, and we’d just look at it and go, what are we doing? But at the same time, the pain of taking away the knife and fork and the serviette… And over time, over years, basically it's taken to do that.

CRAIG

I can totally see that. I mean, you're both welling up now, and it's, you know, that the pain of that must have been unbelievably real. So what was the moment where you ceased, you were able to stop setting the cutlery?

TANYA

It was time. It was over time. It was learning to live without her. And that's what time lets you do. So in the beginning, it was very much, I actually, very strangely, thought I was in the wrong universe. I thought somehow something has gone wrong. She's not really dead. But I've just been… I'm just in the wrong world. And I actually -

CRAIG

-and you’ll wake up from this horror?

TANYA

Yeah. Yeah, really, really believed that and I willed it, I suppose. And it's, I think it's at the time when you realise there's nothing you can do to change what's happened. Nothing. And our journey did start for people with allergies, following Natasha's inquest. Around that time, because we had two years to grieve before Natasha's inquest happened. And I think that realisation, there's nothing we can do to change it, together with what happened after her inquest was really, it was the catalyst to give us a reason to live - other than our son. I mean, we were doing, the only reason we were really doing what we were doing every day is because we still have a child that we love. But, yeah, the time and the inquest really made a difference, didn't it.

NADIM

Yes.

CRAIG

In a previous podcast, we spoke to a guy called Mo Gawdat, who you may or may not have heard of, but he's written lots of books about that wisdom and you know, living life after a traumatic experience. His son Ali, who I think he was about 21 at the time, had an appendicitis and they rushed him to a hospital. And apparently, I didn't realise this, but they often insert a needle into the abdomen to inflate it with CO2 so that you can then get more space. And they hadn't realised that they nicked a crucial artery and he died. And Mo Gawdat was saying that, that a lot of people wanted to help him punish the hospital and his wife said to him, will it bring Ali back? And he said that that was a moment of huge revelation for him where he was just like, look, I could spend my life chasing after this thing, but actually, it's not going to change anything.

TANYA

Yeah, I mean, I think for me afterwards, I didn't have the anger that you had. Natasha was gone. And that's what I was just trying to come to terms with. Whereas for you, was anger as well, wasn’t it?

NADIM

I mean, yeah, I felt guilty about the whole thing, you know, what kind of man, what kind of father can't save his own child when she's dying in front of him, you know, she wasn't out of reach, she was right there, at my feet, you know, on my knees. And that for me, given who I was, was just untenable, you know, I think in my psyche as well. And that really, really affected me. You know, I didn't realise consciously, but it really dug deep. That blame and that anger is so powerful and destructive, that it became something that’d well up, basically, and it would literally, it would cover my, what I would call my actual hurt. So it was like, like an icing on a cake that would cover, so I, my, my sort of pain was the cake if you like, but the anger masked it, and that aggression, and all the bad words that came out, and it became like a friend, strangely, a friend. So it would come and visit. And I would welcome it instead of pushing it out the door. Because it helped me, it pretended to help me. I became, you know, a horrible person, even more so than I would ever want to be. And is only ultimately, by being able to wrestle, I say wrestle, or that horrible aggression and everything going away, could I become what would be remotely called a human being again?

CRAIG

One question that I've asked a lot of people when we do this is we talk about, like, the trauma that they've been through. And they often say, look, we would never wish this on our worst enemy, but they feel that they've grown and learned huge amounts from there. And I think that this question comes bashing up against something that's just so terrible here. But can you feel that you've learned and grown from it?

TANYA

Definitely. I think we are both better people now than we were before. And I know, it's a strange thing to say, but our relationship is closer and stronger. And certainly as parents, we are, I'd say even better parents than we were because we take it so seriously now. And yes, you do grow. I think any trauma, anything that's difficult in life, you grow as you get through it.

CRAIG

And interestingly, George Alagiah, who was diagnosed with, you know, bowel cancer, and they told him that he was going to die very soon afterwards. And he felt very, very cheated and angry that he wasn't going to get to the end with the person that he wanted to, his wife, that's the love of his life. I wonder if you can feel a bit like he did which is, he came to terms with the fact of just being grateful for the fact that he'd experienced that at all, and that was okay. Is that something that you can do? Or is that too much?

TANYA

I am incredibly grateful that we have and had two such wonderful children. It's, it is difficult, isn't it? It is hard. But Natasha is still our child. And she gave us such joy. And because of our faith, we believe we will see her again. So that's where we are.

CRAIG

I'm interested in that it is Christianity. Does it have to be Christianity? Or was it just a more a sense that there is a spiritual dimension?

TANYA

We felt Natasha's church was really important in this. She was the one that was going to church. Nad had this really weird, very strange vision of angels above her, floating above her. I, before she died, for the six months before, had been going to church with her, looking for something, looking for God, I suppose that's what I was doing. And I really felt and I had really found my place, and I was learning a lot of things. So for us, it was just really, it's almost like Natasha brought us to this place, if that makes sense. The things that happened to us - Natasha was the catalyst. Because if she hadn't have been going to church, we don't believe actually the things that followed possibly could have happened.

CRAIG

And you weren't religious before, but are now, so just tell us about that.

NADIM

Well, religious is a loaded word. So I'll just perhaps put that on the table and just put it on pause. But I'd say I’m someone of faith, and a Christian faith, yes. But so, wasn't at all religious before. Now bear in mind, my mother's French, born in Paris, so she's a default Catholic, but not practising. My father, was born on the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, so by default, he's Muslim. You've already got a clash of two worlds there in the UK. I'd say thankfully, in a way, I didn't grow up in an any form of religious household at all, I can't imagine how that would have worked out to give the two opposing sides, I agree. But so I was completely neutral in that sense. But as I got older, you know, as I became professionally working and so forth, I just believed in my own self, not in anything else other than my own will and ability to build, so build my own castle, etc. And I had been doing that. Little did I really appreciate it, actually, it was at a heavy cost probably to myself in ways that I couldn't measure or perceive, especially when you're younger, in your 30s, I think it's fair to say, often you have to become a man in your 50s, before you begin to even realise who or what you are in relation to the world. And I'd say that's certainly my experience.

CRAIG

And it's so interesting, you say that, because I felt that too. And I felt, for whatever reason, driven to achieve and be alpha male and do lots of things in the world. And then realised it was a bit like having a bulldozer on the beach, like building massive sand castles, but the sea comes in and just washes them away constantly. And that actually, it's a bit of a fool's errand, but somehow we're brought up to believe that's what you do as a man, and that's who you should be. And actually, often it takes something to knock you off that and realise, and actually, bizarrely, feel more settled and centred, and balanced because of it.

NADIM

Oh, gosh, I think at the end of the day, doesn't everyone want just essentially happiness? You know, and happiness comes in different ways. And we think we can all know that money does not provide happiness. For me as an entrepreneur earlier on in my life, from the age, I think 23 when I had my first company, it was never just about the money, but it was about what money could do to create more money and investment and go on cyclically like that, and build a castle. I mean, I've never been interested in money, per se, if you like, other than what it can do. That's interesting, it's an odd way of putting it perhaps. But I think, for me, really coming from that sort of build it, you know, by yourself, and then into this crash situation, really, through Natasha's death, was a complete shock to me, etc. And I'm, but I'm so glad that I have come to this side, or this way of thinking, I don't think I would be alive if I linearly continued in the way I was before, wiith the terrible tragedy that happened. I've been able to make sense and be at peace, and with what's happened, and all the people that have been involved around it.

CRAIG

There's some kind of shocking statistic, I think about couples who lose a child and that don't make it, I think it's high 90%s, or maybe I’ve got that wrong, but it's certainly very high. But you did make it and you are together. And to all intents and purposes, look to me, like you're very strong and going to continue in that way. Do you have some sort of insight into why that is?

TANYA

Uh, the big word is patience, I would actually say. What would happen, we had situations where if I fell apart, Nad would be the strong one, and he would help me, and vice versa. We never seemed to fall apart the same time somehow, did we? So we were very lucky, I suppose that we had, we had that situation where we could help each other. It's compassion, isn't it? It's compassion and love. Seeing you in so much pain and what you were going through, and wanting to help you, and we just got through it, we just did. I think as soon as you start the blame game, and bitterness sets in, that I think is a difficult place to go down for any relationship. And so I think we were just, and I think because of the faith that we were discovering, as well, was helping us not go down that route. And we just ended up looking after each other a lot more. And we're at the point where we are now.

CRAIG

It’s great to hear. We're coming towards the end of the interview, and the one question we always ask at the end of the interview is if there was one piece of wisdom that you'd want to pass on, what would it be? It may be different from both of you, but anyway, let me start with you Nadim, what would you say?

NADIM

Very hard and tough things will happen. People will die around you, whether it's your parents or you know, or some, another member of the family, younger than you, etc. We're never equipped really to accept or to deal with the fact that our children might die. Other things also will happen. And I think it's the way you deal with those things, or able to deal with those things that really matter. But I would say simply, if you've got faith, essentially and by that, I mean, faith like we, ours is Christian faith, you are far, far more likely not just to survive, but actually thrive, post- the terrible thing happen. And the rest of your physical life here on this Earth will not only be happier and better, but you will be probably far more productive than you ever were before, and have a much more powerful and positive effect, helping other people. And that surely is a good thing and you find happiness through that.

CRAIG

That's interesting. I don't really feel particularly affiliated to one religion or not. But I do think the one thing I learned is that there is a spiritual dimension to things. And again, that's another loaded word and people start, ‘oh you going to be a bit weird here and say something’, but actually, there's something inside us that we can't quite explain or contact with the way the world is, or nature or whatever. And when you plug into that, things go easier, I think.

TANYA

Yes, I would agree. We all innately want good things in our lives, and many of us are broken, because of things that have happened to us either in our childhood, or in our adult lives. And that can actually overflow and it can continue to break things in, that happen to us. And, and we've heard the saying that ‘broken people break others’. And that could easily have happened to us, I think, we were both broken, and we could have just hurt each other so much.

NADIM

If you look at our situation, against the odds, you know, even to the sceptic on the outside, ‘oh, my gosh, look what happened to them’. But we, as a husband and wife we’re stronger together and more in love and understanding of each other than ever before. Our son, who's been through all this trauma, is a wonderful loving son to his parents and others around him. That is amazing. He didn't go off the rails and find some darker path as a consequence of the tragedy. We are more productive in the sense that we help others a lot, that around our understanding of allergies…

CRAIG

…you know, you did manage to change the law, and that’s had a huge impact as well. Tell us about that process. And did it actually help you?

TANYA

Well, the law did need to be changed. There was a loophole in the law that was actually stopping businesses from putting all the ingredients down on pre-packaged food. And so we campaigned following Natasha's inquest for that. And it came into force in 2019, and is across the whole country since last year. So we're incredibly proud of that. We've got this legacy that's in her name. We've set up a foundation, which is about allergy research, which has been so underfunded up to now and we really want to make a difference there. A very eminent scientist told us early on, he said, you know if we can put the right research projects out there, some really big groundbreaking research, he said, we could be looking at an end to allergy in my lifetime. And so we have such a strong mission and a will to sort this out to get it done. And that's what drives us now, isn't it?

NADIM

Because myself and Tanya, we get contacted by quite a lot of families whose children die from food allergy in the UK. And unfortunately, this happens, you know, much more regularly than listeners would imagine. And we travel anywhere in the country and spend time with that family, holding their hands, crying with them. This cannot go on and you know, we must win the war against allergy.

TANYA

Natasha would absolutely love what we're doing. Like many teenagers, and she was 15, she had a real sense of justice, about what's right and wrong. And really, law was something that she was very interested in. So it would have been interesting to see what she might have made of her life. But she'd be absolutely -

NADIM

Oh, absolutely. And I can just see that she would be dancing around this conversation right now with words, with lots of expressive phrases and, and a massive big smile with her brown eyes. And that would just light the room up really.

TANYA

Because she felt very alone, you know, with her allergies, and she struggled. So knowing that her legacy is helping others would have been absolutely what she would want.

CRAIG

Listen, it's been amazing talking to you both. I find it genuinely inspirational, listening to you both and hearing your story and seeing people that are so close to each other after something so traumatic. It's a lot to learn from and I know that people listening to this will really have appreciated that you were willing to share in that way. So thank you very much.

TANYA

Thank you, thank you for having us.

NADIM

Thank you, Craig. It's been a pleasure to meet you today and speak.

CRAIG

I feel truly humbled and inspired after meeting the Ednan-Laperouses: two people who have faced the devastation of losing a daughter, and yet are able to share what they went through and learned, in a way that helps us all.

Next week, our guest is the BBC reporting legend John Simpson.

JOHN SIMPSON

..a lot of people would say, you're an adrenaline junkie, which really pisses me off, no end, because I don't go to places because they're dangerous, but I want to be in places where important things are happening.

CRAIG

As you can hear, John is frank and insightful about what's driven him to have a front row seat at the world's biggest stories for nearly 60 years. It's also a very personal conversation about why he chose his father over his mother when he was just six years old, and his relationship with his 16-year-old son.

If you're enjoying this podcast, please like and follow, or even write a review for Apple and Spotify. Desperately Seeking Wisdom was produced by Sarah Parker, the researcher was Charlotte Mulford, and it was a Creators Inc. production. Goodbye for now.