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Louise Thomas
Editor
A bestselling novelist whose seemingly “invincible” brother was suddenly found dead after a family pub lunch has written a new book to help herself and others come to terms with loss.
Amanda Prowse, 56, said her brother Simon, 52, was found unresponsive following a cardiac arrest on the bathroom floor of their parents’ home in September 2022 after having “the most wonderful day” with family.
The mother of two from South Gloucestershire was not there that day and received the news from her husband Simeon, 57, a soldier, while she was staying in their “haven” in Ilfracombe, Devon, and recalls feeling “completely numb”.
After his death, Amanda, a novelist who has sold nearly eight million books in 22 countries, could not face returning to Ilfracombe – but, eventually, a trip there led her to write her latest book, Swimming to Lundy.
Amanda set the book “in (her) house and in (her) chair” to fully immerse herself in the “healing” process, and she hopes the story will help others “face painful memories head-on” and find hope amid grief.
“I would advise everyone to find that courage because Simon died in seconds after the most perfect weekend,” Amanda told PA Real Life.
“He had incredible plans for the future in the January and the January never came… I felt so angry that he was robbed of that.
“Death is such a personal and specific loss, you can’t compare, but I will say that it has totally, totally changed my outlook because Simon had so much yet to do.
“Don’t waste time with people who are negative, joy suckers in your life, take the dreams that you have and realise that we are all on a timer – and this is a brilliant reminder that we are.”
Amanda describes her brother Simon as being the funniest person, with a “razor sharp wit”, who always brought “an incredible energy wherever he was”.
Simon has a 19-year-old daughter called Amelie who Amanda describes as “his absolute life”, and outside of working in property he enjoyed hiking, fishing and being outside.
“His favourite thing to do was a huge walk, a pint in the pub, and then a walk home – he was very outdoorsy,” Amanda said.
“He never had ailments, nothing at all to speak of, and I always used to think of Simon as invincible.”
However, one Sunday in September 2022, after her family returned to her parents’ home just outside of Bristol following a pub lunch, a “tragedy” took place while Amanda was in Ilfracombe.
Amanda said “the day he died was his perfect day” and no-one could have anticipated what would happen that afternoon.
“He had been out for breakfast with his daughter, they went to McDonald’s, then he and my whole family went to the pub for lunch – everyone was there,” Amanda said.
“They had a wonderful lunch and my parents said they remember him, as ever, laughing, chatting with the waiters, chatting to the other customers, and then they went back home to have pudding and coffee.
“Simon drove back to the house, parked on the driveway, and he said to our mum, ‘I don’t feel great… can I use your bathroom?’, and she said, ‘Yes, of course’.
“Everyone went into the sitting room for a debrief and a giggle, and she followed Simon upstairs with a glass of water and, by the time she got to the bathroom, he was dead on the floor.”
Emergency services were called and the “incredible” crews did everything they could to give him “every chance to be revived”, but their attempts were unsuccessful.
Amanda received the news that her brother had suffered a cardiac arrest via a phone call from her husband Simeon and he told her: “He’s in the best possible hands.”
She immediately jumped into the car to drive the two-and-a-half-hour journey to her parents’ home – and although she does not believe in spiritual signs, she described the journey, which ended up taking three-and-a-half hours, as “completely bizarre”.
“It was rainy and drizzly, it was the worst possible weather with the worst possible visibility, and I remember thinking, ‘I don’t know how I do this, I don’t know how I drive back on my own’,” she said.
“I remember feeling quite otherworldly, quite ethereal, quite hollow inside – and the weirdest thing happened.
“At the top, in the corner of my windscreen, there was this little light – it looked like a firework or starfish with an orangey glow – and I looked at it and I felt quite calm and thought, ‘I can do this’.
“I drove home… and that light was there the whole time, and the moment I pulled into the driveway of the farm, it went.”
Amanda said she and her family were “all adrift” following this sudden “unjust” loss, describing the weeks afterwards as unsettling and emotional.
Although she had accepted Simon was not coming back, part of her “didn’t quite believe it” – and she later experienced “incredible anger”.
“To see how it affected all of us is a marker of how much we loved Simon, because he was so loved, and so the flip side of that is this incredible, painful loss – and it still is,” she said.
“It still is incredibly painful. It still is surreal to me, and the first six months after Simon died, I kept expecting someone to tell me it was a joke.”
For a while, Amanda could not return to Ilfracombe, as it was “too close to the bone”, given she received the news of his death there.
But after imagining what Simon would say to her, with his practical ways, Amanda eventually ventured back and started writing Swimming to Lundy, which is focused on “unresolved loss and grief” and “letting go”.
Amanda only truly discovered writing in her 40s, having done “loads of jobs” beforehand, and has written 35 novels, two non-fiction books, nine novellas, and sold nearly eight million books in 22 countries.
Her book Swimming to Lundy is the next chapter in “this rollercoaster of life” and she said Simon’s death has taught her to be “grateful for every single minute”.
“It can be grief through death, or it could be loss through heartbreak, all those things,” she explained.
“If we don’t resolve them, they are a boulder in the fast-flowing river of our life and everything either has to go around it or over it, and I thought, ‘I can’t let that be the case’, so I just wrote the book.
“Writing it all down and trying to understand it really helped me process it – and now, believe it or not, I’ve started to find the silver linings.
“Simon had five beautiful decades on this planet, doing the things he loved, creating the most incredible daughter, and bringing joy to everybody who knew and loved him.
“Death is a reminder that the little stuff is the big stuff, and it happens to us all – it is the one certainty … so please don’t live regretfully.”
To pre-order Swimming to Lundy on Kindle, visit: bit.ly/SwimmingToLundy.
