about me

My professional background lies in teaching, mentoring, and running a small retail business. I am a personal development coach, specialising in grief, loss and bereavement, and a Helpline Volunteer with Cruse, the UK's leading national bereavement charity.

In addition to my life experience, there are some other more 'formal trainings' past and current, further down on this page.

I am forever thankful for the kindness and inspiration of those who have walked with me as I felt my way through my own loss and bereavement, knocks and setbacks. In time, I realised that my life could keep growing, with, and around, grief - my ever-changing, enriching, lifelong companion.

I love finding out more about the mind-body connection, acupoints, breathwork, and other energy balancing techniques. I use them myself for my own maintenance and self-care, and I'm happy to weave them into our time together so that you can see if they work for you too.

I find joy and peace in Greece, words, music, capturing moments in photographs, the cycle of the seasons, trees, plants, the sea, swimming and walking, mountains, the sun and the sky, owls and goats, birds and cats, colours and textures, reading, & learning new things. Silence, stillness, candlelight, and meditation are important to me.

Most of all, I cherish my relationships.

In recent years I've enjoyed doing walking challenges to raise money for Cancer Research UK, Mind, and Marie Curie.

taking the first step through the shadows

'You don't have to see the whole staircase, just take the first step.'

Martin Luther King

life experience & qualifications

Grief & Bereavement Training, Volunteering, and CPD

2026 completed so far:

Cruse Bereavement CPD on Bereavement and Eating Disorders
Cruse Bereavement CPD on Bereavement and being Non-Binary

CPD day course 'How to reduce suicide risk' with the Human Givens College

Cruse Bereavement CPD Training - Autism, Suicidality, and Grief

The Loss Foundation - course on Practising Compassion Focused Therapy in Grief Work

The Loss Foundation - course on How to Lead a Grief Support Group

2025:
Cruse Bereavement Safeguarding Training
Grief and Bereavement CPD training with the Human Givens College
Diploma in Grief and Bereavement Counselling (Centre of Excellence)

2024:
Since 2024, I am a Bereavement Volunteer on the national helpline of Cruse, the UKs leading bereavement charity. cruse.org.uk

In addition to the Cruse volunteer training in 2024, other related courses I took with Cruse include:

The Neurodivergent Experience of Grief & Loss
Living with Drug or Alcohol Bereavement
The Psychology of Grief
Loss and Bereavement Awareness
Talking About Death and Dying
Mind, Body, Breath, Death

Life Coaching

2020-2021:
I trained with The Coaching Academy in London and qualified with a diploma in Personal Performance Coaching.

Since then, CPD has included:

Coaching Specialism: Holistic Coaching
Transactional Analysis and Coaching
Neuroscience and Coaching

I completed the Happiness Facilitator Training with the Museum of Happiness in January 2022.

Energy Psychology & EFT Acupoint Tapping

In 2022 I completed the Fundamentals year of training in The Eden Method, which, together with EFT, is a whole wonderful world of energy psychology: how we can work with our body's energies to sustain health, maintain balance, and promote wellbeing. edenmethod.com
I trained from 2018 with Ashley Meyer at The Energy Therapy Centre in London, and in late 2019 qualified as an EFT - Emotional Freedom Techniques Practitioner. theenergytherapycentre.co.uk

other bits and bobs

2000 to present: running my own small business itsallgreek.co.uk (based in a Bloomsbury shop for 15 years, online only since 2018)
1984-1998: 14 years as a teacher of Classics to ages 11-18 at a school in London, then 1998-2001 I set up my own solo Latin/Greek tuition business, Locus Classicus, when I also taught Latin to junior school children with learning difficulties.
Diploma (2 years part time 1987-89) in Counselling Skills and Attitudes at the Westminster Pastoral Foundation
Researcher in the Education Department at BBC Cymru, Cardiff 1983-84
PGCE 1982-1983 (teaching qualification)
RSA Certificate for TEFL (1982)
BA (Hons) in Classics from St Hugh's College, Oxford, in 1981; MA in 1984
LTCL Performer's Diploma (cello playing) 1976

resources

work with me

back to welcome page

'Grieving is a lifelong process that has different implications for us at different times of our life.'

Julia Samuel ('Grief Works : Stories of Life, Death, and Surviving' 2017)