Grief can make you stronger or it can tear you apart
The couple talk to HANNAH BRITT about the heartbreaking reason behind Ben’s epic Everest adventure and why they are now determined to live life to the full
WHEN Ben Fogle set off to climb Mount Everest in April this year, he knew he was attempting something incredibly dangerous. While 5,000 people have reached the summit of the world’s highest mountain, nearly 300 have lost their lives trying.
“There were times I thought my number might be up,” says broadcaster, writer and adventurer Ben, 44.
“It was the avalanches that scared me most. You’d hear them boom every hour. We had a big one on the way down that stopped 100ft from us. Any extra snow and it would have taken us out.”
While Ben’s wife Marina, 40, says she is used to her husband setting off on hair-raising adventures, she admits that this one was especially difficult to deal with.
“I was really worried. To say I wasn’t would be a total lie,” says Marina. “It’s one of the reasons I fell in love with Ben, because he did all these amazing things. But I said, ‘Come on, it’s been done, it’s expensive and dangerous’.
“But then we went on a walk, just the two of us, and he presented me with a plan that was really impressive. It would have been impossible for me to say no.
“He’d thought about how it was going to work and how it was going to be more meaningful.”
While Ben had always dreamt of conquering Everest, there was a heartbreaking reason behind his decision to go for it this year.
In 2014 Marina and Ben were expecting their third child, a little brother for Ludo, eight, and Iona, seven. Tragically baby Willem was stillborn, leaving the couple completely devastated.
“Death certificates, funerals, headstones, the cot that was set up, the buggies on their way. It was awful,” says Marina.
“Christmas that year was really hard. We went to the churchyard where he was buried and said happy Christmas to him. But there was nothing happy about it. It was wretched and awful.”
Marina says that she and Ben dealt with their grief in different ways.
“Interestingly very few people asked how Ben was doing. Everyone just asked how I was,” she says.
“About four months on I was moving forward when suddenly it hit Ben and he was grieving as I had been grieving in those first few months.
“It’s strange, this idea of losing someone you’ve never met,” adds Ben. “I struggled to comprehend how I might be missing him when I never got to know him. But it’s the loss of the dreams, the hopes, the aspirations.”
BEN says it was Willem who inspired him to keep going as he trekked up Everest, even when at times all he wanted to do was quit.
Having lived on a deserted island for a year as part of BBC reality show Castaway in 2000, then trekked to the North Pole alongside Prince Harry for charity in 2005, Ben is no stranger to tough challenges.
Indeed, in 2005 Ben proposed to Marina after 49 days rowing across the Atlantic, using a small piece of rope from the boat as a ring. The couple married in 2006 and live in west London with their children.
However, when climbing Everest there were plenty of times when Ben feared he had taken on too big a challenge. His oxygen mask failed while he was in the “death zone” and while at Camp Four, just before the summit, Ben and his team were stranded in a storm for days. With limited communication coming from the mountain, Marina, founder of antenatal classes The Bump Class and The Parent Hood podcast co-host, admits being at home waiting for news was torturous.
“The summit rotation was the hardest bit because it took much longer than expected. I had no communication, no daily report. Those eight days I probably aged 10 years,” she says.
Stuck in his tent at 26,247ft, Ben texted his wife. “We were being battered by the storm, it was terrible,” he says. “There was no way I was going to call Marina. If she’d heard the background noise, she would have been so worried.”
Instead he sent a brief text message: “Safely at Camp Four. Bit windy. Gonna rest an extra day here before summit bid. Love you.”
“He’s never used the word ‘gonna’,” says Marina. “I thought, this isn’t even Ben. I thought he was dead.”
Despite the 100mph winds and bitter cold, Ben refused to give up and was determined to reach the summit in memory of Willem.
“It was the reminder of the fragility of life,” he says. “I wanted to live my life to the full and brightly for him as well.”
Marina says finding a therapist immediately after Willem’s death helped her to cope.
“When you’re coping with grief, it’s emotionally and physically exhausting. You doubt everything in your life. And that’s going to impact your relationship. It can either make you stronger or tear you apart,” she says.
“But thanks to talking everything through, I communicate on a much deeper level now with Ben, my friends and our children too. We’ve addressed things like grief, crying and sadness, which you don’t talk about that much normally. As a result my children are stronger.”
And Ben agrees. “People show their emotions in different ways. Things you may not feel comfortable airing in front of each other, you can talk about with a therapist because there’s a third party helping you to open up. Ultimately with Marina and me it made us a stronger partnership. But I wouldn’t wish it on anyone.”
Last month TV presenter Amanda Holden, 47, launched an appeal to fund stillbirth counsellors for maternity wards, having lost her son Theo seven months into her pregnancy in February 2011.
THE campaign is something Marina and Ben wholeheartedly support. “Grief counselling was the most helpful thing. We did it privately as it wasn’t available to us on the NHS,” says Marina.
“When I speak to people going through a similar experience, the first thing I say is talk to someone. I emerged a wiser, more resilient person as a result of exploring my feelings and emotions.”
Ben says that Everest has been enough of an adventure for the time being and he has no plans to head off anywhere else at the moment. And he admits he doesn’t know how he would have coped if Marina had decided to undertake such a dangerous adventure. “If she’d have climbed Everest, I would have been slightly nervous.”
“Slightly?” Marina cuts in. “Ben would have been a wreck. He wouldn’t have been able to function.”
“She’s right,” agrees Ben. “The children and I would have had to check into a hotel.”
Marina says she has set herself different challenges.
“You don’t need to be climbing the tallest mountain in the world. I do little things that aren’t on the same scale as Ben does but to me they are big things,” she says.
“Ben inspires me to push myself. To make myself vulnerable to failure. I try to be brave. I talk about Willem the whole time, it doesn’t mean it’s easy. Last year I did my first half marathon and for me it was a huge accomplishment.
“I have my Everests. We all have our own mountains to climb.”
To order a copy of Up: My Life’s Journey To The Top Of Everest by Ben Fogle and Marina Fogle (£20, William Collins) call the Express Bookshop on 01872 562 310 or visit expressbookshop.co.uk