A widow is calling for a new bereavement group to be set up after the recent death of her husband.

Sue Matthews has found herself in need of support after husband Winston lost a long fight against Parkinson’s disease just two months ago.

The couple first featured in your Worcester News in May 2006 after Mrs Matthews chronicled her husband’s journey to Droitwich from his homeland of India in a book about his life.

The book, called Elephant Footprints, was written under her maiden name of Sue Ditta.

It told of Mr Matthews’s life on the dusty streets of India, his drunken father’s murder and his childhood before independence and partition in 1947. The son of an architect, Mr Matthews should have led a privileged life in Calcutta, but his father’s alcoholism meant his childhood was anything but. As told in the book, Mr Matthews – known as Mac – moved to England in the mid-1950s and worked as a lorry driver and a bus conductor for Midland Red. Since her husband’s death, Mrs Matthews, aged 53, is looking for a group in the Droitwich area that would give her the opportunity to go out and meet other people her age who have experienced a similar loss. However, after a search in Worcestershire, all she could find were groups of women that were a lot older than her.

She is now prepared to start a group herself if enough interest is shown.

“I have found that a lot of older people are catered for, but not people like me,” she said. “I want to meet with a group of women who are my age and have been through a similar thing.

“Perhaps meet up for coffee or in the pub rather than play bingo.

“There must be more women like me who are on their own and in a similar situation. I have searched in Worcester, Bromsgrove and Droitwich and even asked at the doctors, each time I found nothing suitable.”

Anyone interested in such a group should contact Mrs Matthews on 07966 204298.