When Jacob died aged four and a half months, the doctor said, "I am terribly sorry dear, this is just one of those things that happens from time to time", and of course we knew that it did but back in 1967 it didn't have any sort of name. I just felt it was very, very bad luck and that was it.
I lost count of the number of people who told me not to worry, that lightening never strikes twice. But in my case it did, just five years later.
The second cot death was terrible. It was a dreadful, dreadful blow. The worst thing in the world had already happened to me and I thought nothing else could be that bad again.
Suddenly, I felt anything was possible and was then terribly anxious that something might happen to my other child, Hester, then four. If you could lose two, why not three? I never really felt safe again and I still don't, even though my five surviving children have now grown up.
The shock and grief that hits you when a child dies like this is overwhelming. When it happens more than once, the trauma is unimaginable.
My first son, Jacob, was quite a dramatic child because he was born when I was only 26 weeks pregnant and he spent the first two months of his life in a special-care baby unit.
I brought him home at the end of January and he seemed normal in every way, apart from the fact that he was small in his chronological age.
The day before he died, I took him to the baby clinic. They could hardly believe the progress he had made; he seemed very healthy and strong.
The following day, a beautiful spring day, I put him to bed at about 5pm and went to check on him a little later. I found him on his face, instead of on his side where I had left him propped up with a nappy. His face was dark blue with a livid yellow mask around the mouth and nose. He was unconscious. I picked him up and did what I thought was right, which was to breathe into his mouth, whereupon a great deal of his last feed gushed out of his nose. I knew he was ill but I couldn't believe that he was dead.
I was terrified. I can remember that feeling I had of fear, total fear. I ran down and handed him to my mother and ran next door to the telephone because we didn't have one. The doctor arrived shortly afterwards, but after 20 minutes of trying to resuscitate Jacob, I was told he was dead. It was absolutely appalling. Unbelievable.
Japhet, my third son, was born perfectly healthy after a normal, full-length pregnancy. When he was six weeks old we took him to Gloucester to introduce him to the wider family. On the way back he started to whimper and couldn't settle.
We pulled into the hard shoulder and waited, thinking it could have been travel sickness. But then he started to go blue. It became clear very quickly that he was pretty ill. We went to a service station to call an ambulance but by the time we arrived he was struggling to breathe. I was just terrified.
We were taken to hospital in Sheffield where we were admitted to casualty. They realised he was very poorly indeed and went to the special care unit. I thought we were home and dry because we were in hospital and everything would be fine.
But they told me he had a wet chest and his lungs were full of fluid. After that he just faded and died.
There was never a finger of suspicion pointing at me. I don't think there was the same climate of blame back then. I had to give an account of what happened in both cases. Just for a moment after Jacob died, I did wonder why the police were there asking official questions. But the officer explained to me that they were obliged to do this because the baby hadn't been unwell and hadn't been to the doctor, so they had to have details for the coroner.
They were extremely kind and hated doing it, you could tell. I know that for most police officers, attending a cot death is extremely traumatic - one of the most distressing jobs they have to do.
Some people do assume there is more to unexpected baby deaths than meets the eye, such as the result of postnatal depression or a similar syndrome, but I think that can cloud the issue. We have to remember that in the vast majority of cases of infant deaths, that is exactly what it is - unexpected death. The proportion of people who harm their children is very, very small.
The horror of being accused of killing your baby when you are in the middle of all this emotional turmoil is unthinkable. Mothers such as Sally Clarke and Trupti Patel have had to cope with the anxiety and stress of being prosecuted as well as being denied the chance to grieve for their children. There is also the huge burden of guilt you feel and the concern that there was something you could have done.
I was always scanning the latest reports on research to see what there could be that could point to a cause, but mainly was thinking that it was something I had done wrong.
I was put in touch with the Foundation for the Study of Infant Deaths. They sent me information about unexpected infant deaths which I read over and over again until it fell to pieces. I used to put it under my pillow at night so that I could look at it last thing at night and first thing in the morning. It gave me a great deal of comfort and made me feel as if I wasn't alone or to blame.
It contains similar information today. That there are certain babies that react to symptoms that other babies might shrug off and that no one knows why this is.
After years and years of having the support of the foundation, I think I stopped feeling as if I had done something wrong and concentrated on finding out more about what could have caused my babies to die. The possibility of a cot death gene in terms of my particular case of multiple deaths would seem to make some sort of sense. But that kind of research is still in its really early stages.
I think there is a lot of misinformation around and we need to spread the word about the complexities of this issue. People in this dreadful position should get the sympathy and understanding they deserve.
