Losing someone connected to military service rarely brings grief alone. Alongside the loss often comes a maze of paperwork, pensions, compensation claims, housing decisions and unfamiliar systems to navigate – usually at the exact moment families have the least capacity to face them.
More than 100,000 people across the UK Armed Forces community experience bereavement each year, and around 1,200 children are bereaved of a veteran parent annually in Great Britain – losses that are often invisible in official statistics and under-served by joined-up support.
This Armed Forces Pensions Week, we’re proud to shine a light on Beyond the Wire, an organisation founded by military widow Jilly Carrell, and its flagship initiative: the Bereavement Hub – the UK’s first dedicated online resource bringing together military and civilian bereavement support in one accessible place.
Why the Hub was created
Beyond the Wire was born from lived experience. Jilly’s husband, Colonel Nick Carrell, died in 2021 after six tours of Afghanistan and a battle with terminal illness, leaving Jilly to support their two daughters through profound loss while trying to make sense of a complicated system of support.
Speaking at the Hub’s soft-launch at the Houses of Parliament, Jilly described sitting at her kitchen table in the days after Nick died, “surrounded by paperwork, websites and unanswered questions,” adding that “every answer seemed to raise three more questions.” When she turned to social media for guidance, more than 3,000 people from across four decades of military-connected loss reached out with strikingly similar stories:
“They didn’t know where to start. They hadn’t known what support existed. They often didn’t know which organisation could help. And they had spent precious emotional energy searching for answers at the very moment they had the least capacity to do so, or had given up entirely.”
That shared experience became the catalyst for the Bereavement Hub. As Jilly put it:
“The challenge for military bereaved families is not a lack of support. The challenge is finding the right support when it is needed… Put simply, it is the resource I wish had been available when Nick died.”
What the Bereavement Hub offers
Rather than replacing the excellent work already happening across the sector, the Hub exists to connect people to it – bringing trusted information, guidance and organisations together in a single, compassionate starting point, so families don’t have to face grief and bureaucracy alone.
Since its development began, the Hub has built:
- 128 articles for every stage of the grief journey, it’s practical and emotional challenges
- 112 military and civilian organisations listed in a directory
- 126 supporting resources including books, podcasts, websites and more
- The Lavender Workbook – a tool based on the Purple Book
- Guidance for professionals
But this is just a starting point – the Hub will continue to evolve and grow to fit the needs of the bereaved Armed Forces community through working collaboratively with other charities and organisations.
A resource the sector says was needed
The Hub’s parliamentary soft-launch brought together 160 attendees, including more than 40 MPs and peers and representatives from 75 organisations spanning the military, government, charitable, healthcare and academic sectors. The response reinforced just how needed this kind of resource is.
Tan Dhesi MP, Chair of the Defence Committee, said the Hub was launched: “Indebted to all who sacrificed their life for our nation, but heartening to hear of work of Beyond the Wire, ASF and others supporting grieving families, as we launched the UK’s first Armed
Forces Bereavement Hub.”
Linda Magistris, Founder & CEO of The Good Grief Trust, called it “a vital resource for so many military families affected by grief,” while Laura Robbins MBE, Chair of the RAF Widows’ Association, said simply: “It’s beautiful and the end of life part is exactly what people need.”
Danny Egan, Director of Health & Wellbeing at the Royal Marines Charity, went further: “I can already see the immense value in what you’ve created. This has the potential to be a real game changer.”
And Abby Dryden, CEO of Defence Medical Welfare Service, praised the Hub for bringing “information and resources in a person-centred way, understanding the impact of emotion and trauma,” in a way that is “protective and welcoming.”
Built through collaboration, not in isolation
The Bereavement Hub has been developed with charities, healthcare professionals, researchers and people with lived experience, and Beyond the Wire is a member of the Defence Bereaved Families Group and the National Bereavement Alliance, a signatory of the Armed Forces Covenant, and a partner of Defence Medical Welfare Services.
The Andrew Simpson Foundation remains its delivery partner, and the Hub continues to evolve through a research partnership with Professor Matt Fossey of the Veterans and Families Institute at Anglia Ruskin University.
As Jilly reflected in her closing remarks:
“The Armed Forces Covenant promises special consideration for those who have given the most, including the bereaved. But special consideration must be more than words on a page… no bereaved person [should be] left to navigate grief, bureaucracy and uncertainty alone. The Bereavement Hub is our contribution to making that promise a reality.”
Find the right support, at the right time
For the Forces pensions and wider Armed Forces community, the Bereavement Hub offers a trusted first port of call – whether you’re supporting a bereaved colleague, family member, or navigating loss yourself.
It brings together guidance for every stage of military bereavement, from immediate next steps after a death in service to long-term emotional support, alongside directories of the organisations best placed to help.
Grief is deeply personal, but no one should have to face its practical consequences alone.
Image: Beyond the Wire Team – Spike, Fiona, Jilly, Elle & Steve
