Two years on from the tragedy that claimed her husband, her daughter, and her leg, Victoria Milligan talks to Samantha Laurie about grief and survival
We’ve arranged to meet in a stylish new cafe, close to her home in Wandsworth. Half an hour passes and there’s no sign of her. Another 30 minutes and I’m subtly scanning faces, wondering if I’ve missed her. So full is the café of slim, blonde, fit women in their 40s that it’s almost a criterion of entry.
When she finally arrives, fresh from spinning class and full of apologies (she forgot), I realize that there is no way I could have failed to recognize her in an instant. Victoria Milligan is the face of love and loss: the woman whose smiling black and white family portraits were a shocking reminder of the fragility of life.
On the first bank holiday of May 2013, Victoria and her husband Nick, a sales executive at Sky, were on a speedboat with their four children – Amber, then 12, Olivia, 10, Emily, 8 and Kit, 4 – close to their holiday home at Padstow in Cornwall. At the end of the day, as they headed to shore, the boat careered out of control, flinging the family into the water before circling them with its deadly propellers. Nick and Emily were killed; Victoria lost her leg; Kit was seriously injured.
“Nicko was always so careful,” reflects Victoria. “We called him PDiddy for Paranoid Daddy. He’d stopped the boat to have a wee at the back, so I stepped up to the wheel in case Kit went near the throttle.”
As Nick returned to the helm, he took the wheel again but slipped. The boat went into a full turn, at full throttle. Neither Nick nor Victoria were wearing the kill cord.
Even in the water Victoria knew her husband was lost.
“Amber was screaming: ‘Daddy’s dead, Daddy’s dead,’” she recalls.
She grabbed Kit and tried to swim away, but the boat hit her in the chest. Their legs were underneath.
Survival instinct kicked in immediately.
“Even in the middle of the devastation I thought: ‘OK, I’ll sell the house, get a smaller one, I’ll get a prosthetic leg.’”
In fact, Victoria’s left leg was amputated below the knee in hospital that night. She only found out later that night that Emily, whom she’d hoped was ‘on a different helicopter, in a different hospital’, had died.
At first she thought the sadness and pain would never pass. Grief, she says, constantly takes her by surprise – “a song on the radio, a moment in the supermarket” – but she’s learnt how to prepare for the worst days.
“The first year we celebrated Emily’s birthday as though she were there – with her favourite chocolate cake and dolls – but it just made it worse. Last year we went to St Paul’s Cathedral and lit a candle. Much better than me in bed crying my eyes out all day.”
This Easter, the family were back in Cornwall, flying in the air ambulance that carries the dedication: ‘Nicko and Emily Milligan. Flying over Cornwall. Saving Lives Together.’ A memorial concert, organized by friends and family, raised £250,000 forCornwall Air Ambulance, which was used to equip the fleet with night vision technology.
“I get texts from my friends saying they’ve just seen Nicko and Emily flying overhead,” beams Victoria broadly. It is the first moment of lightness in our conversation.
We have planned to talk about last year’s Cornwall to London Milligan Charitable Bike Ride, which raised £500,000 for theRNLI and Child Bereavement UK, as well as her physical rehabilitation in the care of Kingston prosthetics genius Abdo Haidar – she is wearing an astonishingly real prosthetic leg under her skinny jeans. Again and again, however, our conversation returns to the gaping, yawning, aching world of grief.
“At first I read every book I could on the subject, desperate for something to grab onto; a set path through. Now I know that it doesn’t exist, but I do think there is a healthy way to grieve. I‘ve tried to avoid the short-term fixes – antidepressants, sleeping pills, alcohol. Being physically fit is part of it, but it’s also about being kind to yourself by eating well and getting enough sleep.”
Now she’s using her experience of grieving to write a practical handbook.
“Nobody knows what to do or say when someone is bereaved,” she complains.
One of the key figures in her recovery was Julia Samuel, trustee and founder patron of Child Bereavement UK – and godmother of Prince George – who visited her in hospital and continued to visit despite Victoria’s initial reluctance to see her.
“She was very honest. Your friends want you to feel better, but she told it as it was.”
Don’t feel guilty about doing things that you enjoy, advised Julia, prepare for the anniversaries and take control of conversations. This latter counsel was invaluable.
“If I’m at a party and trying to be jolly, it can be so difficult when someone says ‘So how are you?’ in that particular way. I don’t always want to talk about my grief.”
The best support came from those who offered specific help.
“One friend would say: ‘I’m making a chicken pie tonight, I’ll drop it off or stay and eat it with you.’ Another would say: ‘I’m at the supermarket, text me what you need.’ Every single morning my best friend simply texted: ‘I love you x’. But saying ‘please let me know if I can help’ just shifts the ball back into my court.”
Nor did Victoria appreciate those who “clocked in” with regular texts saying ‘thinking of you’.
“One friend sent me a text from Heathrow saying ‘thinking of you all the time’, as she left for a month’s holiday in America with her family. My world was in tatters and she was ‘thinking of me all the time’!”
At first Victoria’s focus was fundraising, culminating in a 300-mile bike ride organised by her children’s school, Finton House School, in which she and 126 local friends and supporters rode home from Cornwall.
“The chairman of RNLI said: ‘In Cornwall we have a strong community, but I’m blown away by yours in Wandsworth.’ Julia Samuels wrote me a wonderful note: ‘If I ever come back again, I want to live in Wandsworth and have my children go to Finton House School.’”
Physically, she’s in great shape. Five mornings a week she teaches spinning classes in a local gym and runs personal training sessions from home. Unlike most amputees, who tend to suffer with vascular problems, she was fit and healthy for the gruelling challenges of physio. She got her first prosthetic leg in ‘NHS pink silicone’, before being referred to the private London Prosthetics Clinic that has now created five different legs for her: an everyday leg with an adjustable heel; a waterproof leg; a blade; a high heel and, technically the most challenging, a ski leg.
Today, she is wearing the first of these, the carbon fibre and titanium adjustable heel leg she uses for spinning. An exact match of her skin tone with hand-painted freckles and veins – as well as a beautiful, contoured ankle bone – the leg is custom-made by Haidar’s team in Kingston, using an exceptionally realistic silicone cover that alone costs more than half the total £9,000 cost of the leg.
Kit required 12 operations on his foot. He is now “90% mended”, says Victoria. Emotionally, the impact on all of them is harder to judge.
“The girls grew very worried about my mortality. I would get 30 missed calls if I went out to the shop. I was very open with my sadness; I couldn’t stop myself. Grief is like being in a river – sometimes it’s shallow, sometimes deep, but you’re always in it. But kids don’t like being sad. For them it’s like jumping in and out of puddles: very sad one minute, then ‘Oh, there’s the ice cream van!’ the next.”
She doesn’t want the legacy of sorrow to define them. Thus Amber and Olivia are now at weekly boarding school, away from the sadness of home. For Victoria herself, the reassessment of what is important in life has been profound.
“I don’t get bogged down with the small stuff anymore. And I’m so much better at organising special occasions. At the end of the year, you have to ask ‘what day are we going to remember?’ and make them special.”
You can find out more about Victoria’s fundraising and awareness work on her website
