'I'm still angry with him': The Hairy Bikers' Si King opens up about grief after the death of friend Dave Myers
The presenter candidly shares how grief has shaped him, and how it is never a linear process
The Hairy Bikers will always be remembered as national treasures - a warm double act brimming with enthusiasm for both food and motorbikes.
However, one half of the partnership, Si King, has been dealing with a devastating loss after his good friend and fellow Hairy Biker Dave Myers, sadly passed away in 2024 at the age of 66.
Speaking candidly about grief after Dave's death, Si says, "It's interesting about grief isn't it, because it's as nuanced and as individual as the people that are feeling it."
Many people know the basic stages of grief include denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
However, Si's very poignant statement proves that the process is never linear, and those going through loss can revisit certain stages, or have an entirely different grieving process altogether.
Speaking on Davina McCall's Begin Again podcast, Si candidly spoke about his experience of feeling angry with Dave for leaving him.
"I'm still pretty angry about him b*****ing off really, but I'm not really an angry person and I struggle with that about myself and that part of my character," he shares.
Si continues, "My journey with Dave's illness was quite different to what everybody else sees, because it was highly personal and very private."
Explaining the "level of disbelief" he felt when he found out about Dave's diagnosis, Si says he can "still remember where I was" when he found about his good friend's cancer.
"There was a surreal moment of, 'What do you say?'" he recalls of the moment he was told about Dave's illness, adding that although he didn't know what to say at all, he landed on asking lots of questions instead.
He remembers that it quickly became clear Dave and his family were "up for the scrap," or the fight against the disease (the location of Dave's cancer has never been publicly shared by his family,) and Si needed to find where he sat within that.
"My role as his friend was to support that endeavour- it didn't matter what I thought, or the route I personally would have taken, it was about supporting him," he says.
Reflecting on continuing life after Dave's death, Si shares, "It's different, very different, because were part of a double act and we always took each other into consideration."
He adds, "However that manifested itself, we always did that for each other - it's just different Davina."
The presenter also reflects on his own experience with serious illness, when Davina asks him about the aneurysm he had in 2014. During that year, he suffered a ruptured brain aneurysm that resulted in a brain haemorrhage, and he came close to death.
Si reveals he no longer recognises the man he was when the aneurysm happened, sharing, "I was loved, but I caused quite a lot of pain and anguish," saying it took him three to four afterwards to look back on the person he was before it happened, and ask, "Who in god's name was that?"
He says, "It had a profound effect on my family," and he and his wife Jane divorced a couple of years after the brain injury occurred. He does say they are now "great mates" and he "adores" his former wife, but they had to work hard to be amicable with each other.
"Divorce is like a marriage and it's all about compromise," he says in another poignant statement, concluding, "It's about being adult about it and understanding where you went wrong - it was never anybody's fault, it just broke."
