I’ll never forget scream of my son, 7, when I told him his daddy was dead – he went out to explore like Michael Mosley

THE tragic death of Dr Michael Mosley, and the devastating impact it must be having on his widow Dr Clare Bailey, has moved the nation.

Rosie Gill-Moss, 42, lost her husband Ben in 2018 in similar circumstances after he went for a day trip with mates.

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Here, the mum-of-three from West Malling, Kent, tells Anna Roberts how she coped and recovered from the trauma.

Reading the news about Dr Michael Mosley this week, my heart ached for him – knowing he bravely walked hours in the blistering heat before dying.

But also, I felt for his devoted wife Dr Clare Bailey, because I too know what it’s like for your husband to go missing and never come home.

My darling, beautiful, charismatic, funny and adventurous husband Ben Moss was 42 when he disappeared doing what he loved — scuba diving — on March 12, 2018.

His body has never been found.

The day he died is etched on my mind forever.

“Be safe, darling,” I yelled as he left our home in Faversham, Kent, at 7.30am.

“Love you,” he spoke back.

They were the last words we ever said to each other.

Ben was a keen diver — we both were, having learned while on honeymoon in Egypt during 2008 — and it was his first trip of the year.

But he was out for a surprisingly long time, which was unlike Ben.

Despite this, I wasn’t particularly worried.

I was a busy mum of three so I had spent the day feeding bathing and playing with them.

At 7.30pm, I recall hearing a knock at the door and seeing the figures of police officers through the glass.

I put the dog in the living room before I answered.

And then: “Are you Rosie Moss? Ben Moss is missing.”

My legs buckled beneath me. In 30 seconds everything had changed.

I imagine it to be similar to what Dr Bailey went through over the past few days as her husband, TV’s Dr Michael Mosley, disappeared after going for a walk in the searing 40C heat on the Greek island of Symi last Wednesday.

Just like Clare, I expected my husband to be gone for no longer than a few hours.

I imagine she has experienced confusion, sadness and fear — and still is now.

‘He’s been out at sea for six hours. He’s not alive’

For me, that night, and in the days and weeks which followed, were hell.

I sat gobsmacked as the officers revealed he’d been missing after diving around six hours earlier.

I was told the Royal National Lifeboat Institute and police divers had searched for him in vain.

With the children — now fatherless — asleep upstairs, the police did a cursory search of my house.

They, out of procedure rather than suspicion, asked me simple questions such as “where is his passport?” even though it was clear he hadn’t made a run for it.

In my haze, it took me ten minutes to find it.

I learnt his two friends said he’d been sick on the boat while travelling the four miles off the coast of Dover to the spot where the shipwreck they planned to explore was, but decided to make the dive anyway.

Bubbles popped up briefly after he went under the water but nothing more — and he never emerged.

Now, I think while underwater he vomited in his diving equipment and instinctively pulled it off and drowned.

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I believe the weight of the drysuit pulled him to the bottom of the ocean and there he rests.

But at the time all I could think was “he’s missing — we need to look for him”.

This must’ve been how Dr Mosley’s wife felt — desperate for him to be found.

As it was night and the children were small, I sat at my then-home, which was 30 minutes away from the dive point.

I frantically made cups of tea for police officers and coastguards.

I insisted police divers go back out, which they kindly did.

But it was the calm explanation of a coastguard at around 11pm which helped me.

“Rosie, my friend drowned in similar circumstances,” he said.

“He’s been out at sea for six hours now. It’s freezing. He’s not alive.”

I knew he was right, and I am glad he said it, but I had to know where his body was. I wanted to know if he had been in pain, or scared.

For Clare Bailey, I imagine that with each day that passed after her husband went missing, her hope for finding him alive diminished.

And eventually, on Sunday — five days after he went missing — his body was found on a rocky area of the island, just metres away from the safety of a restaurant.

For Clare Bailey, I imagine that with each day that passed after her husband went missing, her hope for finding him alive diminished

I can relate to what Dr Mosley’s wife is feeling because I felt it all.

The confusion, the way everything had changed in the blink of an eye.

The sheer futility of his death.

Never any malice

Like Dr Mosley, Ben was adventurous.

If Ben had chosen not to dive he would be alive and I wouldn’t be a widow and my children fatherless.

But he didn’t know that. There was no malice in his actions.

While I knew deep down in those first few hours that Ben had died, his body was never found.

It would’ve provided a sense of certainty there really was no hope, plus a knowledge of what actually happened.

As it is I can only speculate.

I’m pleased Dr Mosley’s family don’t have that additional pain — an autopsy showed he died from natural causes.

Reports suggest he most likely sat down for a rest and died from heat exhaustion.

On the morning after Ben disappeared, divers hunted again, but to no avail.

It was becoming clear that he was never coming home.

Ben and I met when I was a student at the University of East London and he worked in a flooring company.

There was an immediate spark, but we were both in relationships.

Suffice to say, looking back, I think I loved him straight away.

By 2005 we were together and married in 2008.

Our three children followed quickly but they were still so little when he disappeared.

Monty was seven, Hector, four, and baby Tabby was only six months old.

I needed to tell them what had happened so frantically Googled “how to tell a child their father’s dead”.

I knew I had to survive because of the children

It said not to tell them he was “far away” or “missing” so I used “dead”.

I will never forget then-seven-year-old Monty’s blood-curdling scream on hearing the news.

It was the worst conversation I’ve ever had.

Those next few weeks and months were incredibly difficult.

I was no longer Rosie: wife, but Rosie: widow.

For weeks my home was so busy it was like Piccadilly Circus as kind wellwishers and police came and went, anxious to see how I was and give me news about my missing, presumed dead, husband.

After several months, I stopped trying to guess so much what had happened exactly and began to accept it.

A year to the day after he went missing, the children and I went to the closest land point to where he was last seen.

We wrote letters, put them into a bottle and threw them into the sea.

It felt symbolic.

But as well as the emotional turmoil of becoming a widow, one of the hardest things was having to fight to get Ben declared dead.

I had to go to the High Court to get a Presumption of Death Certificate which was finally granted at the end of 2019.

But as well as the emotional turmoil of becoming a widow, one of the hardest things was having to fight to get Ben declared dead

Without this, he was presumed missing and I faced losing our home and Ben’s business — he owned a flooring company — going under.

Juggling this battle with raising our three young children without Ben, who was a very hands-on dad, was so difficult.

It was 20 months after he went missing that an inquest into his death declared an open verdict.

There was very little information but the evidence suggested he had taken off his mask to be sick and was taken off by the strong current, as we had suspected.

Vibrant and beautiful

As time went on, things got easier, and I’m sure they will for Clare Bailey and their four adult children Alex, Jack, Dan and Kate.

Now, with every year that passes and each milestone — first kiss, first wedding anniversary, first birthday, first Christmas — I can reflect on the happy times with Ben.

He was a fun, vibrant, beautiful man.

After he died I didn’t think I could survive — I just knew I had to because of the children.

And I have survived. I am happy and the children are all doing well.

I do worry about them more than perhaps other parents do, but I want them to have a normal life while still remembering their dad.

I think about him every day but don’t let it rule my life.

And I know he wouldn’t want me too.

He was that sort of man — kind, caring and simply wonderful.

• Listen to Rosie’s podcast about grief at widowedaf.com.

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