'We held a joint funeral for my husband and my baby son'

Rhian Mannings, 47, tragically lost her son George at just one year old, and five days later her husband Paul was dead too

- AMY JONES AND REBECCA JONES

'It was a normal February evening in 2012 when my life changed forever. I had been playing with George and my other children - Holly, then three, and Isaac, two-after bathtime, like always, but suddenly George collapsed and his little body fell backwards. I tried to pick him up but he was limp, like a dead weight. I knew then that something was wrong.

In a panic I screamed at my husband Paul to call 999. We rushed George to the Royal Glamorgan Hospital in Llantrisant where the staff fought to save him, but within two hours he was gone. He seemed perfectly healthy and happy - there were no signs of an illness - but we later learned he had symptomless pneumonia and influenza A. We were lucky to get a cause of death because a lot of families don't- but it will always baffle us how a child can be so ill but appear so well.

The pain was indescribable. My world came crashing down - there wasn't even a bereavement suite or anywhere quiet for us to sit. A nurse eventually found us a room and brought our dead son to us in her arms to say our goodbyes. How did we go from being a happy family of five to this in a matter of hours? George's first birthday cards were still up in the living-room.

There were no tears. No words. Just shock. Complete and utter shock. Then came all the questions in my mind - how will we get through this? What will we say to the other children?

Eventually, we told them, "When you're alive, you need your body and you have this big bundle of sparkle in your tummy. But once you die you don't need your body any more and the sparkle is thrown into the sky and becomes a star that you can always see, wherever you are."

SO MANY QUESTIONS

After George's death we could see there was no system in place to pick us up and look after us as a family. When you lose a child, you go through so many emotions of guilt and blame and so many questions that there are no answers to.