REBUILDING LIVES

DIY SOS project for charity that helped Harvey after he lost his brother and his best friend

- LYDIA VELJANOVSKI

Harvey was just 10 when his parents interrupted his morning TV viewing with news that shattered him and ended his childhood.

"Your older brother's been killed, been murdered, they told him that terrible Father's Day in 2015.

"I immediately didn't believe it, says Harvey, now 19 and a farmer.

"I remember sitting next to a police officer, asking 'Why us? What did we do to deserve that?" His brother Edward had died in a house fire started deliberately by someone unknown to the family.

"His death left me confused, devastated and angry," says Harvey, who has been supported by Treetops Hospice, which is to be featured in tonight's DIY SOS Children In Need special.

"I struggled at school with concentration as all I could think about was how angry I was at the world," he adds. "Anything I could be angry at, I was. I think I was this way as I couldn't allow myself to be sad.

Just four years later, while coping with this immeasurable grief, he also lost his best friend Billy, who was 21, to cancer. It was almost too much for the youngster to cope with.

Harvey says: "His death made me feel a sadness I could never explain.

"Yet he helped me realise that you can't be angry at the world.