From time to time I am asked, usually by younger widows, for advice on bringing up children as a single parent. I don't like giving advice. Every single situation involves different personalities and circumstances so I don't feel advice really helps. I can only pass on one message and that is: live in hope or you are lost. I also have the feeling that my two daughters brought themselves up. Did I contribute much to their upbringing once their father died? I was too busy out at work and once indoors with household chores and a million things which most single parents have to cope with alone.

That they have turned out so well is largely due to nature rather than nurture. I have probably passed on to them my prejudices as much as my values.

Most of us don't bring children into the world to bring them up alone. Two heads and two hearts are better than one. I cannot understand young girls who actually choose to have their children out of wedlock; to choose to be single mothers. I cannot understand it. I consider it a kind of madness.

Suddenly becoming a single parent, through death, through a parent vanishing into thin air, as one son described it to me, disappearing, just like that, is for most of us, what we thought life would never be like. Apart from self-pity and anger at one's lot, the most recurrent emotion is that of fear and of course, deep grief.

I am not a fearful person by nature. As a matter of fact, I would place myself among the most fearless. However, under such circumstances one realises that just because children have lost a father or a mother, this does not make them immune to losing their other parent too. Whoever is supposed to be responsible for these arrangements, if there is someone, simply does not plan things properly, let alone kindly. Examples of children orphaned by both parents are all around us. Anything can happen to us. A single parent's fear that he or she might drop dead and leave the children behind to swim or sink alone is there.

But there is an even worse fear. That of succumbing to a long illness. Lying in bed helpless, not being able to look after them and having them look after you instead. That to me is still the bleakest of possibilities. Even now, although they are settled down with their own families, I still break out in a cold sweat at the thought of being bedridden, unproductive, and having to be looked after. Please, God, if you are there, spare me this at least.

One thing which possibly saves the sanity of the single parent is that there is always so much to do that there's little time for introspection. And one answer to surviving it all, surviving life in fact, if answer there is, is to forget oneself and in this case concentrate on the children and their needs. Forgetting oneself is no easy matter when the loss has been great. It is a fight which one has to put up every single day for self is central to our lives and existence. We are anything but selfless. But self absorption and concentration on what one no longer has simply inflicts more pain.

Going it alone is bleak and miserable and one is left with all the responsibilities and decisions. You know he/she won't be home for Christmas, or the next birthday or ever. I did not bring children into the world to bring them up on my own, we protest. We brought them into the world to bring them up together and enjoy them together; to decide on things together and do the sharing and caring together. But protesting is useless. As the Jeremiahs will tell you, it could have been worse. Ah yes! But it could also have been better is invariably my answer. As to Job's story, what kind of consolation is that?

But do not let the situation destroy you. I have refused to let it make a dead woman out of me. I see people who walk around alive, but their spirit is dead. They have switched off. Certain blows can kill us but we must not allow it. We must fight this continually. And it is a fight.

The late Dominick Dunn, the writer and journalist, came on a TV programme some time ago. His daughter was murdered and ever after he made it his life's mission to follow murder cases in court, write about them and help bring murderers to justice. He said that when something awful happens to you, you either become a twisted wreck with the bitterness which takes over, or you expand, evolve. It is obviously sensible to choose the latter option, for a choice it is. Suffering should open us up to life instead of letting it kill us. I now look at people and know that often, behind that smile, there is probably a truth that for various reasons has been left unspoken.

Of course one becomes inevitably more austere and you expect austerity in others. The danger, when one has been through one of life's tragedies, is to become harder. I expect other people to be able to bear things as I have borne them. It may seem hard but it is also valid. I am impatient with people who worry about inanities and make mountains out of molehills. I am not interested in what they have to say and refuse to spend any time with them.

Lucky in some things, unlucky in others, that's life. I have been lucky in other ways. I am blessed with an all giving family and friends who gave me their unconditional support. I am lucky because the girls and their families are pure pleasure to be with and have never given me a moment's grief.

But I am convinced more than ever that women should have more than one goal: putting all your eggs in one basket is dangerous. Careers are good for women.

Whether we've learned anything or not, our suffering has shaped who we are, and for better or for worse we have been changed. We are not who we would have been had we not descended into a hell not of our making. This is the club we belong to; the club of those who have been to hell and back. It's a membership badge we wear.

I cried in protest. I cried for my children who were to grow up without a father. I cried loudly. I cried silently. I cried in moans and I cried in yelps. And of course, at the very time that you need a solid shoulder to cry on, it isn't there anymore. I have contributed a great deal to the enormous pool of tears and still do from time to time.

But my message is one of hope. Don't give up. Fight it out. Don't let life get the better of you. You are lucky to have children at all. So many want them but cannot have them. Life is very selective.

You will make it.