The widow of Dave Myers has responded to social media users who told her to “stop crying” and “get on with life” after the death of the Hairy Bikers star two years ago.
Liliana, who was married to the TV chef for 13 years, has continued to share her grief on Facebook, saying her posts are intended to help others who are dealing with loss. But after comments appeared on her page telling her to move on, she has now made her position clear.
“My posts are not written for everyone”
In a statement, Liliana said she was not there to “judge” but wanted to “make one thing clear”. She explained: “My posts are not written for everyone. They are written for people who are going through one of the toughest periods of their lives.”
She said her writing was aimed at “people living through loss”, “people facing uncertainty” and those who are “angry, frightened, exhausted, confused or in despair”. She added that they were written “from a place of grief”.
Liliana said her posts came from her own experience of “the kind of grief that changes you” – grief that “follows you into ordinary moments, sits beside you in silence, catches you unexpectedly”. She said she wrote about grief because she lives with it, and because “sometimes putting words to something is the only way I can make sense of it”.
“Grief doesn’t have a timetable”
She said she had “experienced enough of it to know that there is no simple instruction to ‘get on with life’”. She said people do get on with life, “but you do it with grief”.
She stressed she was not writing because she wanted to remain trapped in sorrow or seek sympathy, but because “somewhere behind a screen there may be someone sitting alone, feeling something they cannot explain”. She added: “Maybe they need to be reminded that grief doesn’t have a timetable, and that there is no shame in still feeling it.”
Liliana concluded: “If my words aren’t for you, that’s perfectly okay. But they may be exactly what someone else needs today. And for those people, I will keep writing.”
Dave Myers’ life and career
Dave Myers formed the Hairy Bikers partnership with Si King, and the pair became known for travelling across Britain and internationally on motorcycles while sampling and cooking regional cuisine. They rose to prominence with The Hairy Bikers’ Cookbook, which launched with a pilot in 2005 before a full series aired the following year.
Dave met Liliana while filming Hairy Bikers in Romania. Other shows included The Hairy Bikers Ride Again, The Hairy Bikers’ Food Tour of Britain, The Hairy Bikers: Mums Know Best, The Hairy Bikers’ Asian Adventure and Hairy Bikers: Best of British. He died in February 2024 at the age of 66 after a two-year battle with cancer, leaving behind Liliana and two stepchildren, whom he “loved like his own”.
