Liliana Myers, the widow of Hairy Bikers star Dave Myers, has spoken about her grief and said that sorting through his belongings felt like meeting her husband again. She was speaking on This Morning, two years after the TV chef died at the age of 66 in February 2024, following a cancer diagnosis announced in May 2022.
The couple married in 2011, with Dave's on-screen partner Si King serving as best man. After Dave's death, more than 40,000 motorcyclists took part in 'Dave Day', a 30-mile ride honouring his life and legacy.
Auction for what would have been his 69th birthday
Liliana is now auctioning several of his personal belongings, giving the public a chance to get closer to the star on what would have been his 69th birthday. She explained: "I wanted to celebrate his birthday in a special way, and I know that he loved the public and his fans a lot. He was larger than life, and what better way to celebrate his life than giving some of his precious belongings to the public."
She added: "It's a way of celebrating him, celebrating the fantastic person he was, the explosion of energy he was. And with this occasion, I found a lot of things about my husband.
'I got to meet my husband again'
"I got to meet my husband again going through his things. There were boxes I carried with me from house to house as we moved, and there were stories in those boxes that I only found out now.
"A lot of things from the life before I met him. He was a make-up artist, a Goldsmiths graduate, and a fantastic artist. I found these pictures, and hand-drawings and everything that he did before, and it's a fantastic way of meeting my husband again."
Liliana described the process as "healing" and shared her thoughts on grief: "Grieving is a very personal thing, and actually we are all grieving people. Grief comes in a lot of forms and shapes. We might grieve for a lost childhood, a lost job, for some dreams that we haven't fulfilled, it's all these internal turmoils.
Learning to live with grief
"But grieving after you've lost a person, it's really hard. Losing your partner is like losing half of your life and half of who you are, and trying to rebuild yourself, trying to find out who you are on your own and that empty space that's part of you, and all of a sudden it's hollow.
"Some people feel it with addiction, some people feel it with things, some people feel it with another person. Some people grow to fill that space themselves, and I chose the latter. I chose to learn and understand more about grief."
Liliana said her past training in hypnotherapy helped her through the process, adding: "Now my path forward looks like it's going to be in helping people to walk this path and find their strength and try and understand that grieving and living, we can do that and not feel guilty."
This Morning airs weekdays from 10am on ITV1 and ITVX.
