Robert Peston on coming to terms with the death of his wife Sian Busby

‘You just gradually learn to live with it. And sort of find your feet again’

Robert Peston first joined the BBC in 2006 as Business editor (BBC)

Robert Peston has described coming to terms with losing his wife of 14 years, the novelist Sian Busby, after her death from lung cancer aged 51.

In an interview with The Telegraph, Peston, who has just launched Peston on Sunday on ITV, reflected on processing his grief and attempting to move on.

Busby and Peston married in 1998 and had a son together. She finished her final book, A Commonplace Killing, shortly before her death in 2012.

“I think initially her death was so painful that I had to keep ferociously busy as a way of distracting myself, which is one of the reasons I collapsed," he said. "But you just gradually learn to live with it. And sort of find your feet again.”

"Siân had made the choice that she wanted to have as normal a life as she could, and we had five good years, punctuated by hideous crises and the recurrence of cancer in the brain and the lung, but nonetheless five very good years.”

In July, The ITV journalist and former BBC Economics Editor revealed that his male friends had made insensitive remarks shortly after Busby’s death, while his female friends provided “really useful, practical advice”.

“A lot of the things that men said to me after Sian died were just stupid,” he said in an interview with Red magazine.

“Things like, ‘Give it a few months, the pain will ease and you can move on and get a new girlfriend’ kind of thing. ‘You’ll get over it’ sort of stuff.

“Most women said, ‘Can I help? What do you need?’ Lots of really useful, practical stuff.”