Pilgrim journey helped me with my grief

WILDLIFE presenter Michaela Strachan decided to take part in the new series of The Pilgrimage to help her cope with the grief of losing one of her best friends to breast cancer.

- Julia Kuttner

The Springwatch star - a breast cancer survivor - admitted the past year has been "a shocker".

Michaela's sister-in-law also died, and two of her close friends lost children.

"These were people our age. I know I'm getting on but I'm 57 - I shouldn't know this number of people who have died.

"I went from her funeral, basically, to The Pilgrimage.

"So I was carrying grief, which made it a different journey." The TV star, also known for presenting the long-running Really Wild Show with Chris Packham then Steve Backshall, said she would not have processed her grief without going on The Pilgrimage.

The show sees a group of seven celebrities with different faiths and beliefs walk the North Wales Pilgrim's Waya route which celebrates early Christian saints.

Filmed across three hour-long episodes, Michaela walks with Eton School-educated Spencer Matthews, a former reality TV star turned entrepreneur, who was christened Church of England, and Sonali Shah, a journalist and TV presenter who was raised in a Jain household.

They were joined by comedian Eshaan Akbar, a lapsed Muslim who walked in memory of his late mother; Amanda Lovett, a practising Catholic who starred in the first series of BBC's The Traitors, actor Tom Rosenthal, star of Channel 4's Friday Night Dinner, who has Jewish heritage; and former model Christine McGuinness, who said while she is spiritual, she does not practise a particular faith.

Michaela says: "I don't think I would have processed the grief.