Rio Ferdinand: Being Mum and Dad review – a moving account of loss

It’s usually so much fun snooping around a footballer’s house on television, seeing where all that money goes. Steven Gerrard’s and Wayne Rooney’s stand out from recent times. Rio Ferdinand’s looks like a good one, too – massive kitchen, gym, pool etc. But Rio hasn’t invited the cameras in to show off.

While grand, the most striking feature of the house is its sadness and silence. In the sunny holiday home in Portugal as well – even though the kids splash about in the pool, happy and noisy– something is off. It’s the empty space left by Rio’s wife, Rebecca, who died nearly two years ago, aged 34, from breast cancer.

I would like to have known more about Rebecca, who seems like a lovely person. There are a few poignant little snippets of her here – wedding footage, her voice from behind the camera on a holiday video, a voicemail left for her son Tate from hospital: “Love you loads and loads and loads, sleep in my bed if you want, do whatever you want, run the house … just be a good boy and use your best best best manners, all right?” (If that didn’t set you off, you may need help.)

But this isn’t really a programme about the past. Rio Ferdinand: Being Mum and Dad (BBC1) is about the present and the future, and coping without her. He’s very honest and open about it, about not always coping. Practical things, such as having to learn to cook and do the laundry (“I know what you do, but I don’t know how you work,” he says to the washing machine).

From where I’m sitting it looks as if you’re doing fine at that side of things, Rio - plus reading practice, plaiting little Tia’s hair (there’s something very lovely about that), and the steaks on the grill look delicious.

Rebecca knew he could do it; her own mum remembers her dying daughter telling her: “Rio will be a perfect mummy and daddy, you don’t have to worry.”

Where he is struggling – and he’s also open about this – is internally, coming to terms with his loss and grief. And with talking to the children – particularly to Lorenz, the eldest – about it.

Of course, Rio Ferdinand is not the only grieving spouse in the country. But he is a high-profile one, a man, and from a profession not known for wearing its heart on its sleeve (except on the pitch). This is a bold and important thing to do. Crying might be less of a taboo these days (Rio’s tears flow freely throughout, mine, too, just watching), but talking is still tough. Men are only half as likely to get counselling help as women are.

Rio talks about how he blocked it out to begin with, about his anger, about finding comfort in drink, about having suicidal thoughts.

He visits other men who have lost their partners – Darren Clarke, the golfer, and a group of bereaved men who seem to be further along the grieving process than he is. They are able to talk freely about it, even make the odd joke. “This is like the shittest game of Top Trumps ever,” says one of them, Dan, as they go round the group, telling Rio how their wives died. Grief banter. Dan, incidentally, is the clear winner; since losing his wife, he has also lost the daughter he’s had with his new partner.

Rio is inspired by Dan, how he somehow manages to carry on and stay strong for his son Jamie. Now, that’s what Rio’s trying to do, for his kids. Perhaps most usefully, as well as most movingly, he also visits a group of teenagers who have lost a parent and who talk about the importance of speaking about it.

One girl, Emily, tells him about the memory jar she made, and he takes the idea home. Rio, Lorenz, Tate and Tia sit together and put down things they remember about Rebecca on paper – the name of a favourite song, a picture of her holding hands with Rio – and they go into the jar (actually, it’s a giant Coke bottle).

“I love my wife, more than anything,” says Rio. Yeah, that set me off again, too.

Rio hasn’t had any professional help – yet. He says he is now open and ready to give it a go. “This filming thing has almost been like a therapy thing, too,” he says. It seems to have been useful to him – certainly watching it will be helpful to others going through the same thing. To everyone else, it’s simply a very moving, very human film. Nice one, Rio.