A former Dorset school head boy who has written a book on grief says many of us are feeling like 'the rug has been pulled from underneath' following the death of the Queen.

Author James Withey, who grew up in Weymouth, was head boy at Wey Valley School and attended Weymouth College in the 1980s.

He became an author after battling with anxiety, depression and PTSD and his recently published book, How to Get to Grips with Grief: 40 Ways to Manage the Unmanageable, is aimed at anyone who has lost someone, he says.

James, who now lives in Brighton with his husband, says the collective grief the nation is experiencing after the Queen's death can trigger people's own personal grief.

"Even though very few people knew the Queen, for the vast majority of people she has always been there.

"It's a bit like the feeling of the rug being pulled out from under you.

"It feels like there's a lack of stability, even though it's not a personal grief there's a huge feeling of loss.

"For some of us it will bring up difficult emotions that we find hard to understand but it's right that we address these feelings - a lot of us are feeling very shaken."

How To Get To Grips With Grief is the fifth book James has written and provides an 'accessible 40 ways to manage grief', he says.

"It's not about getting rid of grief, it's about ways of managing it.

"My dad died when I was five. He worked at the MoD on Portland and then it was just my mum bringing up the three of us herself. My dad died in the late 70s and there wasn't as much support around for dealing with grief as there is now.

"I think that we're still not great at talking about grief and when someone dies, as we saw with Princess Diana, it can really hit people because of their own personal grief."

James began writing after spending time in a psychiatric hospital because of his mental health struggles.

He created a website The Recovery Letters Project - a collection of letters addressed to people experiencing depression - which inspired his first book.

Finding that the book struck a chord with people, he went on to write books on depression and anxiety, a book on coping mechanisms for dealing with depression called What I Do To Get Through and has a book on stress coming out next year.

James now balances his writing part-time alongside working in a library and regularly returns to Weymouth to visit his mother, who still lives there.

He said: "I've always loved writing and I never thought I'd be published. I've experienced some extreme lows and some really difficult times and I've had some lovely messages and feedback as a result of the books."

How To Get To Grips With Grief by James Withey is available from Amazon.

For more information on James's writing, see www.jameswithey.com