When I visit my son’s grave now, I am filled with a sense of peace

Obsessed with perfect paths, Will Gore recounts a difficult walk in Berkhamsted cemetery

We planted a few snowdrops round Joshua’s grave

There are some places you never want to tread: bogs, crumbling precipices, dog excrement and slugs are things I seek to avoid.

Some grim walks are unavoidable. When dispatched to the headteacher’s office, you have to bite your young lip and click-clack down the reverberating corridor to meet your fate. When you miss the last tube and there isn’t a taxi to be seen, there is sometimes nothing for it but a trudge through the mean streets of the night.

I never expected to have to walk behind my dead son’s coffin; who does? He was born prematurely and died just a day later, after a night of life-saving efforts in the neonatal intensive care unit.