Ysenda Maxtone Graham

Sister, where are you? – Clover Stroud mourns her beloved sibling

‘It felt like someone had scooped out the entire inside of my body’ is how Stroud describes losing her sister Nell to cancer

Nell with her performing horse, the star of many of her acts for Gifford’s Circus. [Alamy] 
issue 05 March 2022
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  • The Red of My Blood: A Death and Life Story

    Clover Stroud

    Doubleday, pp. 258, £16

‘CERTIFICATE IS NOT EVIDENCE OF IDENTITY,’ the freshly issued death certificate read. In the craziness and shock of grief for her beloved sister Nell Gifford, who died at 4.20 p.m. on 8 December 2019, aged 46 (‘Cause of death: metastatic breast cancer’), Clover Stroud found herself clinging to those capitalised words.

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