James Murray reveals what helped him cope after his daughter Ella-Jayne's death and says he and wife Sarah Parish 'couldn't breathe' during her second pregnancy

James Murray has revealed fishing was what helped him cope with the 'unbearable' pain of his daughter Ella-Jayne's death.  

In 2009, James, 49, and his wife Sarah Parish, 56, lost Ella-Jayne to a congenital heart defect when she was eight months old.

The couple set up the Murray Parish Trust in 2014, dedicated to advancing paediatric emergency medicine in the south of England. 

Speaking to The Times, The Crown star James told how he tried therapy and speaking to friends following Ella-Jayne's death but didn't feel it was helping.   

He said: 'The pain was unbearable. Therapy wasn't doing it for me; talking to friends didn't help with something that was impossible to comprehend. I was going under, sinking slowly then fast. It was all-encompassing and horrendous. 

'Then I stood in the river and began to cast; fishing was the way I coped and where I found Ella-Jayne again.'

The couple, who met on the BBC drama Cutting It, were told before Ella-Jaye was born that she had a weak heartbeat.

She spent five months in intensive care after her birth before James and Sarah were let take her home. 

James said the couple knew their lives had changed forever as Ella-Jayne couldn't feed herself and they thought they would raise her as a special needs child.

Ella-Jayne passed away four months later in her sleep and, after her funeral, James and Sarah went to Vietnam and Cambodia and volunteered to work in orphanages with sick children. 

Their daughter Nell, now 15, was born ten months after Ella-Jayne's death, with James describing the anxiety of Sarah's second pregnancy.

He said: 'The idea of getting pregnant and having another baby was so drenched in caution and worry that the joy of that news was not there. We couldn't breathe while Sarah was pregnant, then Nell was premature and it was dramatic, but I'd say we are pretty resilient as a result.'

James has since developed a passion for fishing and has an exhibition in London of the paintings he has made on salmon rivers.    

James and Sarah have succeeded in raising over £2.5 million for Southampton University Hospital, which the government matched and it paid for a new children's emergency and trauma department. 

Sarah has previously said that before the death of her daughter she had a 'very easy life' and that the harrowing experience 'made me a better person'. 

Their experience volunteering turned out to be first step on a new path and in 2014 they set up the Murray Parish Trust, dedicated to advancing paediatric emergency medicine in the south of England. 

'I'd had a very easy life before that,' Sarah said in 2019. 'Nothing awful had ever happened to me. But with something like that, I know it's a real cliché, but it has made us.

'And the charity – especially running alongside careers as actors – is perfect. It's the ideal thing to do, because as an actor you really do have the space to become an awful person if you want.

'Because everything is based around you and what you need. It's a great job and we're very lucky. Then when you work on a charity alongside it, and you see what life is, the really bad side of life, it just makes what you do [for a living] amazing, you know. My job is my holiday and the charity is my job.'

Speaking about her relationship with James and the impact the death had on them, she added: 'It changed us as people, definitely. It has to. And actually, the older you get, the more people you meet who have lost children. 

'A lot of people lose children in far worse circumstances than Jim and me. Ella-Jayne was only eight months old, she was very poorly anyway, so we were already prepped for what could happen. 

'Whereas I've met people along the way who had a healthy child, everything was good, and suddenly they've gone. 

'I've known people who have lost their children at the age of 16. It's just unbearable. It will always change you as a person. It's changed us for the better, I think.'

Sarah played the character Dawn Rudge in the ITV drama series Peak Practice in 1993, but more recently starred in the third and final series of Broadchurch as Cath Atwood.

She also played Katie Roden in the BBC One series Mistresses between 2008 and 2010.