'I had to tell my son that his best friend had died'

"How do you get that news over to somebody without it being like a knife through the heart?"

Henry Dartnall recalled the moment he realised he was going to have to tell his son that his best friend Harriet Forster, aged nine, had died.

Henry told the BBC a friend came to the house in 2018 to break the news and said: "I was absolutely floored by it".

Young Knives band member, originally from Ashby-de-la-Zouch, Leicestershire, has now written a song in the wake of the tragedy called Your Car Has Arrived.

Harriet died when she was hit by a falling rock from a cliff in Staithes, North Yorkshire.

The youngster - described by her family as "the light of our lives" - was "in the wrong place at the wrong time", a coroner said at the time.

Henry said: "It's a very strange thing when you're told someone's died and it's totally unexpected - it's very difficult to process."

Henry said his son, who was also nine at the time, and Harriet had been "very close" and would spend weekends together, playing Roblox and having sleepovers.

"They'd been in our house the week before messing around in the paddling pool, which is kind of some of the lyrics in there," he explained.

"And then you realise that when she was last driven away that day, that was the last time we'd see her.

"And they were like sort of soulmates really, kids that just sort of fed off each other and were always hanging out every weekend."

Henry said when he had found out the news about Harriet's death, the family had had friends around at the time, and he had waited until they left before telling his son he had some "really awful news".

He recalled his son "understood" the situation and was in tears "straight away".

"It had that profound effect of bringing everybody's mortality very close up," Henry added.

The songwriter, who now lives in Wantage, Oxfordshire, said he wrote the song as his "response to situations" was through creating music.

"I wrote it because I had to tell my nine-year-old son that his best friend had died", he said.

Henry added most of the band's music was "fun and loud", but he felt they had created something "poignant and significant" with this song.

"I'm quite proud of the song, normally pride comes before a fall, but I'm really glad I wrote that song, it means a lot - it has a special place," he said.

Young Knives will donate the profits of the song to the Royal National Lifeboat Institute - a charity chosen by Harriet's mother - as they were one of the first responders on the scene.

Harriet's mother Holly Forster, who lives in Oxford, said a lot of Young Knives fans had reached out with "kind things" after the pre-release of the song and their response had "really warmed my heart".

"It's nice that people can take on the sense of loss that is behind the song and if that makes people stop taking their children for granted and hold them a little closer - then that's a marvellous thing," she added.

Follow BBC Leicester on Facebook, on X, or on Instagram. Send your story ideas to [email protected] or via WhatsApp on 0808 100 2210.