Each Sunday, during these cherished visits at Anne's home in north London, they talked, about the emotional isolation of losing a loved one during a global pandemic and the practicalities of widowhood.
Anne's second husband John Bird died just before Christmas last year, a week before their 40th wedding anniversary.
"Barely two months after John died I was living in a world he wouldn't have recognised. I lost my husband, whom I adored, and five weeks later – minutes really – I was locked up in the pandemic. I'd never lived alone in my life," says Anne.
Then, just six weeks after John's death, the husband of her youngest daughter, Catherine, died of pneumonia after falling ill in early December.