FORMER Worcester MP Mike Foster has poured his heart out over losing his seat - admitting that it felt "like a bereavement".

Nearly five years to the day since the Labour man was dumped from the Worcester constituency after 13 long years, he says any parliamentarian losing out in this year's General Election will find it tough going.

Today the 52-year-old, who lives in Holt Heath just outside Worcester, is a happy family man and works in Kenilworth, near Coventry as the boss of a group representing the energy industry.

But he admits that come Thursday he'll be looking over the Worcester battle, centred on Robin Walker versus Joy Squires, with a keen interest.

In the early hours of Friday, May 7 2010 Mr Foster walked out of the Guildhall after losing to Mr Walker by 2,982 votes, signalling a new era in the city's politics after the days of Blair and Brown.

Looking back, Mr Foster said: "It's a very public way of being made redundant - you're live on air, on the radio as the result is being announced and the job you've loved for 13 years is gone.

"It would be wrong to say it was a surprise, we saw it coming but nonetheless it's still a shock.

"I've used the term bereavement because I remember people writing to me, who had been in the same position, who told me exactly how it'd feel.

"They'd either lost their seat and came back or lost it and got into the House or Lords, and they wrote to me and said 'it happened to me, this is how it will feel like, and this is how you will cope'.

"I can't take credit for that word, because they said it'd feel like a bereavement, and they were right.

"But it was incredibly kind of them and in a way, very reassuring to know the emotions I were feeling were ones they'd all had too.

"It's the job you love and it's been taken from you."

He also told your Worcester News that at the time, it felt like a personal verdict on him - something he recognises as wrong now.

"You get elected because of the party you're from, not because of the person you are, you've got to remind yourself of that," he said.

"When I lost, it was because of my party badge, and it's the same for everyone who loses from any party, that's the way it is.

"But at the time you aren't thinking as rational as that, the knee-jerk response is that it's personal.

"I found it difficult to go to the supermarket at first, it's weird.

"You drive around the same place and see schools, hospitals, and you think 'I had a hand in that', or 'I opened that' - the reminders are everywhere and it all comes running back, it takes time to move on from that.

"I'd be a liar if I said I didn't think 'bloody hell'. But you move on."

He also says after losing his seat, he helped form a support group of ex-MPs which has grown to 130 members, all from Labour, who meet once a month.

The group, which he has jokingly nicknamed the 'PLP (parliamentary Labour Party) in exile', has get-togethers on monthly Mondays in a pub in Lambeth, south London.

After losing the Worcester seat he had to make four people redundant and took some time out before landing a job at WaterAid, which campaigns for safe water around the world.

For just over three years the father-of-three has been chief executive of the Energy and Utilities Alliance, which ironically brings him into contact with MPs and party spokespeople seeking briefings on topics like boilers and heating.

"It's completely different from life in parliament, but looking back I now know how little I knew about energy as an MP," he said.

"It's astonishing how you can be in parliament and be responsible, at times for making all sorts of decisions, yet you're so poorly informed.

"Now I brief ministers, civil servants and the like on energy policy.

"I would say to any MP these days, try and specialise, because you can't be a jack of all trades."

The light's still burning brightly.