Highlands on suicide watch after 50 deaths; Appeal for further

Sunday Herald, The, Oct 17, 2004 by Alan Crawford

Few leave a note. None is thought to have been making a plea, however desperate, for attention. In the words of one Highland politician who has studied the issue, "they make sure they do the job right".

Suicide in the Highlands and Islands is running at "epidemic" proportions, according to one expert in the field, yet agencies are at a loss to explain the phenomenon.

Forty-two people have taken their lives in the region this year to date, according to the Inverness-based Suicide Awareness Group (SAG). That figure does not include eight people from outside the area who travelled north to kill themselves. Most were in their 20s or 30s; most were male; most hanged themselves.

Suicide rates have long been higher in the Highlands and Islands than elsewhere in Scotland. However, the issue has been thrust into the open after a spate of deaths in Inverness this year which has left the city's population stunned, unable to explain the tragedies in their midst.

Dr Rory O'Connor, who heads the Suicidal Behaviour Research Group at Stirling University, said it was recognised that "there's essentially an epidemic going on up north".

Across the UK there has been a huge increase in the suicides of young men in the past 10 to 15 years, mainly because, due to the stigma associated with mental ill-health, young males are less likely than others to seek help, he said. However, while suicide rates have stabilised in England and Wales, in Scotland they are still rising.

"We need to understand better why it is that in England and Wales the suicide rate seems to have plateaued, and in some age groups decreased, whereas in Scotland it is still increasing. We don't know the answer to that," O'Connor said. "Suicide is a complex phenomenon and we need to tackle it from many different aspects."

Just how complex an issue it is was highlighted by the deaths earlier this year of three friends who all played for an amateur football team in the Highland capital.

Richard Burnside, 36; Mark Thow, 40; and Ivor Robertson, 35, all lived in the Hilton area of Inverness. They played for the same team, Glenalbyn. All were of similar age and each man had gone through a period of unemployment. First, Mark hanged himself, then, within four months, Ivor and finally Richard did the same.

Richard had been wrestling with a drink problem for around 10 years. But things seemed to be looking up for him, according to his father, John Burnside, who runs the Cromarty Arms on the Black Isle with his wife Edna. He has gone over and over the circumstances of Richard's suicide but is still no closer to understanding how he got so low as to take his own life.

"Richard had no history of depression," he explained over coffee beside an open fire in the bar, autumn sunshine warming the narrow street outside. "I have no doubt he was fighting his demons for a while, but he seemed to have come out of it."

Richard had split up with the mother of his daughter Kayleigh, eight, but he was being granted full access rights. He would take Kayleigh to swimming lessons on Friday evenings, which also kept him out of the pub. He was apparently shocked at how many other fathers he met there were in the same situation.

Despite outward signs of stability, on August 3 he went to his local and ordered a pint, left without finishing his drink, and went home and hanged himself with an electric cord in front of Kayleigh's room.

His father, a former psychiatric nurse, said Richard had been greatly affected by the death of his friend Mark Thow in April. He also blames the macho culture prevalent in this land of Celts and Picts.

"I have watched them, small men, but after a few pints they're giants," he said. "Yet they can't talk about their problems. If it's something of a personal nature, these men are not capable of relating that problem."

Richard, Mark and Ivor were not big men, said Burnside, who coached their team. "But on the football ground they would take on a giant, such was their heart."

They were impetuous, however, and earned more red cards between them than the rest of the team put together. When asked why they had let their team-mates down, they had no answer.

"They couldn't explain it. They had to do it. That seemed to run right through them. That's the thread they all had. It was amazing to watch: quick-tempered, very frenetic, yet they were the heart and soul of any team."

The Burnsides have had letters from friends of Richard's from around the world, telling them of some act of kindness he had performed, in at least one case dissuading someone from suicide.

"I thought I more or less knew everything about him " his father trailed off.

Since Richard's death he has channelled his energies into working with the SAG and campaigning for greater understanding of the issue across the Highlands and Islands. He has been shocked by the number of people who have approached him and his wife to say that they too have experience of suicide or attempted suicide in the family. Four people stopped them in an Inverness supermarket in one day.