The honest truth
There are days when I can’t walk under the bridge, says author Louise Beech, whose mother tried – and failed – to commit suicide
Walking is one of my favourite things. It’s where I escape, create, daydream. My regular morning stroll takes me along the choppy, brown waters of the River Humber, over chalky beach, past benches with names of lost loved ones on rusting plaques, past the rescue centre where lifeboats wait to be launched, and finally, under the Humber Bridge.
When the Queen opened this 1.38-mile bridge on 17 July 1981, it was the longest of its kind in the world. I was there, aged 10, with the Brownies, waving a flag. I’ve had a view of one of its grey towers from a bedroom window for most of my life. I’ve watched its concrete and metal structure emerge alien-like from a misty distance, a welcome sign, meaning I’m home.
But now, there are days I can’t walk under it.
On 28 February 2019, on his way to work, my husband asked if I’d be in all day to sign for a parcel. I insisted that I had to take my walk – the previous day, a wellbeing course at work had stressed how good physical exercise is for mental health. We argued halfheartedly and I said I’d go for my walk right then – at 8am instead of 9.30am – and he could hang about for the parcel and then go into work later.
On that walk, I saw four bunches of daffodils, bright against dull curls of fog. Mesmerised by their beauty and how they huddled close as though protecting one another from something unseen, I took a photo, intending to share it on Instagram later. I never did. That afternoon the phone lit up with my sister’s name. She prefaced her reason for calling with, ‘She’s OK,’ but I still knew it was bad news. Someone must be ill, hurt, in trouble, but at least they must have been alive.
Then my sister said, ‘Mother jumped off the Humber Bridge.’
She garbled the facts, clearly in shock: ‘Mother jumped this morning. She’s at the hospital now. A miracle she’s alive. Life-changing injuries.’ We rushed to the hospital. Our mother was conscious, her broken body thankfully hidden beneath a sheet.
She had been depressed since Christmas; she has been ill with chronic depression many times during our lives. She made a serious suicide attempt when I was nine. My parents had divorced a year earlier and we only had visits from my father at weekends, so I came home from school that day to a social worker, who said we were ‘Going to our grandma’s’. My sisters and I then lived with her, 100 miles from home, for six months, not knowing what had happened to our mum, or where our little brother (who had been fostered) was. Dad didn’t see us during that period, which was probably more ‘normal’ for fathers back then.
One of the policemen who responded to the bridge inciden
