The Shame of No Shame...

Last night my partner and I watched an episode of 'Trevor McDonald on Death Row'. One of the inmates Trevor interviewed was unhappy about being moved from Death Row after nearly twenty years to a normal prison after his sentence was reduced to three life sentences. His crime? He had murdered his wife and two young children after his wife had told him she wanted a divorce.

He had tried to kill himself shortly after the murders by jumping off a bridge but had been saved and resuscitated from the icy river water and made to stand trial.

Trevor asked him why he was so unhappy and the convict told him he had wanted to die 18 years ago and he wanted to die now.

To be in heaven with his family was his only wish and being in prison for the rest of his natural life was a punishment he could not cope with.

I was gobsmacked by this. Supposing there is such a place, what on earth made him think that he deserved to go to heaven rather than hell after murdering his innocent wife and children? Why did he imagine his slaughtered family would wish to spend all eternity with their murderer in the hereafter? What could be more appropriate than a hell-on-earth for the rest of his natural life?

While mental incapacity had been argued in his defence in the endless appeals conducted in his name, there are normally only two reasons for an individual to commit familicide. The ultimate act of control and the ultimate act of revenge, sometimes both combined. Such a crime requires intent. It is not impulsively committed, but premeditated. The convict admitted he was 100% guilty of the crime and had even had teardrops tattooed on his face to remind him to cry every day for what he had done.

The case made me think about how common familicide now seems to be. Seldom a week goes by without reading about another case in the newspaper (copycats?) and the online comments are illuminating. If a man has slaughtered his family and then himself, he is roundly condemned. If a mother has, there are outpourings of sympathy for her mental state and her poor innocent babies and 'may they all rest in peace.' almost as if it were some terrible accident they were offering condolences for rather than murder-suicide.  I cannot join in with this. Murder is murder and the vast majority of people know what murder is, no matter how mentally ill, challenged or depressed they might be.

Now that children have become possessions rather than gifts, there seems to be a disturbing trend of  'I brought them into the world - I can take them out.' Which is no better than the wronged partner or spouse who murders their partner with the justification; 'If I can't have you, no one else can!' Except that children are total innocents in the process and did not choose their warped parents.

What arrogance too to assume that no one else can raise your kids if you've chosen to check out of this world! You, who were offering them brutal murder as your idea of parenting. And in the knowledge that almost ANY other parents would do a much better job than a broken down one who is bent on taking their own life, and potentially their childrens' too.

Not so long ago suicide was deemed as 'selfish' and it remains against the law. Now the push for assisted suicide, ahem, assisted dying, appears to be making suicide increasingly socially acceptable, and not just for the terminally ill. However in the 'bad old days' of social stigma and condemnation, and even refusal to bury suicides in consecrated ground, I could swear there was a lot less suicide around. And religious belief and caring what the neighbours thought also came in handy as a preventative.

God knows we live in a world that feels increasingly designed to drive us all mad, but I assert it is our job to fight for our mental health, not give in. And at least not have children (or pets) if we have grave doubts about our ability to stay the course and be loving and responsible parents.

Doubtless I will be accused of 'suicide-shaming'. But in my view it is a subject which is not discussed and thought about enough (and considering it is estimated we have all had suicidal thoughts at various times in our lives), and a shame comeback might not go amiss in terms of reducing its attractiveness as an option. I have been on three suicide-prevention training modules indeed (lest I ever come across a desperate student in my work) and the course leaders have all urged that it is indeed a subject which needs to come out of the closet and have the root causes examined.

As for 'selfish', suicide remains a selfish act insofar as those attempted suicides who lived to tell the tale have admitted that they were thinking ONLY of themselves and their own pain when they tried to kill themselves and not of others or the pain their premature departure would have caused to their loved ones.

The late film star Robin Williams famously joked; 'Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.'  Which could be ironic if you happen to believe that he actually did commit suicide. But he left us a very true statement whatever the truth of his murky demise.

Writer Dorothy Parker also left an apt poem on the subject.

Resumé

BY DOROTHY PARKER

Razors pain you;

Rivers are damp;

Acids stain you;

And drugs cause cramp.

Guns aren’t lawful;

Nooses give;

Gas smells awful;

You might as well live.

Why The Theft of Public Assets Must Be Stopped

Just like the green lungs of parks, the community lungs of libraries, community centres and day care centres are also at threat from councils up and down the country wishing to flog off these vital community assets to greedy developers.

But the horror continues when you consider how many of these same parks, libraries and buildings were donated to the people of that town or city by philanthropists and charities and NOT to its council to become its own family silver to rob the citizens of at will.

Here in Hove, there have been repeated threats to Hove Library (donated to the people of Hove by Andrew Carnegie in 1908 and erected on donated land) over nearly 20 years, to the extent that it appears Brighton and Hove City Council employ an individual full-time to devise ever more fiendish ways to run it down, make it unviable as a Library and carve it up to let to businesses, yet it remains popular and cherished and a lifeline to many, and despite the fact that it now apparently has to 'generate income' to justify its continued existence. Which begs the question; What next? Will state schools also have to start turning a profit by housing businesses within?

How can councils be allowed to disregard the physical and mental health and needs of their tax payers like this? We now have both a Minister for Loneliness and a Suicide Prevention Minister and mental health issues are going through the roof, as is homelessness and other social ills, all creating more vulnerable and socially isolated people with fewer and fewer community resources and facilities to turn to.

Is there no legal challenge which can stop these public thefts by public servants, particularly when public assets have been donated for the benefit of that town or city by a late benefactor, who would doubtless be spinning in their grave to know what was mooted for their gift to posterity and public memorial? 

To dispose of public assets is nothing less than an act of fraud against the public.

Furthermore once these public assets are gone they are gone.  It is not just a matter of the lost buildings and land. We now live in an age remarkably free of philanthropists with many wealthy people feeling no religious or other desire or duty to give back to society, let alone consider posterity, particularly in UK. It has become a me, me, me society where money is all.

Once it was unthinkable that we could ever lose our greenbelt protection but it is happening and the rot is spreading to the point that it is almost wholesale. Nothing is safe or sacred. 

To listen to councils who seem to be able to see no further than the budget for the year ahead, you could be forgiven for thinking human beings no longer have the same human need for parks, community facilities and spaces as we've all emigrated 'online'. They seem to make no connection with the level of social isolation, mental health issues and criminality rising up, sometimes purely because there is nothing else for people to do. More and more individuals are feeling uncivicly cared for. Unimportant. So they either lash out against society or pursue a nihilistic or self-destructive path, often costing society a great deal more money in the process than the preservation of the facilities which might have prevented their downward spiral.

Last week in Brighton an inquest heard how a talented middle-aged artist died within a year of his day centre being closed, his social worker convinced that losing this facility effectively signed his death warrant with his mental decline following a clear trajectory immediately after the closure.

My previous post on why our libraries save our councils more than they cost our councils here.

Stop, Don't Jump!

I have been on a number of suicide prevention courses during my university career, in case I should ever come across a student in distress. Meanwhile national suicide levels continue to rise, particularly among the young, I suspect, as the act becomes more socially acceptable as a means to solve one's problems - an unintended consequence of the push for assisted suicide for the chronically ill - though no suicide charity has dared to speak up so far.  Which prompted the following thoughts on whether a more unconventional approach might be called for if I were to come upon a youngster on the brink.

Stop, Don’t Jump!

Stop, don’t jump!

I’ll have that dewy complexion, those bright eyes, that salon hair, if you don’t want them

I’ll have those admiring male looks, those limitless job opportunities, that chance to start over.

I’m a great believer in recycling unwanted pert breasts and precision perfect teeth

I could do with a new pituitary gland, a new pair of ears, 20/20 vision,

And knees that don’t creak

Which look wow in mini skirts

Your restless energy and raging hormones will be put to good use by me.

It’s true what they say that youth is wasted on the young

You just drink, smoke and fritter it away

Or at the first obstacle, call life a day.

But who asked you to cure cancer?

Just don’t be an a**ehole and look when you cross the road.

That’ll do for starters.

Maybe a random act of kindness here and there?

If you can tear yourself away from your smartphone long enough.

But if you can’t manage life’s basics, hand your meat suit to me

Let me try on that all over tan for size.

I’m sure it’ll fit.

I’ll pout for the rest of your selfies

Send your friends updates so they’ll never know

And you do carry a donor card, right?

What, you’ve decided not to jump after all?

Bugger!

©LS King 2017

The New Immortality

My partner and I attended the opening of a thought-provoking art exhibition at Brighton's Phoenix last Friday. A collaboration of contemporary artists including our friend Guyan Porter had come together to produce - The New Immortality - a collection of musings on the human desire (and the scientific race) to create immortality.

Exploring the art works, I remembered my late father. An ardent atheist, he traded the promise of eternal spiritual life for a desire 'to live to at least 100'. Sadly, circumstances conspired to fell him a few months shy of his 80th birthday. Though he is far from the only example of atheism and veganism going hand-in-hand.

I also vaguely remembered the existence (if not the name) of a 1970s society which didn't believe in death, and presumably offered a discount if you joined it and its sister 'Flat Earth Society' at the same time. Apparently each time one of its members dropped off the perch it was explained away that he/she had simply not believed strongly enough.

It seemed to me that anyone who seeks eternal life on the earthly plane through scientific advance is also likely to be an atheist and seeking to put off what they perceive as oblivion for as long as possible. Whereas anyone with faith knows that it is only the body which dies. The spirit or soul cannot die for it already is immortal.

One piece of work expressed the alarm that the scientific art of immortality would be cornered by a wealthy elite who would promptly exert their life and death powers over the rest of the world, deciding who could live and die. To take this line of thought a step further; does really anyone want an immortal Simon Cowell, Rupert Murdoch and Piers Morgan or, god forbid, Donald Trump?

On a human level, would the art of immortality also deliver accompanying eternal youth or would we still age to look 110, 120, 130 accordingly? We are all only too aware of what a shallow looksist, ageist world we inhabit. How would we cope with an ageing body that just went on and on ageing until we could scarcely remember that we had ever been young? Conversely, keeling over at the age of 150 whilst still looking and feeling 25 would also be weird.

Then we have the rising social acceptability of 'assisted suicide' when life gets too much, sitting incredibly uncomfortably with all the anti-suicide campaigns and charities.

It's a somewhat mixed message. Life is precious, but it is also increasingly throwaway, at both ends of life's spectrum. No longer a 'gift' but something that can be destroyed if and when expedient or inconvenient, no guilt, no blame, no sin. So why on earth would we seek to extend life indefinitely? Would that really be fun or desirable? (being as we are continually being told that the world is overpopulated anyway). What constitutes progress in matters of life and death?

Interestingly religion played little part in the exhibition, save for a mock and rather good 'hymn' In Praise of Renewal sang by Brighton Festival Chorus choir and a neon installation proclaiming 'God is in the mind'.  Reincarnation didn't get a look in, which would be the obvious obviation to the need for immortality.

Strangely, I have more than once come across the following sentence in books I have read lately: 'We are spiritual beings having a human experience.' What an intriguing thought, and one which potentially has the ability to turn a lot of earthly assumptions on their head if one day we all find it contains even a modicum of truth as we are greeted at the pearly gates.

I like to think that the Big G (if he exists) takes a somewhat Oscar Wilde approach to humankind  'There is only one thing worse than being talked about, and that is not being talked about.'

The Big G's nemesis Professor Richard Dawkins is apparently hopping mad that Christians have been praying for him after his recent stroke. Maybe he will be the first guinea pig for an immortal solution to his mortality.

Racks and racks of cryogenically frozen millionaire bodies and heads already await reanimation around the world, But since they have already died, then according to atheist belief, surely they no longer exist? Moreover, even if the science bit was made to work, how (on earth) would the re-animators capture the lost personalities, let alone ensure the right personalities re-inhabited the correct bodies? Though perhaps there is no need to worry. They have already handed their money over. Who's going to check that anyone bothers to try re-animating them at all? Particularly after a few years have passed and they become yesterday's men/news!

I urge anyone likely to be in Brighton between now and 20th March 2016 to go and see this exhibition. Then go home and download Pandora and the Flying Dutchman to reconsider immortality.

Robin Williams - a curious end

 

In the wake of the complete shock of Robin Williams' suicide being announced, part of me also felt anger. How could he? He who starred in just about every film about human triumph and redemption against the odds? It felt like a betrayal of his fans. It was only after watching his last interview that I saw for myself how genuinely ill and haunted he looked. Mind you, it was a bizarre interview with the interviewer seemingly firing random questions at him including ironically one about whether he thought communication with the dead was possible.

Nevertheless certain things have been haunting me about the manner of his death, despite his unquestionably depressed state;

Sleeping in separate bedrooms alone is of course no indication that his 3rd marriage had hit the rocks, but the fact that his wife Susan Schneider seemingly didn't even check on her severely depressed film star husband, having not seen him for over 12 hours, before going out the following morning is very odd. Had they had an argument the previous night which pushed him over the edge? 

Then there was her almost immediate statement on his death a few hours later: 'This morning, I lost my husband and my best friend, while the world lost one if its most beloved artists and beautiful human beings. I am utterly heartbroken. On behalf of Robin's family, we are asking for privacy during our time of profound grief. As he is remembered, it is our hope that the focus will not be on Robin's death but on the countless moments of joy and laughter he gave to millions.' 

Pretty slick for a woman so shockingly widowed only hours earlier but look again at the last line - she doesn't want us to 'focus' on Robin's death. 

The following day we now learn, she had somehow persuaded the coroner's office to release his body for a hasty cremation  only 24hrs after he had been discovered and before most of us had even had a chance to get our heads around the tragic death of a legend many of us grew up with (and before the toxicology results were through). How and why did she do this? While perhaps understandable to desire a private funeral, surely she would have struggled to get the whole family there in time, never mind if the coroner had wanted to conduct further tests on the body. And then there's how suspicious such a hasty fanfare-free funeral was going to look...

It would take days or even weeks for the body of a suicide or one deemed to have died of unnatural causes to be released  for funeral in Britain as foul play and other possibilities need to be ruled out. All this takes time. In addition sometimes the body is needed for further examination which obviously cannot happen if it has been cremated.

Not that I am suggesting foul play in this case. I completely believe Robin was severely depressed and  thus, emotionally vulnerable. However if Robin was his wife's 'best friend' as she stated in her tribute to him, where was she in his hour of need? How come his publicist was the one to find him some 12 hours after his death? I don't doubt it's no picnic being married to a severely depressed man, but if his wife couldn't cope alone, where were the hired psychiatric nurses to help her? Why didn't she get him sectioned if he was that depressed?

So what was Robin depressed about?
Well his comeback TV series 'The Crazy Ones' had been cancelled the previous year which he was known to be upset over.
He reportedly had financial issues, though the nature and scale of these have not yet been revealed. However if they were genuinely off the scale, did his insurance cover suicide? (some suicides have been known to take this course of action if their cover does and they are in dire financial straits and want to ensure their family is looked after.)
Robin was apparently in the early stages of Parkinsons (according to a statement released by his widow at roughly the same time she was getting him cremated, though at the time of writing we have yet to see medical corroboration of this).

Speculatively he could also have been depressed about the following:
Was he facing the end of his third marriage after only three years? This doesn't seem unlikely in view of his wife's odd behaviour and indecent haste to get his death and funeral over as quickly as possible.
Did he feel that his career was all washed up? (though even if he had Parkinsons, he could have continued to do lucrative voiceovers for some time to come, if not act as well).

Then there was the manner of his suicide. Here was a man who was a self-confessed ex junkie and ex alcoholic. Why then would he painfully saw away at his wrists with a knife before rather bizarrely managing to yank himself sideways from a chair to asphyxiate himself? Wouldn't anyone else just get the drugs and opt for a quick and painless overdose as their first choice? Ok so perhaps his dealer was no longer on speed dial in his attempts to get clean, but this highly intelligent man would have still known how to get hold of drugs and fast. In addition he surely had enough legitimate prescription anti-depressant drugs in the house to kill an elephant so why not use those?

For all his irreverent humour and zaniness Robin was a practising Christian or 'Catholic Lite' as he joked about Episcopalians. In fact one of his wry observations as a stand-up was; 'Suicide is a permanent solution to a temporary problem.'

As I said before I am not suggesting that it was not possible for Robin Williams to have taken his own life, just that there seem to be more unanswered questions than there are answered ones. It hasn't even been established if he left a note yet. Why?

Marilyn Monroe was known to have made several suicide attempts during her life, yet 51 years after her death, it is still being hotly debated whether she died accidentally, by her own hand or was helped along the way.

For all his flaws, Robin Williams was an admirably honest star. The least he deserves is the whole truth to come out. It can't possibly be more sad and sordid than it already appears. In fact his widow would be doing herself a public favour to share everything she knows as she hasn't exactly covered herself in glory as far as Robins' fans are concerned. And better if she turns out to have been on the verge of leaving him rather than suspected of worse. That said, some internet conspiracy theorists think his death is an Iluminati hit, though I don't see it myself.

Either way it's an ironic end for a man who brought hope and happiness to millions through his work. I am sure I am not the only one who grew up with him lighting up the screens. RIP Robin Williams. So long and thanks for all the laughter.

Self-love and Self-hate

In Louise L. Hay's famous self-help book; 'You Can Heal Your Life' she describes how one of the most challenging exercises for her clients to perform is to take a hand mirror, look at their reflection in the glass and repeat aloud ten times 'I love and approve of myself.' Some can't do it or burst into tears. Still others get angry and fling the mirror across the room, so great is their self-dislike or inability to look themselves in the eye.

Ms Hay was among the first self-help gurus to point out that you had to love yourself in order to love anybody else, and she didn't mean in an egocentric way - which is purely front in any case -  but in a genuine sense. Which kind of parallels; if you value yourself, others will value you, or; you have to feel full as a person in order to have enough or extra to give to somebody else. If you are a yawning chasm psychologically, then your bleakness is what people will perceive when they look at you (though you might be able to fool them for a while if you are pretty) and your vibes are likely to send them running or making their excuses to depart pretty quickly.  I saw a neat example of this phenomenon in a church hall the other day when a disheveled woman in her late 50s went up for a cup of tea after the service, was asked how she was by the kindly server and replied 'Terrible! Things couldn't be worse. I wish I'd never moved to this godforsaken town!' Needless to say the tea server quickly moved on to the next parishioner. The woman then joined a communal table but it was noticeable how she quickly dismissed all polite interest in her and concern for her welfare with almost aggressive negativity about how bad her life was and how much she hated everything. They quickly drained their cups and made their excuses to leave. She ended up sitting on her own, glaring out of the window. Strangely she wore a riot of mismatched fabrics and colours but this had evidently not done its job in jollying her mood.

The good news is that reprogramming your mind from every negative or self-critical thought can apparently alter the vibes and energy you emit, attracting similarly positive vibes and energy to come back to you as you change the course of your life to a direction you really want, though it is equally vital to forgive yourself for everything you are beating yourself up about first, or it is impossible to silence the negative chatter and rebukes in your mind, holding you back.

The self-love that results is said to be the answer to a happier and more fulfilling life. Ever the one for the short cut, I have been experimenting with self-hypnosis lately (meditation takes far too long!), though can attest that positive affirmations can be also very powerful, Much more powerful than I used to give them credit for. Last night I hypnotised my partner into the first restful night's sleep he's had in a long time (long story) using a hypnotic script I had specifically tailored to his needs.

This makes me wonder when I read tragic cases in the newspapers of youngsters who kill themselves through cyber-bullying (but who then turn out to have sent the abusive messages to themselves), whether this warped means of attention seeking/crying for help actually results in young people hypnotising themselves into suicide by repeatedly subjecting themselves to a barrage of negative messages and mantras about what a worthless waste of space they are and worse even though, on the face of it, they are replying to their 'abuser' every few minutes defending themselves. Or could they be recreating online whatever conflict/confusion is going on in their young minds about who they are and what they are worth, with the dark side tragically winning sometimes...?

The human mind is a wondrous thing but perhaps it is a tool we can take more control of than we think. So much of our reaction to life is just a state of mind when it comes down to it. A state of mind which can be caused by so many things from wrong-headed, confused or substance-driven thinking to a hormone or other medical/mental imbalance which can potentially be corrected if correctly diagnosed. In some cases even hunger or lack of sleep can give someone a psychotic or depressive state of mind and influence them to behave in ways they might not if their basic needs had been met. I do believe both sides of our brain deserve to have their say as well in any judgement, decision or dilemma and not just the emotional. Therein balance lies, if not happiness as well.

Suicide by Duress

A stroke recoverer friend in his 60s recently visited a new GP for the first time.

‘Have you ever considered suicide?’ she asked as she went through his notes.

‘No’, he replied.

‘Why not?’ she asked.

He was so thrown by her question (and having lost his ability to react spontaneously anyway through stroke damage) that he did not reply.

I suggested to him that he should complain to the surgery and get to the bottom of whether this was professional misconduct or she simply didn’t explain herself properly.

However he has so many battles to fight on a daily basis, he has to choose them carefully and is thinking of just requesting a different doctor in future.

It set me thinking about how not so long ago suicide was considered ‘a sin’ to the point that a suicide could not be buried in consecrated ground, yet somehow suicide has now become socially acceptable and even touted as ‘a human right’.

I particularly find it disturbing that this is bound to affect and influence those who might have challenging lives or health issues but who don’t necessarily want to die – they just want proper compassionate care and to be able to trust their health professionals to provide it.

To read that NHS hospitals got a ‘bonus’ for each patient they put onto the ‘Liverpool Care Pathway’ to bring their lives to an end (even if their lives were nowhere near their natural end) is frankly chilling. Some patients on the LCP have not even been old but cancer sufferers in their 40s and 50s and many it now transpires were being placed on the LCP without their consent or their next of kin’s consent.

Moreover, since when did food and fluids come to be termed ‘treatment’ to be withdrawn, rather than basic sustenance required as an essential human right?

What next? A posthumous award to Dr Harold Shipman for his humanitarian works? It seems to me there is little difference between what he was doing and what the Liverpool Care Pathway has been doing.

If we have an over-population problem, there must surely be better ways of solving it than manslaughter at worst and societal coercion for those who've served their economic purpose at best.

Why I'm Glad Jim Didn't Fix It For Me

Like most former children of the 60s/70s or 80s I've been feeling pretty shell-shocked (or should that be shell-suit shocked) by all the revelations concerning the late Sir Jimmy Savile in the past week.

When rumours first began surfacing shortly after his death last year, I thought 'How ridiculous - someone is obviously out to claim a few quid from his estate'. Though certainly I found it odd that a TV legend of such fame and riches had died alone, possibly several days before being found. Did the man not have a  housekeeper to take care of him at the very least? But having seen and read so many authentic-sounding and cross-referencing accounts of the horrors he allegedly visited on young innocents in the past few days, my cynicism and disbelief has turned to belief.

With little to do in my village in Northern Ireland, no one tried harder than yours truly to get onto the 'Jim'll Fix It' show with various childish dreams detailed in finest handwriting on finest Basildon Bond, but I'm starting to feel more than relieved that the little kid from Ulster didn't catch his eye.

In the same week I read a pop star's candid confession that he probably bedded scores of underage girls in his 70s heyday, but if they threw themselves at him and looked old enough to know what they were doing, he didn't tend to ask for an ID card.

But Sir Jimmy was no handsome young pop idol in the early 70s, but a middle-aged, cigar-smoking, wackily-dressed oddity with a big nose, yellow hair and teeth to match. I find it hard to believe that he could have been the genuine object of any teen fantasy. What he did have going for him and what we all bought into was his ability to make a child feel special. Important. Particularly if they came from a household where they received scant attention from adults except in my case to be told to 'get out of the way' or 'stop being a nuisance.' That red chair and that 'Jim'll Fix It' badge, with Jimmy congratulating you in his deep self-assured Northern accent and making you feel you were the most important kid in the world on national television, (and let's not forget with only 3 or 4 channels to choose from in those days - half the nation really WERE watching including all your schoolmates, family and teachers), was the next dream you had if you hadn't won a Blue Peter badge or got a painting into the Take Hart gallery.

It never occurred to us to wonder about his private life and if we did, it was of course filled with charitable endeavours. He had no time for anything else. Naturally he loved the LADIES as he took pains to make clear at every opportunity, but he had marathons to run and programmes to present.... And  if I briefly wondered as an adult, I probably concluded he must be asexual. An eccentric, happy to be so, though in retrospect now, it is easy to see that even at his most charming and charismatic,  there was something unnerving and a little creepy about gimlet-eyed Jimmy in his latest novelty shell suit, something which we chose to believe was just our imagination, rather than a gut feeling.

I have read he was the originator of public charity marathons in this country, now more popular than they have ever been, invented discos, and raised over £40m for charity over the course of his lifetime, so perhaps he had a few achievements that no one can take away from him. He was also Mr Clunk-Click, warning us to 'belt up' on every trip as the seatbelt law was brought in, so he undoubtedly saved a few children's lives, amidst the children's lives that he ruined.

At the beginning of the week, I wondered how he reconciled the evident dark side of himself with the Saint Jimmy myth? Mid-week it occurred to me that perhaps he took the view that the amount of good he did outweighed the bad and that's how he lived with himself. Now I wonder if the whole charity thing was a giant cover to make him 'untouchable' on top of the evident boost to his legendary ego, and he didn't have a conscience to be accountable to, though it would be appalling to think that there was no sincerity whatever in his charitable works.

Some commentators have observed that we are judging him by standards which didn't exist in the 50s, 60s and to some extent 70s. But I can't agree with this. Since when has child abuse or rape been acceptable, let alone legal? And 16 has been the age of female consent in England since 1885, so Sir Jimmy couldn't pretend he didn't know. Indeed one of his victims stated, the first question he asked was her age so he knew she was 14 before he assaulted her. Sure previous generations used to try and pretend child abuse didn't exist and bury their heads in the sand, but that didn't mean it was any more acceptable (or legal) in those days, just that it was harder to get yourself listened to, or action taken, and because no one wanted to believe it was true, not least when a famous person was involved, a child was liable to be branded a fantasist or told to stop telling lies, not necessarily because they weren't believed, but because that's what it suited the parents and/or authorities to believe. And perhaps if they'd survived a war, they particularly didn't want any further emotional traumas to contend with or spoil their vision of a post-war utopia.

In the reality TV era, it really is impossible to convey how exciting the idea of getting onto your favourite TV show was in the late 70s/early 80s. But that oft-anticipated journey from the sweet exhilaration of being CHOSEN to dance on Top of the Pops or have your greatest dream fulfilled on Jim'll Fix It, only to be utterly soured by the horror of finding out what you'd actually been chosen to experience doesn't bear thinking about, much though I don't suggest it happened to the majority of participants. But the story of how this happened to Claire McAlpine, the young Top of the Pops dancer who committed suicide, apparently as a result of her experiences at the hands of Savile (and others), was particularly heartrending. Nor had I previously realised that she and some of the other dancers were so young. They had always looked much older to me watching ToTP as a child.

The other story which shocked me was of the girl taken out of a children's home for a 'treat' ride with Savile in his white Rolls Royce, who kind of expected she'd have to pay for it in some way and wasn't particularly surprised by the 'payment' demanded, even though she didn't want to. In her world there was evidently no such thing as an adult being nice to you if they didn't expect something in return. And no choice about what form that reciprocation would take.

Since the revelations, there have been calls for a BBC investigation, calls for Savile's former bosses to be held to account, though some key individuals like Douglas Muggeridge (controller of Radio 1+2 1969-76) are now dead, with other voices demanding; 'What criminal proceedings can you possibly bring against a dead man?' (ie what's the point?)

Well I suppose the point of an investigation is so that Savile's victims finally have acknowledgement and possibly some sense of justice or closure to see the truth come out and lessons are learned for the future. That is, that no celebrity is ever allowed to be 'untouchable' or beyond reproach ever again, no matter how much time he or she devotes to charitable works. Not that it would be easy in any case in this mobile phone era where future celebrity abusers are likely to be snapped in action pretty quickly by the humblest children's home inmate.

And if he post-humously loses the 'Sir' and his charities are forced to drop the Savile name, that too will serve as some kind of satisfaction that he got comeuppance. In addition his estate (or the BBC) may choose to offer some token of compensation and rightly so in my view. In response to the protest 'It's unfair to accuse a man who is no longer alive to defend himself', ordinarily I would agree. Except that in this case it has become increasingly evident that Sir Jimmy would have made sure that no victim stood a chance of coming forward and being believed whilst he still walked this earth, and if  public denials and charities vouching for him weren't enough, he could access and afford much better law than any of his victims could. His victims wouldn't have stood a chance in any courtroom and they knew it. Even newspapers would have risked damages they could ill afford or a dramatic drop in circulation if the public were unready to believe any hidden truths about such a popular figure who had done so much for 'charidee'.

In truth, part of my sense of shock stems from the fact that if the allegations are true, Sir Jimmy has betrayed all children who ever looked up to him or loved his shows.

As a lighter aside, there is an amusing story about how gentleman actor John Le Mesurier (he of Sergeant Wilson fame in Dad's Army) was walking past a giant poster hoarding of Jimmy Savile at a railway station exhorting 'This Is The Age Of The Train' from a British Rail poster in the mid-70s when he shocked his companion by exclaiming 'C**t! in a very loud voice. Did he know something we didn't...?

You Might As Well Live!

Today I have been on a Suicide and Self-Harming Course called Razor's Edge.

Not so much a 'How To' but more a 'What To Do When You Encounter It' crash course in delivering a mental Heimlich manoeuvre to distressed students. The course was presented by an energetic and erudite glinty-eyed psychiatrist who dressed like an undertaker and evidently regarded the outer extremes of human behaviour with something akin to the relish of a dangerous sports enthusiast, seeming a little disappointed not to have come across a patient with multiple personality disorder in his wide experience yet!

But for all that and a healthy dollop of black humour, Dr Bourne proved practical, compassionate and endlessly imaginative in the means he devised to postpone would-be suicidal practitioners until they'd had time to think it over and consider other solutions to their problems, and convince self-harmers there were safer means of obtaining that endorphin high or psychological relief achieved by cutting themselves.

During the course of the day he came through the door dressed in several guises, adopting the narrative, mannerisms and accents of several 'patients' for us to offer assistance to in the course of our day jobs. He then changed and came back to dissect each case, the advice we had given and the advice we might like to consider giving if it were to happen in real life. All the cases were based on real life cases so he was also able to tell us the real life outcome of each one.
We also learned some fascinating facts such as;

• Vets are the profession of highest suicide risk. Social isolation posted in small towns and villages where they might take a long time to be accepted into the community plus they have the means and they are trained to kill (ie put animals down)
• Hose pipe through the car window suicides have radically dropped in popularity in the last ten years owing to catalytic converters. Most modern cars would require you to sit in them for hours or even days to die, by which time you would have been discovered by interfering dog walkers many times over!
• The majority of suicides do it on impulse and are more likely to do it if they have the means to hand - therefore pharmacists and hospital doctors have a high suicide rate as they know exactly what to do for a quick, painless and certain end and have easy access to the means. GPs less so as few surgeries keep their own drugs on the premises and most must write out prescriptions for their patients to pick up at the pharmacy (providing the pharmacist is still alive!)
• When talking someone suicidal out of it, or at least into postponing it, do not underestimate their embarrassment. If they feel too foolish for backing down, particularly in a public place where crowds may have gathered and the emergency services may have arrived they may suddenly pluck up the resolve to kill themselves purely because they feel they could not live with the embarrassment of climbing down, literally, and this has become as pertinent to them as the original problem or set of problems which sent them to the top of the high building in the first place.
• Many suicides are still not recorded as such for various reasons but labelled 'misadventure' or 'accident' to spare family feelings. In addition it is impossible to be sure re many drug overdoses so it is likely that actual rates of suicide may be several times higher than officially recorded.

He also taught us how to protect ourselves both mentally and physically and how imperative it is to do this first in order to be of best use to the person at risk. But that if the worst still went ahead, it would not be a failure on our part, more our misfortune to encounter a particularly determined individual bent on killing themselves no matter what.

You could tell Dr Bourne was an enthusiast about his work as in an unwitting moment of humour and without a hint of irony he recommended 'Night Falls Fast:Understanding Suicide' by Kay Redfield Jamison as a good holiday read.

It may sound strange but I would recommend the Suicide and Self-Harming Course to anyone who deals with people in their day job. It is a kind of equivalent to First Aid but for the mind and was surprisingly uplifting in many ways taking the fear out of being confronted by such a situation, despite some of the exercises being pretty scary and a certain amount of stepping out of comfort zones required.

And it was of course impossible not to recall Dorothy Parker's famous verse on the subject.

Résumé

Razors pain you;
Rivers are damp;
Acids stain you;
And drugs cause cramp.
Guns aren't lawful;
Nooses give;
Gas smells awful;
You might as well live.

I've often thought that if I'm ever famous enough to pen an autobiography it might be called 'If Things Don't Get Any Better In Six Months, THEN I'll Kill Myself', the joke of it being it would be a rolling six months which would eventually take me up to the end of my natural span by default!

Suicide and Saving

A Re-cycling Appeal to ‘Jumpers’

Suicide is gainless
Unimaginative, clichéd, brainless.
Now you may say it's in bad taste
To question why this bloody waste
Of humanity
Is at worst termed 'cowardly'
Or criticise the wretched whose idea of glory
Is to incur commuter curses for train delay.
But to anyone who wants to die I say
Offer yourself to Cancer Research today!
Turn feeling useless into being useful
Leave a legacy above the miserable
Ensure your life wasn't late-aborted in vain
If the Buddhists are right, you’ll only have to do it all again
And your DNA is a much closer match
Than that of the non-consenting lab rat.
So think of humanity and maybe we'll think of you
Commemorate you with a bit of a ‘do’
Attended by all the lives you’ve saved
Who’ll drink to your life beyond the grave

© LS King 2008

But suicide for artistic immortality/book sales is fine of course! ;-)