A body on the line
I caught the 07.18 this morning to Newbury and beyond. Ten minutes out of London’s Paddington Station the train stopped. “Ladies and Gentlemen I’m sorry to report that there is a fatality on the line ahead of us”. That is all the driver ever told us on his intercom.
I look out – there is a bridge beyond us. Did someone jump? Did our train hit the person? Did the train ahead hit the person? I’m shocked to realise that my next question is “how long am I going to be here? How long does it take to clear ‘a fatality’?”
Then I began to think about this presumably tortured soul. Had they woken up in a dark depression and decided this was when and how they would end it. I cannot begin to imagine it was an accident – there are no level crossings here and few would play near the line at such an hour.
Next week, Channel 4 Goes Mad. It is a challenging series of programmes about mental health. The essence of the season is to look at what would happen if we were open about our mental health issues. Would we still be employed, housed, and more. In short what would happen if people knew?
Did anyone know what was going on in the tender head of the body on the line beyond my stationary train? Did anyone employ her, or him? Was he or she loved and understood. I wrestle with my discomfort that my carefully ordered day has been detonated. I have been stationary for half an hour – maybe by the time you read this, much longer. But it is so hard to erase my own frustration in favour of this isolated lifeless bundle lying on the line ahead.
The windows of the train are sealed other than for the little horizontal ones above my head, through which I cannot poke my head. How civilised we are that we hold all trains for so long and let the bundle stay until the police, the ambulance, and the rest work out physically what happened.
Mentally, they will never know unless perhaps somewhere in the human wreckage there is a note. Neither the emergency personnel attending, nor I, will probably ever know what possessed the person to leave our world. It’s too small, too regular a story for the media to report much. Will there perhaps be one paragraph in a West London newssheet? Who knows?
So we shall almost certainly never know what disrupted my smooth-ish life and detonated theirs. But amid our thinking about mental health I will try not to forget this particular “body on the line”.
Follow Jon on Twitter @jonsnowC4
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There are 48 comments on this post
Jon,
I hope you never lose your human touch.
It’s what makes you different to the rest.
The same applies to all the C4 News team except those responsible for Middle East “reports” (excluding Alex Thomson).
A good if very sobering blog. Thanks.
I have been on train journeys when this has happened twice. I am always disturbed for the person who has chosen to end their life, and more disturbed by the tuts and openly voiced frustrations of my fellow passengers, who have been inconvenienced by tragedy. There’s little that makes you realise how mental health problems are misunderstood in Britain than the selfish reaction of people who only have delayed journeys.
Beautifully and sensitively written. And so well said. Thank you.
A regular occurrence on our railways these days, all part of the ‘Big Society’ as the many continue to pay a high price for the follies of the establishment who victimise the poor and the needy until they cannot take any more. So sad for the families and the drivers.
30yrs ago on a New years Day i was unable to get on my train,there was a body on the line,every New Years day i remember that person, there family ,and hope they have found peace .
How many people take their own lives in Britain each year?
Why isn’t it news?
Are more people killing themselves now as compared to 10 years ago or less?
I suspect an element of news management in the total lack of any reporting or public awareness of the scale of this issue.
It is a proactive editorial decision to ignore reporting on people taking their own lives and the reasons that drive them to it.
To watch our domestic news programmes you’d think no-one ever killed themselves in this country. In an age when anyone can get on TV and C4 makes whole series about gypsy weddings or people cooking each other dinner its odd we don’t know how many of us are killing ourselves each week and why.
Lets face it, the real reason its not reported, its not ‘news’, is because its too uncomfortable. It would shame the politicians and their promises to ‘protect the vulnerable’…so its ignored.
I have experienced this on more than one occasion, when travelling from Maidstone. Always feel sympathy for the driver. Really brutal way to die.
I agree with your sentiments Jon. It is desperately sad when this happens although the inconvenience is often the complaint we hear from people.
I feel very sorry for the driver as the suicidal person is not just taking their own life but leaving another persons affected forever afterwards.
Suicide- bravery or cowardice? I think given up all hope that the consequences of their actions don’t come into it- they just want to end their torment.
Yes I am empathetic- I’ve dealt with patients for 20 years.
As you intimate most sufferers with mental health problems are unemployed , although I do know of a few who have come out and hold a job down. A problem with mental health is that many are bullied , ridiculed and reluctant to even seek employment. Another problem is that there are many so called ‘normal’ people who if society sat down and actually analysed their behaviour is extremely bizzare and they still function by bullying, causing violence and being a general drain on society.
Hope the programmes are sensitive to the social as well as the individual problem.
Have to say this brought tears to my eyes tonight Jon. I’ve struggled with mental problems myself in the past (thankfully never got to that stage), have a close relative currently in a very bad way… after overcoming my own problems I volunteered for Samaritans and amongst other things attended a talk by someone who introduced himself as “a serial killer” – a tube train driver talking about jumpers. I don’t know how bad it has to get to have the courage to kill yourself (no, it’s not an easy way out) but to get to that stage is a tragedy for all concerned. Being open about it helps everyone – the sooner we accept that and start tackling it head on and honestly, the better.
I regularly commute on this line and it happens more than occasionally. It’s usually at Hayes, where there is an open bridge over the line, as happened on Friday. I’m told authorities won’t cover the bridge for H&S reasons, which beggars belief.
I doubt the reasons are H&S related, but if it’s a road bridge, perhaps with no alternatively-viable route, the work could cause major problems. (Just speculating – I don’t know the area.)
Usually, when the H&S excuse is trotted out, the Health & Safety Executive is being unfairly maligned and the real reason is either cost or a lack of desire to undertake the work.
In this case, though, it would probably be difficult, if not impossible, to carry out such work safely without shutting down the line at some point, which probably isn’t feasible, so in this instance I suspect the H&S reason is valid.
If only we all took more time to think about these issues – great post and worth distributing further.
It would be interesting to know why these sad souls choose to inconvenience so many with their demise? I suppose it is quick. Often there have been previous attempts.
Why not a bottle of pills in their own homes?Maybe they panic and regret it.
Perhaps it is their way to cause a disruption , a way of getting back.
I too was inconvenienced many times on my journey home after work. It was cold and wearying to be held up at Finsbury Park on damp winter evenings after a long day’s work. Most passengers felt irritated and inconvenienced. Very few had sympathy for the victim although there was always saddened and shocked disbelief. And “oh no , not again, that is twice this week.” and “Why do they have to do it in the rush hour?” and “what a terrible thing to do.”
If these people choose to inconvenience so many in death what would have been their attitude in life? There are many many questions that need to be asked.
I don’t think the person is thinking much about others when they do it. When you suffer from depression there is little room in your life for anybody other than the depression. When you work on “how to end it” you look for the easiest certain route. What is required from others is compassion. You could find yourself in this position one day.
It’s like when there is a crash on the roads, the news reports are always full of how long the delay was, not the dead or injured victims.
A few years ago, I was on my way to work in the West End,about 7pm on Christmas Eve. I was on the platform waiting for the tube, when there was the all-too common announcement “Delays due to a person on the track”. The crowd erupted in righteous indignation about the inconsiderate so-and-so who had delayed the train and spoilt their evening. I found myself wondering if I could really be the only person there thinking about the sort of pain and loneliness that can bring someone to kill themselves on Christmas Eve.
A few weeks later, a colleague recently moved down from the North, who’d been shy and clearly found it difficult to make friends, didn’t show up for work one evening. She’d done the same thing. I found myself drenched in anger because I knew that a bunch of commuters had cursed her.
I moved away from London just as soon as I could, and I don’t go back unless I have to.
It be not only Lundun commuters who ‘tut-tut’.
I was on the train to work one day and my train hit someone as we went through Surbiton. A lot of people were angry about being inconvenienced. I couldn’t help but feel very sad for the person who had been driven to that point – how dreadful to no longer want to live. I was pretty shaken by the experience. a few weeks later there was a fatality at Wimbledon. I spoke to the train guard who said that he remembered the last time we had a recession there was a spike in suicides. This needs to be reported more – the human cost of the economic problems.
While I have a lot of sympathy with those on the brink of suicide, throwing yourself in front of a train/car is an incredibly selfish way to do it. The ramification for friends and family are bad enough but to turn drivers into “killers” and separating hundreds/thousands of people needlessly from their families is that helpful to their cause. That’s why it’s the only form of suicide that brings about tuts and groans of annoyance.
Dan, your comment shows such a crass sensitivity and misunderstanding of why people commit suicide and their state of mind. You seem to think that someone committing suicide should be thinking rationally, that they should be thinking of others. If they did, most likely they wouldn’t be committing suicide.
It is sad for drivers, but they are not even remotely responsible. The effect on them no doubt can be profound and that is sad, but to then bring in the inconvenienced public and their tuts and groans is, frankly, grotesque.
Of course, suicide is selfish but can you not imagine the despair someone must feel to end their life in such a way? To expect them to think of others is to show your own complete insensitivity. I hope you never feel despair or the need for fellow humans to understand your actions.
Dan, I suspect that you don’t know many train drivers? I know more than a few, and none would agree that they are turned into killers. If someone chooses to kill themselves under a train, there’s nothing they can do apart from put the brakes into emergency and look away. None that I know have anything but sympathy for the victim and their family.
My father-in-law killed himself under a train. Nobody can know what torture was going on in his mind when he did it – but I think being a bit late home for your tea isn’t quite the same.
I’m not surprised to read comments such as “incredibly selfish” or “If these people choose to inconvenience so many in death what would have been their attitude in life?”. But it does make me sad for the people who write them.
Do not be sad for us ‘poor’ Chris.
Should someone feel the need to bring an end to THEIR life – why should everyone else be made to suffer ?
There are perfectly sound ways to commit suicide in the peace of your own home without attracting attention. One knows of such (a neighbour) – and, perhaps counterintuitively, once word leaked out – the response was more positive and sensitive because of it. No one ‘outside’ was inconvenienced, but, they were shocked and sorry.
Public suicide be nothing but selfish, and can often leave a sour feeling towards the perpetrator.
I lived in London for many years.
Each time I heard or read the phrase “body on the line” I thought of this short story.
http://www.online-literature.com/james_joyce/964/
written more than a hundred years ago by James Joyce.
Please take the time to read it.
Mick, breathtakingly brilliant and apt..i’m so grateful..i would never have known of it, let alone read it..strongly reccomended!
Glad you like it Jon,
Joyce was in his early 20′s when he wrote it. Such mastery of language, so much left to the mind of the reader. C4 co-produced a 55min film version in 1984. I’ve never seen it but the excellent cast is reassuring.
Just read the Joyce story, and tweeted. Thanks, Mick.
Strewth !
Words alone cannot express the true reallity of what has happened, and seldom does one find out as to why?
May their holy souls rest I’m peace.
Likewise hear our prayers for those that they have left behind.
A sensitive and thoughtful article and I agree with pretty much all the feedback. A friend of ours threw himself under a train at Wimbledon, a few years ago – he was a lovely guy, was working and no-one had any clue he was depressed. I too, get upset when I hear people tutting at the delay to their journey – not considering or stopping to think about the human tragedy that lay behind it, and the impact on the driver and all who have to clear up the remains. Someone who commits suicide in this way must be so desperate, and I suspect the majority don’t even consider the effect it may have on others – they just want their torment to end. It’s a horrible way to go and we need to address the attitude of society to these “hidden” mental illnesses.
This was the second young man in less than a month to die at this spot. The Uxbridge Gazette has given rather more than ‘a paragraph’ to both tragedies.
One can only feel for those affected, including the train driver. Many train drivers never recover from these episodes.
Hi John
I have always admired your reporting and the depth of sensitivity you often display.
Last year I was going through a very bad patch at work, under threat of redundancy and under-employed with a family to support.
I cannot begin to imagine what state of desperation the poor person was in to throw themselves in front of a train, but can empathise with the felli g of absolute powerlessness that led to me standing on a pier contemplating drowning myself.
I think it was a way of taking control. For some reason, I’m not totally sure why, I turned away and made the decision to tell my boss to stuff it, and got some counselling. I was lucky it was available to me.
My employer doesn’t care as long as they tick the boxes, but that day they may have some more questions to answer.
Your blog moved me as so many people face similar trials these days, yet so few get help and support from bosses or colleagues. My close colleagues were great and told me I needed help. They were right.
Please do what you can to highlight this terrible working environment we seem to have created and encourage a more open attitude to what is a very debilitating illness.
My friend’s brother committed suicide this way. After a period of depression and heavy drinking, he just walked up the railway track one night and lay down on the track. The train driver didn’t even know what had happend. It was truly devastating for the family.
Many years ago when commuting into London daily and often subjected to such delays, I heard a statistic that in one year alone, there had been 363 such deaths. Almost one per day on average. I think the report was in relation to the effect that these deaths/suicides had on the train drivers who were often traumatised to the extent that they could no longer work.
Most of us have sat on trains or in motorway queues cursing the delay and inconvenience in the wake of fatalities and serious injuries. As we pass the scene of the accident we slow down momentarily and thank God it hasn’t affected us or our families. Then we put our foot down and on we go, rarely giving it a further thought.
My daughter and I have both contemplated recently that in the situation of “body on the line” it might not always have been suicide or accidental. On crowded platforms, who would know?
But it’s a truly sad way to end a life…
Its a question of personalization isn’t it?
We never know their names and we never see their faces.
It isn’t ‘news’. So a life is reduced to an announcement akin to ‘the wrong type of snow on the line’ and no-one cares.
If you want an example of the power of personalization then just look at the reaction of people to the story of the ex-serviceman and his family facing deportation. Not just a statistic we know his name, we can put a face to his story and suddenly he becomes a real person.
If you Google ‘incapacity benefit claiming football ref’ you will find every single one of this tiny sub-set of benefit claimants named and shamed, personalized in every newspaper and on every news bulletin.
But how many of the 1,300 people who have died within weeks being told they are fit to work can you name?
What about the thousands of others left destitute by the withdrawal of their support, how many of them have been personalized in the same way?
I wonder how many of them will end up delaying your train journey one day?
Jon
In case you haven’t seen -
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/home-news/i-put-my-brake-on-and-blew-the-horn-but-obviously-there-was-nothing-i-could-do.18198768
While many of the “bodies on the track” are indeed suicides, let us not forget about the others – the genuine accidents, people who ended up in the path of a train and for whatever reason, weren’t able to escape in time.
We’ve heard the stories about faults with railway crossings leading to deaths, girls stumbling home late at night and being hit by a train, people stumbling or being pushed off platforms – and so many similar stories.
Nevertheless, regardless of the circumstances, a person who was alive is alive no longer, and despite the inconvenience etc, people should never lose sight of that.
If you are an innocent bystander trapped on the train through no fault of your own – you will not lose sight of that.
But, you may not necessarily feel sorrow for the individual who placed you in that predicament.
We all have ‘issues’, but, we do not all choose to inflict such on all and sundry.
Blogging, for some of us with ‘issues’ can be a fantastically cathartic solution !
I’m glad that you raised this but I have given up hoping that stigma associated with mental illness and the problems it causes will ever be removed. I think those with mental health problems are far too polite and accommodating to achieve a general change in attitude, partly because they are so vulnerable. You go into a kind of exile when you are diagnosed with a mental illness. I know from personal experience the impact a death on the line can have on a train driver, accidental or otherwise, and have wondered why “hotspots” like the bridge in Southall have not been altered to prevent it happening. As for the victim, whatever the method, he or she just wanted it all to stop.
Very moving, Jon. See also: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8153752
Its so wonderful to see a journalist and news team who cares.
This person must have been absolutely desperate to do what they did.
I would like to take the oppurtunity to congratulate the C4 news team for their fair and unbiased coverage of people on benefits and low wages. Other news teams (and i include the BBC in this) are compliant in the propaganda and disabilism that is in much of the press today. C4 news is now my go to news programme because of its quality and fair reporting.
The BBC programme Newsnight did themselves a lot of damage when they stitched up that single mum. I no longer believe that the BBC news programmes are something to be proud of.
When they started reporting on the G4S fiasco they immediately made out it was the workers fault for not turning up. As we saw on C4 news later that same day (last Monday) you proved that was simply not the case.
Many people have died or have suffered even worse health because of being found fit to work when they are not. This badly needs a proper investigation.
Im not saying this is why this man ended his life but i feel it is a possibility. I send my condolences to his family and friends.
This may be of interest: http://duckrabbit.info/blog/2012/04/securing-the-tiger-2/
The ‘stigma’ of mental illness
Make sure that you do not confuse mental health with emotional health (illhealth) I.e. psycho-neuroses. Look at http://www.catharsis4all.co.uk and read HIDDEN AGENDAS, An Eye-Opener
Why the distinction when ‘mental health’ is an extention of ‘emotional health’?
In HIDDEN AGENDAS, An Eye-Opener read the chapter on suicide
Very touching, but…
It be absurd that ‘the world’ has to come to a complete stop because of someones death – whatever the reason for it was.
Life goes on – for everyone else that remains alive.
The priority in such cases – whatever the location (railway, roadway, runway…) – should be to return to normal as soon as possible.
The reason for the death will no doubt be investigated – in the fullness of time. Perhaps by then all those caught-up in the tragedy will have time to reflect ?
But, for now, life and all the pressures with it – goes on.
i don’t have a problem with either suicide or assisted suicide.The how why and when are up to the individual and i suppose it is best to choose a method that is sure,but has no effect upon other people.
That said it is selfish to throw yourself under a vehicle or involve somebody else other than a willing participant.
I think it is also totally abhorrent to take anothers life and then commit suicide
How to bridge the gap between those that understand the state of mind someone is in when they kill themselves, and those who never could understand? I don’t know if it’s possible.