My daughter texted me to say her train home from university for the weekend had come to a stop as she thought it may have just hit a person. She said the train had bumped something and stopped and everyone had to give their details. She didn’t know when she would be home and she was starving. She hoped that if the train had hit a person that they would be OK. I texted back to say how wide the repercussions would be of the incident she was part of, and I was taken back to a phone call I had received 25 years ago.
My uncle had jumped off a bridge and died instantly when he was hit by the train you were driving.
I don’t know how his actions that day have affected your life.
My uncle was schizophrenic. He lived in one of the old Victorian psychiatric hospitals for most of his adult life. I have vivid childhood memories of visits to see him. I hated those visits. The Victorian architecture was spooky and the patients frightened me. Many rarely had visitors and were always keen to engage us in conversation, which, as a young child, scared me.
We visited my uncle regularly. Often he would not want to talk to us, preferring to remain in his room. Sometimes he would accompany us on walks around the beautiful grounds. If he was quite well we would go to the club house where I remember he would drink pints of beer.
Although the hospital was obviously not a nice place to live, my uncle didn’t seem to be unhappy. I was aware that every so often he would leave – on an unofficial “holiday” – and end up being escorted back by the police, but the hospital was his home.
Towards the end of the 1980s, the Victorian asylums were being closed. As a young adult I realised that it was much better for people who were mentally ill to live in supported accommodation in the community rather than in the big asylums. Had my uncle been born 25 years later, I dare say he would not have spent his whole adult life in hospital.
Arrangements were made for my uncle’s hospital to close. Patients were moved out. As my uncle was one of the older patients and presumably difficult to relocate, he remained in the hospital until just before it finally shut.
My uncle was moved to a “villa” in the grounds of a nearby Victorian general hospital, in preparation for a final move into the community. I visited him in his new home and tried to talk to him positively about the future.
Shortly after my last visit to see him, I received a telephone call from a member of staff. I knew from the outset that it was bad news. My uncle was dead. He had jumped in front of a train. I had been traced as his next of kin as my parents were abroad and my grandfather was in a nursing home.
My daughter’s text about this recent tragedy made me think of you, the unfortunate driver of the train my uncle jumped in front of. I wonder how you coped with that awful event. Were you able to continue working as a train driver? I hope you were given counselling and I hope you managed to continue to work. Maybe you are still working today.
Any suicide has far reaching effects and those of us left behind are left wondering how that dreadful final moment could have been avoided. In my uncle’s case I could understand exactly how he felt that his life wasn’t worth living. He was institutionalised and too old and ill to start a new life in the community. I am sure he didn’t think about how his actions would affect you. I just hope that you no longer think about that day in 1990.
Katie
• Samaritans: 24-hour helpline, 08457 909090
