The Welsh Suicide Contagion

A heart-shaped wreath is £40 from a florist in Bridgend, Wales; a crucifix can be up to £50 if you go for the three-foot-tall option. The tear shapes and traditional circular wreaths are all a bit cheaper—around £30—but that’s still quite a bit of money for a run-down South Wales town with the second-highest benefits-claimant rate in the country. It is, like most towns in the Valleys, overwhelmingly gray, often wet, and constantly struggling to keep its youth employed. The town never really managed to draw in industries to replace the coal mines that closed years ago.

Bridgend rose to international fame in 2008 when a 17-year-old girl, Natasha Randall, was found hanged shortly after the new year. The photogenic girl’s death grabbed the UK media’s attention long enough for them to realize that this case was in fact one of many in the foggy town. Natasha’s close friend Liam Clarke had killed himself a few weeks before her. In all, 23 young people had taken their own lives in the area over the course of a year and a half. Almost all had hanged themselves, some at home, others in parks or abandoned buildings.

We spoke to Darren Matthews, branch director of the Samaritans organization in Bridgend, about the rash of suicides in his town.

Vice: What the hell is going on out there?

Darren Matthews:

Yeah, that would do it. How many people died in total?

The papers went on about cults and suicide networks. Was that all bullshit? To what extent were these people linked to one another in reality?

Sounds pretty suspicious to me. But Bridgend has always had a high suicide rate, hasn’t it? Is there any explanation for that?

So what’s it all about? Why so many deaths in so little time in one small area?

What is that, like contagious suicide?

The Sorrows of Young Werther

Go on…

What is the media’s role in all this?

So what is it that the media does that causes problems?

It might plant the seed.

Not too classy.

What did you make of the repeated accusations of social-networking websites being responsible?

What long-term effects have the suicides had on the people around there?