Bridgend Swingers Club

[Lord Fellatio Nelson 6,132]

I think this is another form of mass hysteria.

Too many, all within a close range of ages and many had never previously shown any inclination to take their own life.

Unless the cycle is broken there will be more.

[Paul Bearer 5,611]

I think this is another form of mass hysteria.

Too many, all within a close range of ages and many had never previously shown any inclination to take their own life.

Unless the cycle is broken there will be more.

 

Agreed. I would suggest when a kid with low esteem tops him/herself, the media reports that their friends are all shocked at losing such a wonderful character, super friend, one of the best, sadly missed etc. Kid number 2 with same low self esteem sees that report, thinks people will say the same about kid 2 and they top themselves, same story great person etc. kid 3 ......... well, you get the picture.

 

Basically I think the media should take a back seat at reporting incidents like this. (Well............. report them, but lose the he/she was brilliant etc.)

[Star Crossed 33]

I think this is another form of ... inclination to take their own life.

Unless the cycle is broken there will be more.

Agreed. ... Basically I think the media should take a back seat at reporting incidents like this. (Well............. report them, but lose the he/she was brilliant etc.)

At the risk of playing devil's advocate, may I suggest that commentators on the deceased take this helpful approach to its logical extreme, to wit;

"Hywel was an absolute twunt, see... he was the sort of f***ing nobody who would go and do something like this, just to get the attention in death that he never would have got in life. People think he's more a knob now than they did when he was alive. Complete twat." etc.

If I were a suicidal teenager, I certainly wouldn't like to be thought of more as a twat after hanging myself than I was before. I'd rather be a living twat than a complete twat.

[Alphonsin 1]

Basically I think the media should take a back seat at reporting incidents like this. (Well............. report them, but lose the he/she was brilliant etc.)

 

This just in from the BBC:

 

The suicide toll in Bridgend, South East Wales, was extended last night after Emryn Hughes, a 17-year-old student from the former mining town*, was found hanged. Mid Glamorgan police said that Hughes, who was described by teachers and fellow students as "mediocre", appeared to have hanged himself with a kettle lead in a municipal park, his George by Asda jeans leaking excrement after his bowels evacuated themselves shortly after his death. His unedifying demise brings to 18 the number of disaffected, and generally rather unimpressive, youths that have opted to take their lives before making anything of them.

Community leaders in the economically depressed town expressed fresh alarm at the string of recent suicides, but were nonetheless glad that another ne'er-do-well had taken the easy way out and reduced the burden on the taxpayer of supporting white-socks-wearing layabouts. "What a loser!" said William Jones, a keyworker at a Bridgend youth centre that Hughes frequented. "He played table-tennis very badly. We won't miss him."

Hughes, who was noted by keyworkers for his lack of originality and tendency to be influenced by others, had been failing miserably in his studies. "He was a bit of a thicko," said one of the students on his course. Plaques have started to build at the sixth-form college where he studied. "Why?" read one. "Why not?" read another. The acne-blighted teenager, who had several ASBOs barring him from associating with sheep... etc, etc...

 

 

* It's not a former mining town, but the press isn't letting that get in the way of the story.

 

But, yes, HCW, I agree with you, I think.

[Gordon Comstock 2]

Alphonsin - Hats off to you sir!

[maryportfuncity 9,980]

Teen Suicide Drama shelved by the BBC in deference to Bridgend's high-running emotions.

 

Strange mind, they ran Ashes to Ashes last night with a storyline about prostitute murders and then the 10 O'clock News opened with the news of Steve Wright's conviction.

[Anubis the Jackal 76]

Ah, but if the jury had still been out on the Wright case, they probably wouldn't have shown it.

Strange mind, they ran Ashes to Ashes last night with a storyline about prostitute murders and then the 10 O'clock News opened with the news of Steve Wright's conviction.

[maryportfuncity 9,980]

Your faith is touching ATJ but it might be worth considering that the running order for Ashes to Ashes is important to the story and the show is a heavyweight in the Beeb's current schedules so it would take more than a few dead prostitutes to pull it off (heh heh). A one-off drama that could easily be rescheduled on the other hand.......good for PR.

[themaninblack 2,112]

I don't see why this is a problem these days. These things happen. I noticed the news went to town over this (as usual), what about the 'complaints' for that. If members of the public are 'offended' by depictions of murder, dramatic or otherwise, they might as well live in a cave...

[Anubis the Jackal 76]

Apologies to the posters above, but I disagree. Theres a good article here (if you can pick your way through the pop-ups) about post-11th September media, and a TV programme I did some (very minor) work for was postponed due to a very similar and quite high-profile case being in court at the time. I'd say the schedulers were probably extremely relieved that the case ended just before that episode was broadcast.

[maryportfuncity 9,980]

It looked like timely intervention had saved the latest tryer, but she's dead.

[DevonDeathTrip 2,288]

There is a thriving suicide cult among young people in Japan at the moment, which has just claimed it's 70th victim. More are expected to join the club.

 

Bathroom Poison Suicide Cult

[TAFKAG 70]

The latest apparent suicide was good friends with a man who hanged himself in April. That's 21 in 18 months now.

[To die for 3]

"Teenager dies after being struck by train" near Bridgend

[maryportfuncity 9,980]

A bloke walks into Bridgend Library and says: 'I can't get my head round what's going on here. Do you have any books on suicide?'

 

'Mmm,' says the librarian, 'we did but the last guy never brought them back.'

[The Pooka 24]

Based on those figures for 2000-2003 you could roughly expect about 15 suicides a year in Bridgend (population about 132,000), so it's not far off. (Just edited original post because of duff info I had).

 

In fact, since the so-called cluster is from the beginning of 2007 that would make the number about average. So no cluster, no connection, no story.

 

But isn't it making the news because seventeen people of in their late teens/early twenties have killed themselves in Bridgend, over and above the more average numbers of older inhabitants who ended their lives? No connection but definite cluster, hence the story.

Rats. This always happens when I try to be clever. Hadn't spotted that flaw in the argument. I still think that it's media hype and I would bet (note the new element of uncertainty) that most suicides are from that age cohort.

At last a subject I know something about. There is an 'imitation effect' in suicide. This was observed some years ago in Vienna where the rate of suicides through jumping under a tube train rose following its depiction in an Austrian radio serial (something like the Archers). After a few years it sank back to the historic level once more. There probably is a cluster in Bridgend. But nothing too dramatic. The dilemma is that publicity can increase the rate. So health promotion campaigns and media reporting could have an adverse effect. Publicity also effects the method chosen. So, in Bridgend, people could have chosen the publicised method of hanging, which has a high success rate, over the less dangerous but generally more popular choice of overdose.

 

As for the figures above.......... expect 1 in 9,000 of the population to kill themselves in a given year. So expect 15 in Bridgend per annum.

[Lard Bazaar 3,687]

Based on those figures for 2000-2003 you could roughly expect about 15 suicides a year in Bridgend (population about 132,000), so it's not far off. (Just edited original post because of duff info I had).

 

In fact, since the so-called cluster is from the beginning of 2007 that would make the number about average. So no cluster, no connection, no story.

 

But isn't it making the news because seventeen people of in their late teens/early twenties have killed themselves in Bridgend, over and above the more average numbers of older inhabitants who ended their lives? No connection but definite cluster, hence the story.

Rats. This always happens when I try to be clever. Hadn't spotted that flaw in the argument. I still think that it's media hype and I would bet (note the new element of uncertainty) that most suicides are from that age cohort.

At last a subject I know something about. There is an 'imitation effect' in suicide. This was observed some years ago in Vienna where the rate of suicides through jumping under a tube train rose following its depiction in an Austrian radio serial (something like the Archers). After a few years it sank back to the historic level once more. There probably is a cluster in Bridgend. But nothing too dramatic. The dilemma is that publicity can increase the rate. So health promotion campaigns and media reporting could have an adverse effect. Publicity also effects the method chosen. So, in Bridgend, people could have chosen the publicised method of hanging, which has a high success rate, over the less dangerous but generally more popular choice of overdose.

 

As for the figures above.......... expect 1 in 9,000 of the population to kill themselves in a given year. So expect 15 in Bridgend per annum.

 

I'm too gutless to kill myself, but I often think that if I was going to, I could just go somewhere really cold like some mountains in Scotland, and just wear really thin clothes, and just lay down on a mountain and go to sleep, surely I would die then of hypothermia or something?

[The Pooka 24]

I'm too gutless to kill myself, but I often think that if I was going to, I could just go somewhere really cold like some mountains in Scotland, and just wear really thin clothes, and just lay down on a mountain and go to sleep, surely I would die then of hypothermia or something?

 

Hypothermia is supposed to be a fairly bearable form of death. You drift in and out of consciousness before dying of heart failure. Apart from that you feel cold. It must beat dying of old age in a superheated rest home surrounded by the smell of stale urine and boiled cabbage.

[Lard Bazaar 3,687]

We've just had the second teenage suicide in five months at my daughter's school - obviously not on a Bridgend scale but really hoping it's not the sign of things to come - when it's far away it's a morbid interest - when it's so close to home it's unnerving.

[Memento Mori 12]

We've just had the second teenage suicide in five months at my daughter's school - obviously not on a Bridgend scale but really hoping it's not the sign of things to come - when it's far away it's a morbid interest - when it's so close to home it's unnerving.

A few years back, there were four suicides within a short space of each other in the village where I lived. After the second one, we became slightly unnerved, but by the fourth the sense of unease had turned to paranoia. Some people had convinced themselves that some unnatural force was to blame, while others blamed it on a possible contamination of the water supply. Some of us, however, had a bit of fun in trying to guess who would next succumb to the homemade noose..

[maryportfuncity 9,980]

There's a thread elsewhere about the lack of action amongst the newbies, suggesting - perhaps - they lack the quality of a few of the old timers. Clocking your post above Kaylia I have to say, you are DEFINITELY ONE OF US.

 

Tarry awhile and stay sick!

[maryportfuncity 9,980]

Oh aye, and the Bridgend suicides have their own Wiki page.

[Memento Mori 12]

There's a thread elsewhere about the lack of action amongst the newbies, suggesting - perhaps - they lack the quality of a few of the old timers. Clocking your post above Kaylia I have to say, you are DEFINITELY ONE OF US.

 

Tarry awhile and stay sick!

Never fear, I fully intend too. I was under the illusion that I was the sickest bastard out there until I discovered this site, thankfully, I'm no longer alone in my irreverent little universe!

[Lord Fellatio Nelson 6,132]

There's a thread elsewhere about the lack of action amongst the newbies, suggesting - perhaps - they lack the quality of a few of the old timers. Clocking your post above Kaylia I have to say, you are DEFINITELY ONE OF US.

 

Tarry awhile and stay sick!

Fair point Mary.

Hopefully others will follow.

Looking back on this thread, I do wonder what happened to The Pooka.

That fellow was fuggin class!

[honez 79]

There's a thread elsewhere about the lack of action amongst the newbies, suggesting - perhaps - they lack the quality of a few of the old timers. Clocking your post above Kaylia I have to say, you are DEFINITELY ONE OF US.

 

Tarry awhile and stay sick!

Fair point Mary.

Hopefully others will follow.

Looking back on this thread, I do wonder what happened to The Pooka.

That fellow was fuggin class!

Did he used to live in Bridgend?