At night, in 100 parks across the UK, small solar panelled lights illuminate wooden benches with these words carved into the wood: “Someone is always listening”.
This week, half a dozen former football stars unveiled the 100th bench of this kind. They are a simple but powerful beacon of hope for people suffering from mental health problems – a place to sit and reflect and, if you need them, they offer helplines and even a QR code that will direct you to mental health support services.
Already, they are having an impact.
It started when Michelle Hazard lost her son Jay to suicide in 2019. She wanted a bench in his name, the council said it wasn’t possible. So, she set up a charity funding not just Jay’s bench in Sawbridgeworth in Hertfordshire, but dozens more.
In August last year, Sky News reported on the story of 16-year-old Evie Roodhouse, who gave a school assembly about her father’s suicide. A viewer, Chris Thompson, was so touched by her bravery that he offered to fund a bench in her father’s name.
At the unveiling of that bench, Michelle told me: “The idea is that if someone is in a dark place, walking past a park, and maybe the light attracts them. Hopefully they’d go to the light and see the message, ‘Someone is always listening’, because no one should feel so alone they have nowhere to turn.”
Michelle also confided that a few weeks previously, she’d got an email that said in the title: “Thank you.” A suicidal woman had indeed sat down and found the messages.
She said: “She went to the bench, scanned the QR code – saw all the people there who’ve turned out to support what we do, and she said, ‘I realised that there are people that care’ and it helped her through a really dark place.
“That was the moment for me. I feel like I did something for that lady that night.
“If it saves one person, then having a million benches out there would be money well spent – because it’s saved someone’s life, then another family doesn’t have to go through what we go through.”
Michelle’s ambition is to have benches in every park, and outside every sports ground in the country and after 18 months, there were already 50 UK parks with benches from Dorset to Hull.
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I’d promised that if the charity managed 100 benches, Sky News would come to the unveiling. This Thursday, I was among dozens gathered to applaud the hundredth bench in Harlow, Essex.
Also present were several members of Tottenham Hotspur’s footballing royalty: Ossie Ardiles, Graham Roberts, Gary Mabbutt, Pat Jennings and Mark Falco. Michelle’s brother, Micky Hazard, also a former Spurs player, has become a strong campaigner for the charity.
Former England player Gary Mabbutt, who lost his niece to suicide, told me: “Everyone will have someone in their family or someone they know who they’ve lost to suicide, and we want to get these benches around the country to remind people that if they want to talk, there are people who will listen to them.”
Former Northern Ireland goalkeeper Pat Jennings added: “My family as well have had a couple of people with mental health problems who have taken their own lives, so it brings you right back to memories of those people.”
Among the crowd, too, was East 17 singer Tony Mortimer, who lost his brother to suicide.
He said: “This is just a genius idea… There’s that saying of ‘permanent decisions on temporary emotions’, and that is the case a lot of times, it is a cry for help, and people go too far, which is just devastating. The wonderful thing with the bench is people have used it, and they are still here.”
The mother of TV presenter Caroline Flack, who was also at the event, told Sky News she’s comforted that there is a bench in her daughter’s name in Tottenham.
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She said family members will always ask themselves, ‘what if?’ She said: “I’d spoken to Caroline the night before, she seemed ok. I’d seen her the weekend before, we went out to lunch, and I thought she was getting over her problems.
“I was going to see her Saturday, but she took her own life in the morning before I got to her in the afternoon, and you think to yourself ‘why didn’t I go the night before?'”
She added: “I think people commit suicide in a split-second when the next minute something else may happen. And these benches are in places where lots of people who feel down are walking.
“I believe it’s already saved lives, and if it’s one or two – that’s enough.”
Anyone feeling emotionally distressed or suicidal can call Samaritans for help on 116 123 or email [email protected] in the UK. In the US, call the Samaritans branch in your area or 1 (800) 273-TALK
