Good enough or not, we'll do our best

Yesterday was another bleak day for the racing family, I'm afraid.  But I won't get straight into that.  This is our post-Ascot post so I'll just ease into things gently by coming up with some further (un)Royal observations.  In a previous chapter I'd mused that when there is no royal-ness at Ascot, common sense says that it isn't Royal Ascot.  And that it's no good falling back on some line about it being traditional to call it Royal Ascot.  I explained that for most of Ascot's existence nobody thought of it as 'Royal Ascot', and that the 'Royal' tag was only thought up to differentiate it from its new, lesser monarch-less meetings once these had been introduced after the Second World War.

Anyway, by happy chance my friend Peter Corbett has put some meat on these bones.  Thanks to Peter (author, incidentally, of two extremely good racing history books, biographies of Bayardo and Bahram) I can relay the information that Ruff's Guide to the Turf first referred to the days at Ascot on which there was a Royal Enclosure (which was, of course, absent this year) as 'Royal Ascot' in 1951 to differentiate them from the days on which there was no Royal Enclosure, and that Raceform first used the term in 1955 (when, incidentally, the meeting was postponed to July because of a rail strike, which suggests that postponing it is not unthinkable). I chuckled when Peter began his missive with these words, "I imagine, John, that you found it irritating that so many doggedly kept referring to the meeting as 'Royal Ascot', a contradiction in terms!  This term in any event is only a relatively recent nomenclature ...".

Now, sadly we must move to weightier matters.  By which, of course, I mean that Liam Treadwell has died, seemingly at his own hand.  What can one say about this tragedy that we haven't already said about similarly sad situations?  The parallels with dear James Banks, who died in similar circumstances four months ago are eerie, both coming from the same generation of National Hunt jockeys to the extent that Liam was one of the pall-bearers at James' funeral.  Both, incidentally, have been friends of this stable from boyhood.  Unlike James, Liam did not grow up in Newmarket: he came from Sussex, where I think that I am correct in saying that his parents, who must be going through hell at present and to whom I offer my deepest sympathy, worked for John Dunlop, and Guy Harwood before that.

While he was still at school, Liam's mother, who is a saint, kindly went to the considerable trouble of bringing him up to Newmarket once a week in the holidays to further his experience.  (I think he was riding out for either Amanda Perrett or John Dunlop when he was at home).  Mark Gilchrist, who was John Dunlop's travelling head lad and was in the process of becoming a jockey's agent, organised this - in fact, I think that Liam, when he became an apprentice, was the first of the many good apprentices whom 'Gilly' got going, firstly with Amanda Perrett and then with Dandy Nicholls - and Liam would ride out for Jeremy Noseda through the morning and then come here for one extra lot at the end of the morning.  And it was always a pleasure to have him here.

Although I consequently always followed his career closely, I didn't see much of Liam in later years apart from bumping into him at the races once in a while, but he, like James, seemed to remain what he had always been.  James never changed.  He was forever the naughty little boy/loveable rascal, while Liam seemed always to remain the same lovely boy that he was at the start.  Both, of course, we now know were cursed by depression.  I saw that side of James early on and it stayed with him on and off all the way through, whereas I gather that Liam only began to suffer in this respect later in life.  James' demons got him in the end, and now Liam has gone too, also seemingly of his own volition.  And that's just so very, very sad.

When lockdown started, my first thought was that the suicide rate would go through the roof, but of the three people I know who have taken their own lives during lockdown (ie Liam, Mick Curran, and an Australian friend - and patron of this stable - Cameron Plant, who committed suicide during the compulsory quarantine in a Melbourne hotel-room that Australians had to endure if arriving home during that period) I suspect that it might have happened anyway.  The sad truth is that when people decide that the game of life isn't worth the candle any more, it's not always something that a bit of company and jollity can do much about.  Sadly, it is rarely that simple.

What can we do?  We'd love to think that we can prevent these things, but in truth I don't know that we can do.  But, even so, we must do what we can.  What can we do?  Well, nothing more complicated than trying never to lose sight of the truth in those timeless lines that amid all the sham, drudgery and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world; being cheerful and striving to be happy; trying to help others to remember this; trying to bring some light to the lives of those around us, both by positively bringing that light and also by trying to avoid bringing any darkness.

As Malachy McCourt observed in Singing My Hymn Song, it's nothing more complicated than opening your heart and letting God's love flow in.  That's easier said than done, of course, but frequently reminding ourselves, and others, of that truism is as good a place as any to start.  Neil Finn wrote and sung a great line in Crowded House's Distant Sun: "I don't pretend to know what you want, but I offer love."  In most cases it's easiest to translate that to "I don't pretend to be able to cure your troubles, but I want you to know that I care".  Putting those words into practice never does any harm, because it can help to know that people care, to know that one isn't alone in a wilderness.  It doesn't always work, of course, but once in a while it might.

My fear for quite some time is that this isn't a problem which is going to go away.  The more people kill themselves, the more will do so.  Suicide should be unthinkable.  Suicide used to be unthinkable.  When I was young, it was drummed into you (by implication) that it was not an option.  Not ever.  Primarily because it was rammed into you from the start that people who killed themselves could not be buried on consecrated ground; and burial on unconsecrated ground was the worst ending of all.  Nowadays, though, such a prohibition no longer seems to apply.  And, even if it did, not many people would mind anyway.  Rather than being unthinkable, suicide now clearly is an option.  The fact that others do it clearly makes it so.  And that is worrying.

Where does this leave us?  Absolutely nowhere, I'm afraid.  It just leaves us very sad.  But life does go on.  The sun always rises tomorrow.  We just need to make sure that, until such time as we have no choice in the matter, we are there to see it rise; and that we do what we can do to try to make sure that those around us are there to see it too.  That, of course, may not be enough.  But we must do our best.  That's all one ever can do.