Research on Suicide

Real Life: New research on the causes of suicide and the effects on those left behind

New research, due to be published next year, hopes to finally shed light on the causes of suicide and the effects on those left behind

Positive: Nuala Whelan, whose husband killed himself 10 years ago, has come to terms with what happened and says 'life is to be enjoyed, not endured.'

By Sue Leonard

Monday September 07 2009

This Thursday, September 10, is World Suicide Prevention Day. With 460 people dying by suicide in Ireland in 2007, and our youth suicide rate the fifth highest in Europe, it's a date we should all take note of.

Until now there has been little research to find out just why so many young people kill themselves, and that worried Professor Kevin Malone of UCD and St Vincent's University Hospital. So thanks to funding from, amongst others, 3Ts and the Padraig Harrington Foundation, he decided to talk to the families and the friends of suicide victims.

"We examined 400 suicide cases: 400 young people who had attempted suicide, and another 400 who were depressed, but who had not made a suicide attempt," says Professor Malone. "Over 80pc of those who had committed suicide had told someone of their intention up to two weeks before," he says.

"That is so sad, and is a reflection on our society. It's difficult, too, for the friends who are burdened with that news. They may feel, in the aftermath, that they were enabling the suicide, by standing by their friend and not telling."

Life, too, is difficult for those who made a suicide attempt, and survived.

"They get a second chance at life, but society is angry at them," says Malone. "Yet they had reached a point where they were overwhelmed by a feeling of low self-worth, where the world would be better off without them.

"In the aftermath, they have to deal with anger, and the realisation that they are considered selfish in a society that doesn't care. They have no idea what the aftermath of a successful suicide is like for their family. If they knew they would probably think about the act, but they are in a bubble of despair and they don't see any way out."

Ten suicide clusters were identified in the research, accounting for 40 additional deaths. And this, Malone suggests, is a complex issue.

Loss

"It is clear that the grief of suicide death and suicide loss is profound in a young person's society," he says. "They feel alone, afraid, and they identify with suicide as a solution. Young people often tell their parents that suicide is a dreadful thing, and they would never do it, but two weeks later they are dead themselves."

Mental health support for the young is woefully inadequate. There are no public beds for adolescents with mental health problems in Professor Malone's catchment area.

"Not one," he says. "We can 'buy' expensive beds from St John of God's Hospital, but that is not the solution. There are three suicides on our database directly associated with adolescent kids being put in an adult unit. They felt completely out of it."

Anthony knows that feeling well. At 19, he was a patient in St Columba's Psychiatric Hospital in Sligo. It was his third visit and he had been having suicidal thoughts for some time. Whilst there, he went to a nearby derelict building and jumped from a second-floor window.

"I wanted to end the pain," he says. "Killing yourself is not a selfish thing to do; you don't want to hurt your family. It's not brave either. It is neither of those things. My thinking just wasn't right."

Anthony smashed a knee and the bones in his heel. He couldn't walk for five weeks. But when he woke, he was glad that he was alive.

"That was my turning point," he says. "I have been through a lot since then, but I have never once been suicidal. People took me seriously after that. Nobody did before; not even the doctors. I don't think my doctor believed in my story. He didn't believe what I was going through."

It was a long road to recovery. But at 30, Anthony's life has improved beyond recognition. "I still get low days, but I can cope with them now," he says. That is due to counselling and to the support of the organisation Grow, a kind of AA for sufferers of depression.

"I go to Grow every week now," he says. "It gave me the confidence to talk about my illness. I went to Grow to get help for myself, but you help other people as well. You open up about things."

The artist Bernadette Walsh has lost not one but two of her three sons to suicide. Her youngest, Owen, was 33 when he died.

"His breakdown was related to work," says Bernadette. "There'd been trouble, and Owen stood up for his colleagues. He felt, after that, that he was isolated."

He left that job, and started working as a carpenter but he was severely depressed.

"He felt his capacity as a man was diminishing," says Bernadette. "He didn't think he could support his wife, Marie. He was ashamed and we couldn't reason with him."

The family tried to get Owen help. They talked to doctors, and Owen had told his GP that he wanted to kill himself.

"There should have been intervention," says Bernadette. "He should have been admitted to hospital." But he wasn't and on December 6, 1999, Owen was found dead.

Bernadette is convinced that Owen's death contributed to the death of his elder brother, Stephen, years later. Stephen had been a volunteer for four years in Moldova where he'd done sterling work. He'd worked in Ireland as a plumber, and had then volunteered to dig for pumps and to build wells in Sri Lanka. It was soon after he had arrived in Sri Lanka, on December 26, 2006, that he drowned.

"No one wants to believe that her son took his own life, but I know that he did. Stephen couldn't swim. He hadn't been sleeping and he had said goodbye to friends he hadn't seen for years. Work was tough. He was worried about his daughter. Stephanie was pregnant. The baby was born two days after he died."

How has Bernadette coped with this double loss? "I've been helped by the support group Console," she says. "They have been so good to me. I write poems and I paint and paint until I am exhausted. That is how I keep going.

"It is like a glass shattering when you lose someone. Families can split up over the pain. My son David is a hero because he has survived and is a good father. All my sons are heroes. Someone said to me, 'how come you didn't die afterwards?' I said, 'I live for me. Hope is all we have.'"

Depressed

When Nuala Whelan's husband John killed himself 10 years ago, she had absolutely no idea that he was depressed.

"Everything was in his favour. He was 41. He'd worked as a postman for 22 years and worked up the grades. He'd changed jobs just before he died, and he seemed happy. We didn't have debts and we had eight children aged between 18 and six.

"It was like being hit in the face with a shovel. My first thought, though, was for the kids. They were looking at me to get them through this, so I had to get myself to a place where I could cope. I handed the funeral over to the kids. I felt they needed control over their grief."

It wasn't until Nuala's father died, a few years later, that she realised how difficult John's death had been.

"That's when it hit me. My dad died with his family around. It was a release. John's death was so lonely and cold. It was so hard to visualise his pain.

"I had a dark three years. I've never understood why John died. No matter what I do I will never find the answer. So I might as well live my life since he chose not to live his."

Ten years on, life is rosy. All the children are well and happy. One is married and pregnant, one is a barrister, one a banker with a first-class degree, one is an architect, one a business manager, and another an intensive care nurse. One is studying interior design and the youngest is soon to start college. Nuala has returned to college too.

"Life is to be enjoyed, not endured," says Nuala. "Even after the funeral I said: 'I want a bucket of laughter for every tear you have shed.' You have to find the good in the bad and get on with it."

For help and support

• GROW - www.grow.ie
  
• CONSOLE - www.console.ie, Helpline 1800 201 8910

Copyright - Sue Leonard 2009

The Children’s Miracle Network.

Niamh and Mairead Condon

Interviewed by Sue Leonard.

Published in The Irish Independent 9^th march 2009.

Every Tuesday, Niamh Condon has to miss a day of school. The 14 year old from Knocklong in County Limerick, has a rare condition called Hurler Scheie Syndrome, and she has to spend her day in Limerick District Hospital, where she receives an enzyme by a drip.

“I will be there for four or five hours,” says Niamh. “It’s very boring. I tend to do my homework there, and I read. I have nearly all the books in the library read.” she says.

The worst thing, Niamh tells me, is missing class.

“Especially now that I’m in secondary school; the John the Baptist Community School. I have more to catch up on with all the different subjects and teachers.

“A couple of my friends take down all the notes and stuff, but on Wednesday night, when I have my normal homework, I have to copy down all the notes they did for me on Tuesday as well. There is an awful lot to do.”

Niamh is extremely diligent. She insists on going into school on Tuesdays, to attend two classes before she goes to the hospital.

“She’d love to stay longer if she could,” says her mum, Mairead. “Niamh loves her schoolwork. She wants to do well in life.

“It is not a joke going into hospital every week. She has to wait to be set up on the drip; that can take two hours, or longer if there is someone in the day unit who is sicker than her. The enzyme takes four hours to administer, and she has to see a doctor after that.”

When Niamh was a baby she seemed perfectly well.

“We hadn’t a clue there was anything wrong with her,” says Mairead. “Then we noticed that she couldn’t hold her hands out straight. There was some stiffness there. They did every test in Limerick, but they couldn’t find out what was wrong.

“So they referred us to Our Lady’s Hospital for Sick Children in Crumlin. And Dr Riordan, the Geneticist there, sent a urine sample to Great Ormond Street Hospital. He diagnosed Niamh with Hurler Scheie Syndrome when she was six years old.”

This is a rare biochemical abnormality, that affects just one in a million children. Niamh is missing the enzyme Alduranzyme, hence the need for her infusion. There are 30 families in Ireland whose children suffer from one of the mucopolysaccharidosis conditions; known as MPS. They meet regularly thanks for a support group run by volunteers.

It took a while, after diagnosis, to get set up with funding to enable Niamh to receive her enzyme infusion.

“At that stage they were testing the procedure with selected children in England,” says Mairead. “After the funding was set up, it took another two or three years for the enzyme to become available. Niamh was the first child in the South of Ireland to receive it. And meanwhile, she was often sick. She kept getting chest infections.”

At ten, Niamh was frightened of needles. So a small device was fitted under her skin to allow the doctors to administer the enzyme. After nine months, this became infected, and caused a serious infection of Niamh’s heart valves, called endocarditis.

“Niamh already had a bad heart as part of her condition,” explains Mairead. “But that infection has made it much worse. Niamh was extremely sick. She was in Crumlin for almost six months, on a very strong course of antibiotics. She was on four or five different ones, and it has left her with a lot of damage. She now has serious backflow in the aorta and mitral valves.

“Today, at five foot, Niamh weighs 7 stone. When she was in hospital she went down to just under three stone. It happened in the space of a few months. It was very serious. Niamh had to be tube fed. It was a big ordeal.

“Niamh’s activity is now curtailed. She can’t take exercise, and misses out on all the sport at school. She can manage everyday life, but can’t walk far without becoming breathless. Her back hurts too, and she can’t write a lot; for essays she uses a laptop. Not that she ever complains.

“Niamh has never known anything else,” says Mairead. “”She gets on with life and accepts it, in spite of all the knocks. Life hasn’t been a bed of roses, but she is always positive. She’s a treasure.”

With her constant smile, it is no surprise to learn that Niamh has made lots of friends in hospital. All the nurses and doctors appreciate her positive outlook. She was in Crumlin over Christmas four years ago, when she had the heart infection. And during the traditional Christmas ‘ward walk,’ Niamh met celebrities including Brian McFadden.

“That was a huge thrill for her,” says Mairead. “Niamh is a big Westlife fan.”

She also met Suzanne Downey, who’s in charge of publicity there.

“They became friendly, and we try and meet up with her when Niamh attends for her checkups,” explains Mairead.

“Suzanne rang us before Christmas last year, to say she would like to put Niamh’s name forward, along with other children, to go to Florida with the charity Children’s Miracle Network. We said, ‘of course,’ and a week later we were told that Niamh had been chosen to go to represent Crumlin.”

The whole family are setting out tomorrow, (Tuesday 10^th March.) And they’re all hugely excited.

“I’ve never been to America,” says Niamh. “I can’t wait to see Disneyland; and I’m looking forwards to the shopping as well. I think I’ll buy jeans with labels and T-shirts.”

Niamh’s younger brothers, Conor 13, and Thomas, 10, are looking forwards to the trip too.

“It’s tough for them,” says Mairead. “Both boys are big into the GAA, but when Niamh is sick, they have to go to matches with friends or neighbours. Their lives have to revolve around her.”

Niamh future is uncertain; she will, at some stage need heart surgery. But she’s totally upbeat.

“I want to just get on with life,” she says. “Even though I miss one day a week in school, I am determined to do my best there. Eventually I’d like to work with computers. I’m very interested in them.”

Niamh’s dad Francis, hopes that one day she will achieve a degree of independence; and go to college and work afterwards; and maybe, drive a car. As for Mairead, she is just happy when Niamh is at home, and is well.

“That, for me, is a huge thing,” she says.

The priority right now, though, is for home infusion.

“That would make life so much easier,” says Mairead. “The hospital manager is working on raising funds for her. That would be like winning the lottery.”

The Children’s Miracle Network, was started up by the famous Osmond family, to help children with hearing impairments.

“Two of their sons had hearing problems,” explains Conor Byrne, Director of Development with the network. “They started with a telethon; then they decided to do more for children’s hospitals in general. They have expanded and now have corporate partnerships and media partners. The network is worth over 2 billion dollars in America alone.”

The Children’s Miracle Network first appeared in Ireland in 2007, with a radiothon in conjunction with Dublin’s 98FM. And since then there have been further radiothons in Dublin and in Cork.

The network raises money for those extras that make a child’s life more normal in hospital; things such as toys, and murals on walls.

“Some of the money goes on research and occasionally on machines,” explains Conor, who was once in charge of fundraising at Tallaght hospital. “It’s up to the hospitals how they spend their money, but in general it does not replace the funding the government is supposed to be doing. It adds to it.”

Every year the network meets at the headquarters in Florida, with all the corporate and media partners who have helped.

“It’s a way to celebrate,” explains Conor. “And as part of that, a child from every area is selected to represent the children who have been helped. They are the ‘champion children.’

“They are ambassadors for the charity. They get to meet children from all over the world who have been in similar circumstances to themselves. There is a big medal celebration. Each child gets up on the stage individually.

“We have a celebration breakfast, where they are photographed with Disney characters, and they meet with the sponsors. But the children are the stars. There will be one or two events every day, where they are the focus.

“This is the second year children from Ireland have attended. It’s wonderful to see these kids who have been through so much. They have so much energy; so much life.”

It is important for all the families too.

They may not, normally, have been able to have holiday; one of the families who went last year had never been out of Ireland before. It was such a huge event for them.

“It gives families a chance to be together. And that is especially important for the siblings, who may have had a very rough ride. The children’s Miracle Network is about treating the whole family; and not just the child.”

For More information; www.childrensmiraclenetwork.ie

© Sue Leonard 2009.

Changes in Chemo

The Changes in Chemotherapy.

By Sue Leonard.

Published in The Irish Independent, 16^th march 2009.

The word ‘cancer’ spells terror. We know that the Big C is no longer, automatically, a killer. We know that many people now survive, but we fear the treatment too. We’ve heard the horror stories. We think of the vomiting; the constant illness, and wonder how we would ever find the strength to cope.

Cancer is still a serious illness. People still, do, die, but the treatment, in the past twenty years, has improved beyond recognition. The treatment, of course varies hugely for every type of cancer; and indeed, for each individual.

Take breast cancer. There are many different types of breast cancer, and different treatments, but the news, in general, is good.

“The treatment for breast cancer is dramatically better,” says Dr John Kennedy, Consultant Medical Oncologist at St James’s Hospital.

“Back in the eighties there were, maybe, two or three drugs available to treat breast cancer. The drugs had just a modest impact on the risk of reoccurrence in early stage cancer, and just a modest benefit for those with advanced disease. There have been huge advances in both those areas.”

We now have well organised expert centres, so it’s easier to treat patients. Chemotherapy can be prescribed specifically for each patient.

“The chemo drugs are better, and medications to prevent sickness and reduce the risk of infections have improved too,” says Dr Kennedy.

There are better hormonal therapies; and better ways of managing patients who have more advanced breast cancer.

“We now use bisphosphomates; drugs that are also used for osteoporosis to help when breast cancer has reached the bone. These substantially reduce pain, and the risk of fracture.”

Patients don’t feel as bad as they once did, either.

“These days vomiting is unusual; most patient’s don’t ever vomit. 20 years ago, they all would. This is because there’s now a range of effective drugs to treat it.

“The newer chemotherapy therapies tend not to cause low blood counts or sickness, but they can cause tiredness.

“The majority of patients say that the chemotherapy treatment was not as bad as they thought it would be,” says Dr Kennedy. “They say it was over quicker than they expected it to be. For most people it takes six months of therapy; and getting back on their feet takes a year.

“It is routine for me to see patients in my clinic who were diagnosed seven or eight years ago with a very high risk breast cancer, who are now well. I am convinced that 20 years ago, those women would not be around.”

Naomi Fitzgibbon, breast cancer information nurse with the Irish Cancer Society, says that patients are generally terrified before they attend treatment.

“They have to go through this whole learning curve, with all these technical new words. They have heard all these stories, and have no idea what the first treatment will be like.

“It can be disconcerting, too, that the lady beside her, who also has breast cancer, might be on a completely different set of drugs. They may have their treatments in a different order. Some women have chemotherapy after surgery, and some before. It depends on the type of cancer that they have, and on the stage it is at.

“It’s not ‘one size fits all.’ The treatment is now very much tailored to suit the woman. And, now that we know how the drugs work we cab pre-empt the side effects before they happen.

“But the really good thing, is that we now have such good communication,” she says. “Nurses work closely with the women, so they can describe how they are feeling, and get interventions when they need them; maybe a dermatologist, dietician or psychologist. Women can get all the support that they need.”

When Geraldine Jennings was diagnosed with a rare, and acute form of breast cancer, she was devastated.

“I had inflammatory breast cancer; there was pain, and a lot of swelling,” she says. “It was a terrible shock. I cried; then got drunk, then cried again.”

When she’d got over the shock, though, Geraldine became more positive.

“I thought, ‘at least it’s me, and not my children,’ she says. “The consultant at Beaumont said I had a large fibrous tumour. He said I’d need chemotherapy, surgery and radiotherapy. But he said, ‘you will live through this.’

“He said I’d have the chemotherapy first, and it would be a strong dose. But I knew it was going to save my life. I said ‘throw everything at me.’ I wanted to get on with it.”

Geraldine was diagnosed at the end of April 2007, and she started her chemotherapy on 4^th May.

“I remember walking in that first day,” she says. “I didn’t know what to expect, and there all these people sitting around. The room felt welcoming. It was as if I was the new girl in school. They knew how I felt. They had been there. There was nothing intimidating about it at all.”

Geraldine was prescribed FEC Chemotherapy- and it was given four times, three weeks apart.

“It was injected over an hour and a half, and the effects are immediate. But I felt ok afterwards. I went out to Chapter One restaurant, and on to the gate Theatre as planned.

“Those first weeks I continued to work,” she says. “I’m a business consultant, and I was working with a client. But I was gradually slowing down, and closing off accounts.”

After the second dose, Geraldine’s hair began to fall out.

“I’ve always been identified by my hair. It was long and luxurious. I wasn’t sure how I would feel about losing it. My children, who were then 22 and 21, came up for a hair cutting day. I didn’t want to find wads of hair in my bed. We opened some champagne, and they shaved it off. I was surprised. Being bald didn’t look too bad.

“My eyebrows and eyelashes thinned, but I never lost them completely. I tried to keep feminine, and I always wore make up. There was a ‘beauty day’ at Beaumont. They gave us makeup, and showed us how to pencil in our eyebrows and use blusher. That was fun, and very helpful.”

Although she sometimes felt nauseous, Geraldine never vomited. But she did feel unwell, and extremely tired.

“I was surprised by that. I am an active, positive woman, but I was floored. I kept hearing of people who worked right through chemotherapy. I had to remind myself that this was not a competition; and that everyone has a ‘different’ breast cancer, and different treatment.

“At the start I kept wondering why someone like Linda McCartney died. Why would she, as the richest, healthiest person die, if I was not going to? But I realised I knew nothing about her cancer, or what stage she’d been at. I only knew about me.

“I did a lot of reading, and the stats for my cancer weren’t too good. My breast care nurse told me that the drugs that were keeping me alive were not available five years ago.”

Geraldine didn’t lose her appetite; she didn’t get mouth ulcers either, but she did lose a certain amount of taste. And, at around fifty, she went into the menopause too; there’d been no sign of it before. For all this, she found the support of the team in Beaumont second to none.

“The nurses became my new best friends. I could ring them anytime. They told me that if I felt unwell I should always tell them. Because I shouldn’t. And If I did, they could modify the drugs.

“I was living alone for most of the time. My daughter had moved out, and my son was in college. I had to learn to ask for help. A couple of times I rang a friend and said, ‘I’m too tired to cook, and I’m just snacking all the time. Would you cook me dinner?’ And she did. People were so kind.

“The tiredness is accumulative. When it was bad, I’d set targets for myself. I had bad reflux, and needed to get to the chemist for an over the counter treatment. I knew I could ask a friend, but I thought, ‘I will just get out of bed. I will ring then if I need to.’ I got dressed, and finally did make it to the shops.”

The holistic care at Beaumont was second to none. Geraldine had psychological support, and says that that, too, helped to get her through. And she attended the Gary Kelly Cancer Support Centre.

“It was wonderful to meet all the women who had been through treatment and were going through it. They were all such strong amazing women. If someone was having a bad day they’d get a hug.

“We’d discuss things like ‘chemo brain.’ I once asked for a yoghurt maker in a computer store; another woman put her mobile into the fridge and put a pound of butter in her bag.”

After the chemo, Geraldine had a total left lateral mastectomy.

“They took a lot of lymph nodes as well,” she says. “It wasn’t pretty, but there are worse things. I may go for reconstruction eventually.”

Next was a course of radiotherapy; and after that, Geraldine had a second course of chemotherapy.

“I thought, ‘here we go again,’ but it wasn’t such a strong dose,” she says. “I didn’t feel as sick. I drove myself there and back, but it affected me in different ways. I had pins and needles, but it didn’t worry me. I was still able to sew and do embroidery; something I found essential for all the hours of waiting around.”

A year and a quarter on, it’s all become a memory.

“You do forget,” she says. “It’s like childbirth.” Work, in the recession, is difficult. But Geraldine keeps herself busy running a theatre group, and painting. “I’ve got hens now, and also two dogs. They keep me occupied,” she says.

“There are positive things about cancer. I never knew what love was. It’s being able to ring the niece and say, ‘bring over dinner.’ It’s the little things.”

Has she advice for anyone who is now going through chemotherapy?

“Ask questions. Get to know as much as you want to. Believe your doctors. And don’t compare yourself to anyone else.

“Once you are diagnosed you are in the safest hands. You are with a team and the support is wonderful. They know, exactly what you are going through. They understand you.”

FACT FILE.

• Breast cancer accounts for 28pc of all cancers in women in Ireland. 1726 women are diagnosed each year.
• The death rate is improving by 2pc each year. This is due to better treatment.

FOR MORE INFORMATION.

1800 30 90 40.

1800 200 700.

© Sue leonard. 2009.

Should teens holiday alone.

Sun, sea and teens let loose

They should be thinking about their studies but many students are already planning their post-exam breaks. Are they really ready for it? Sue Leonard speaks to one mother and daughter

Published in the Irish Independent.

By Sue Leonard

Monday September 21 2009

The post-Leaving Certificate holiday has become a rite of passage. Parents worry about it, but accept that once teens have left school, it's time for some independence. So, what if they fancy a pre-Leaving Cert holiday without you? Should you let them go?

"It depends on the teenager," says Lloyd Byrne, National Childline manager with the ISPCC.

"It's not so much the age, as the level of maturity.

"Some 16- and 17-year-olds are wise, and very mature; and some 18- and 19-year-olds may not be. It's about parents knowing their children and knowing where they are going."

It is harder to say no, he says, when they fund themselves.

We encourage our children to be responsible, to earn money and to make their own decisions, so if they save to go on holiday should we allow that?

"It's up to the parents. A lot of young people, abroad, drink and party to a level where their decision might be compromised, but that can happen on the streets of Dublin as well.

"It helps when children have confidence. If they are informed of the consequences of their actions, and are used to making decisions for themselves, they are more alert to the dangers out there."

The MUM Susan Clark

When Susan Clark's daughter Sophie (17), asked if she could go on a fifth-year holiday to Puerto Banus, Susan hesitated.

"She said that there were four of them getting an apartment together. I was reluctant to say no, especially as there were two mothers with other kids going to the complex.

"I rang one of the mothers. and she said that they were not going to be minding them. I understood that. But I decided to let Sophie go because I trust her. Over the years, I have said that I would expect my children to behave in a certain manner, and I hope they do. You hope the 17 years she had spent with us will count for something.

"Then, though, the plans changed. Two of the girls dropped out because their parents wouldn't let them go.

"I talked to one of those mums, and she asked me if I knew that boys were also going. I discussed it with my husband, Martin, and we decided we'd still let her go. There wasn't an apartment available but, through a friend, we found a hotel at half-board, a bit away from the main group.

"They were to take taxis, and they were to stick together and mind each other," says Susan.

"And she was to text us to say things were ok. I said to her: 'If you don't text, and from your own phone, I will be worried. And I don't want to worry because I want you to have a good time.'

"If Sophie had asked to go away at 16, I don't think I would have allowed her to go.

"I have five children. Sophie and her twin, Hannah, are my youngest. The other three never went away before they were 18. But when I was Sophie's age, I had done my Leaving Certificate and was at liberty. That influenced my decision."

Sophie has always been independent. She first went to the Gaeltacht at nine. She worked as an au-pair in Spain at 15 for a family she and her parents knew well; and at 16, she went to learn French in Biarritz. And she's at Wesley College as a boarder.

"I think being away from home does help their independence," says Susan. "I haven't packed a case for the girls for years.

"I am aware of the dangers though. When we drop their sisters at the airport, I've always said to the girls to just look around the airport. See all these lovely teenagers going off excited. Some may not come back. They may be murdered; fall off rocks, drown or be hit by scaffolding. I'd say that's your job to come back to us safe.

"I used to say don't drink, and they would reply but all our friends do. I said 'then change your friends' but realised I was wasting my time.

I explain that there is pressure to drink, because then, if there is trouble, the guilt is shared. And I stress that they must be careful not to get 'out of it'. They must take care to keep themselves safe.

"When Sophie was packing, I asked her if she was looking forward to it and she said: 'Oh mummy, I haven't been this excited since we went to Tunisia.' That would have been her first family holiday away.

"She was abroad for six days. Since she came home , she hasn't talked much about it. She was pleased to see us at the airport. That was a good sign. It seemed to go well. She enjoyed herself and came back safe.

"I haven't quizzed her about it. I assume she will tell me, but I don't expect her to tell me an more than I'd have told my parents. And would I want to know?"

The daughter

Sophie Clark

'One of my friends at school has an apartment in Puerto Banus. She said that a big group of us should go over. Mum seemed happy when there were going to be four of us in an apartment, but I expected an argument when two of the girls dropped out.

"Surprisingly there wasn't that much. She knew I was sensible, and she stressed what I should and should not be doing. She liked my friend, and said we should stick together. She trusted me that I would.

"Mum paid for my holiday, and my friend funded her own.

"We went from July 13 until July 20. It was just the two of us flying. We were so excited.

"I wouldn't let my dad come into the airport. We flew Aer Lingus, and we had to make our own way to the hotel.

"I'd researched that on the internet the night before. We couldn't find the shuttle bus, so we got a bus to Marbella, then a taxi to the hotel.

"The room had an entrance to the outside. We bought food and ate in there. It was basic, but nice. Everything was cheap there. We had a great time. We sunbathed during the day, and we met up with the others at night. There were nine other girls from school, and five boys. I was happy it was just the two of us.

"We'd get up at 11 or 12 after being out until around 5am. I got drunk, basically, every night. I didn't overdo it though.

"One night we got a random knock on the door. We thought it was the cleaning staff so we opened it, but it was this weirdo saying 'do you want to get some beer with us?' We shut the door. That was the only scary thing to happen to us.

"The best thing about the holiday was having the independence from our parents. That was really good.

"All the other girls had to stick together and be home at a certain time. We didn't have to stick with a group.

"Next year a group of us plan to work in Puerto Banus.

"Then we'll go on the Leaving Certificate holiday to Crete, or wherever the schools go."

Sue Leonard

Sebastian Faulks.

Sebastian Faulks

Interviewed by Sue Leonard.

Published in The Irish Examiner, October 11^th, 2009.

Sebastian Faulks has always wanted to write a book set in contemporary Britain. But in the past he’s had difficulty finding anything to say about it. That’s why he wrote his French Trilogy, including his first world war classic, Birdsong.

“France was a sort of liberation to me,” he tells me, when we meet on a Saturday morning before his appearance at the Dun Laoghaire Mountains to Sea Festival. “I could go there, and as soon as I got off the boat everything seemed to suggest to me stories and characters and things of weight and importance.”

His latest book, though, A Week in December is set entirely in London. It describes a time when the cracks were just starting to show in Britain’s boom. Chronicling the lives of seven major characters, their interweaving stories make for a complex plot.

“I started the novel in 2006; then I stopped to write the James Bond.” (At the request of the estate of the James Bond creator, Ian Fleming, Faulks wrote the 36^th Bond book, Devil May Care.) “When I returned to the novel last September, the banking world was falling apart. I realised then, that I could not make the novel bang up to date, so I anchored it in 2007, when financiers should have realised the game was up, but didn’t.

“It’s not quite the book I set out to write. I wanted to write a novel with strong themes, strong ideas and big characters set in the modern day; but I have ended up writing about the here and now. It is, essentially, the way we live now.”

The novel centres on Veals; a hedge fund manager whose life is dedicated, solely, to the acquisition of millions. He’s an obnoxious character who never smiles, and who can’t connect to his children.

“I wanted to write about the making of money for no purpose,” says Faulks.

Veals’s son, Finn, becomes a slave to skunk and reality TV; the tube driver Jenni spends her spare time playing an alternative reality game on her computer, and the student Hassan, buries his mind is Islamist theory.

“Most people in London live in a self enclosed bubble,” says Faulks. “They have earphones on their ears, they’re on their mobiles or their laptops.”

Faulks reread Dickens’s Bleak House and Our Mutual Friend before embarking on his novel. He was inspired by the way Dickens connected up the city, and used coincidence. And A Week in December does read a little like a modern day Dickens. It’s satirical, and is heavy on plot, and rather lacking in emotion.

“A lot of my books explore the emotions of people. Their hearts, and by extension mine, are laid bare. This book is much more from the head than the heart.” There is, though, one romance. The impoverished barrister Gabriel falls for Jenni. “I did go into their feelings. I think they provide emotional identification.”

Faulks has long been fascinated by psychiatric illness. He lectured on schizophrenia at a conference in Venice, and often touches on such issues in his writing. In A Week in December he explores the connection between smoking genetically modified cannabis and psychiatric problems, and gives the lawyer, Gabriel, a schizophrenic brother. Where did this interest come from?

“I knew people when I was a child,” he says. “At my prep school the cleverest, nicest, most talented boy had a schizophrenic breakdown at 18. I’ve known several others. I felt sorry for these people, but also realised they were going through extreme experiences, at the outer limits of what humans can go through. And my interest, in all my books is ‘what are we made of, and what are we like.’”

His last mainstream novel chronicled the life of a man with a personality disorder. An extraordinary achievement, Engleby was particularly fascinating to me, because I knew Faulks in childhood. His father was our family solicitor, and I knew enough about Sebastian’s life to realise that it ran in direct parallel to his eponymous antihero’s.

Both were born in Newbury, Berkshire in 1953. Both won scholarships to Wellington College, and both went to Cambridge University before editing the literary pages of a new broadsheet. Did he set out to invert his own life?

“Not at all,” he says. “I woke up one morning and heard Mike Engleby in my head. It just began, ‘I am in second year at an ancient university.’ He went on and I thought, ‘this is good.’ I went to work and wrote down what I could remember, and once I had written the half page, I thought, ‘this isn’t how I write books.’ But I had nothing else on, so I just tuned in every morning, and ‘yes, it was coming.’

“I had never been able, before, to write in the first person, but now I was doing so with confidence. I thought, ‘there is nothing of me in this character, but his life is parallel.’ I thought, ‘I might as well make it more parallel.’ It was a game really. It was kind of fun.”

In his new book, Faulks pokes fun at London’s literary scene. The malicious reviewer Tranter provides comedy, but all the characters are defined by their reading habits, or lack thereof. Does it annoy Faulks when people claim that they never read fiction?

“It annoys me when they describe fiction as an escape from life. In my view it engages with life.

“People never put into words their inner lives, and what is most important to them minute by minute. And when you read a book that expresses something close to what you have thought, but dramatises it in a different way or set of circumstances, it is exhilarating. You feel connected to humanity. If people don’t read, I wonder how they know what to think, how they know who they are, and how they understand other people. If the characters in A Week in December read more books they would be better off. That is the moral of the story.

A Week in December by Sebastian Faulks is published by Hutchinson at 15.99 euro.

© Sue Leonard 2009.

John Banville.

John Banville.

Interviewed by Sue Leonard.

Published by The Irish Examiner on 5^th September 2009.

My interview with John Banville started with a spat. Batting away my praise for his new book, the Infinities, he insisted that, like all his work, the novel is flawed. That includes his Booker prize winner, The Sea. And no, he didn’t enjoy writing his latest; especially not the humour which had appeared by a happy accident.

“No it was not interesting to write,” he said, taking a sip of the port he’d ordered to ease the lingering symptoms of his flu- man variety- not swine. “To do it at all you have to crank yourself up every morning and think about the awful stuff you did yesterday, and how can you compensate for that by doing better today? You have to sink down into yourself, down and down into everything in order to get anything done.”

At a recent crime writer’s festival in Harrogate, Banville caused controversy by saying that as John Banville he writes 200 words a day; but as crime writer Benjamin Black he churns out 2,000.

“I don’t know why people got so fussed about that,” he mutters. “It is simply a different way of working.” Does he get irritated when his words are picked on? “Not really. I am too old to get irritated.”

Banville likes to write the kind of books that he wants to read. But there’s a problem.

“The only person who can’t read my books is me. That is the difficulty of doing interviews. The book is something I did last year, and all I am interested in is next year. That’s when I’ll write the great masterpiece which is going to wow the world; to make them stand back in total amazement.” He laughs. “I know in my heart that the next one will be another botched job, but you have to keep going.”

The Infinities was intended to be a novel based faithfully on Heinrich Von Kleist’s play Amphitrion.

“Kleist’s great ambition was to blend Shakespearean burlesque with Greek drama and in Amphitrion he certainly does that. It’s a painful play about a General whose identity is stolen by the God Zeus. That was my starting point. I kept the skeleton, but fiction always goes in its own direction.”

The Infinities shows Banville at his very best. His prose, as always, is impeccable. But it’s his playfulness, his weirdly compelling characters, and the way he conveys with such delicacy, the atmosphere in a house waiting for death that got me hooked. Who could not enjoy seeing God portrayed as a randy adulterer; or appreciate the hypothesis of humans being spared the tedium of eternal life.

“More and more writing feels like dreaming to me,” says Banville. “I can’t remember inventing those characters. I can’t remember how they came to me, or how they evolved. I don’t know why the daughter is called Petra. But it suits her. She could never have been called Mary, could she?”

Indeed not. Petra, the troubled daughter of the house, is far too exotic for any ordinary name.

“Petra is nice, isn’t she,” he muses, softening. “I think the saddest thing about Petra, is where the God says, ‘she will be with us soon because we love her.’ She can’t live, poor Petra, she is going to destroy herself. That is so sad.”

Born in 1945, in Wexford, a county that has produced such extraordinary writers that there, surely, must be something in the water, Banville worked for Aer Lingus instead of going to college.

“I think that was a great mistake,” he says. “I should have gone. I regret not taking that four years of getting drunk and falling in love. But I wanted to get away from my family. I wanted to be free.”

Banville has always written.

“I wrote poetry, of course. Everyone did,” he says. “And after I’d read The Dubliners, and was struck at the way Joyce wrote about real life, I immediately started writing bad imitations of The Dubliners. It seemed necessary, from early on, to sift experience through the mesh of words before it would become real to me.”

He worked as a journalist for years; starting as a sub-editor for the Irish Press, where he became Chief Sub Editor, and then, on the Press’s demise in 1995, moving to The Irish Times where he ended up as Literary Editor. As a writer, wouldn’t he have preferred reporting?

“I couldn’t have done reporting,” he says with alarm. “When reporters came back with 400 words on the burning down of an apartment I’d think, ‘how do they do it?’ I would have been stuck on the third sentence for hours.”

Does he miss journalism, now that Benjamin Black has replaced the Irish Times in subsidising his ‘real’ writing?

“I miss office life. I miss that strange erotic intimacy you have not just with women but with men. You tell your most intimate secrets to the person sitting at the desk next to you, and when you meet them in the street you avoid their eye. I miss that.”

Is he proud of Benjamin Black?

“Very proud. As proud as a craftsman would be of a beautifully made table. I see him as an Eileen Grey. He is driven by plot, character and dialogue. I’m an artist as John Banville. I’m trying to blend poetry and fiction to some new form and that is very difficult to do. I always try to write about the way life actually is and not the way we imagine it is. Life is awkward and messy and trivial. One has to try and portray that.”

Banville is relaxed now. He’s moving his head from side to side in happy contemplation. And when we get on to Rex, the dog who narrates a section of The Infinities, any residue reserve dissolves. Rex was based on Banville’s favourite Labrador. My favourite died suddenly, just weeks ago.

“You poor thing,” he says, putting his hand on my knee. “My best dog died in 1980. I still miss him. I still dream about him.”

The Infinities by john Banville is published by Pan Macmillan at 13.99 euro.

© Sue Leonard. 2009.