I hadn’t planned
the day well and dusk had fallen when I arrived at the church outside Wigan.
I rushed into the cemetery blindly thinking it wouldn’t be long before I
couldn’t read the headstones. Old graves from a hundred years around seemed to
be the only ones around me. A man walking dogs pointed to the far end at the rear
of the churchyard and said the more recent graves were down there. No street
lamps down there - not good. My torch was low on battery power.
Sadly
most of the graves were all similar: shiny, black, modern. Normally I can walk
along the grass and read three rows of graves simultaneously but it was too
dark. I had to read one row at a time. Dusk had given over to darkness by the
time I found the grave I wanted and here stood by the end of a sad story.
The
chap here is Terry Newton who was an English international rugby league player
in the 1990s and 2000s. I’m not sporty but I can remember reading about this
demise in the newspaper. This 15 stone 10 lbs played for Leeds, Wigan, Bradford
and Wakefield Trinity and was such a brilliant player he was one of rare few
players to feature in each of the first 15 seasons of Super League.
On
24th November 2009 a drugs test proved he’d been injecting himself with
performance-enhancing drugs. On 22nd February 2010 the UK
Anti-Doping Agency banned him from playing professionally for two years. He was
one of the first sportsmen to have tested positive and the International
Olympics Committee hoped this would be a fierce warning to all athletes hoping
to compete in the London 2012 Games. At the time Terry had a 2-year contract
with Wakefield Trinity but had played just two games.
Since
the ban he’d run a local pub and not long before his death had hosted an
end-of-season bash for the Salford players. Those who knew him well said he was
full of remorse for being banned. One Sunday - seven months after the ban - he
was found hanging in his loft. In the garage, hidden behind a toolbox, were the
syringes and drugs that had sent him on the road to ruin, hidden from his wife
and young children.
He’d
left several notes saying he wanted to die. On his Facebook
page in the early hours of the morning he’d typed "Luv
U all but it's end time".
The
coroner recorded an open verdict. Though reports showed signs of the steroid nandrolone, cocaine, amphetamine, anti-depressants and alcohol
she concluded that none of the drugs alone was a direct factor in the cause of
death but their combination may have lowered his mood. There were several
recent cuts to both his wrists but they were deemed relatively superficial.
He’s
buried with his sister Leanne who died of pneumonia following addiction to
heroin. Terry was holding her hand as she died.
A
man was visiting a nearby grave. My camera flashed automatically in the dark
and he looked round as if to say, “What the hell do you think you doing!” so I waited for him to leave. Afterwards I
sat in the car and had a coffee before heading home. You have to feel for the
parents and kids left behind. What a sorry tale. The vicar was just locking up
the gates of the church and I felt like asking him why God invented drugs? He
looked like he was rushing home to watch Bake Off or The Dukes Of
Hazard so I didn’t both engaging him in conversation.
The house where
life ended…
Still
looking….glad this building shed some light (had to brighten this photo)…