New veterans' memorial aims to bring suicide 'out of the shadows'
Veterans from Huddersfield were among hundreds of bikers who descended on the National Memorial Arboretum to mark the opening of the UK’s first memorial to service personnel who have ended their own lives.
The Elysium Memorial – also known as The Weary Hero – aims to bring issues of suicide “out of the shadows”.
The memorial, crafted with stone from a quarry in Leyburn, North Yorkshire, is designed as a peaceful place where friends and families can meet and share memories.
Tommy’s Riders, veterans who attend the Tommy’s Lounge café on Railway Street in Huddersfield town centre, were among those who attended the opening of the memorial at the Arboretum, which is set in 150 acres of parkland near Lichfield. Government figures show that between 1996 and 2018, 1,086 veterans sadly took their own lives. The Elysium Memorial Foundation, the charity behind the memorial, is run by a group of dedicated volunteers.
Chairman of trustees, Sgt Ed Mackenzie, who has served for more than 30 years in the British Army, has been on 14 operational tours and has lost several armed forces friends to suicide.
He said: “My vision to build this memorial is that we have a place where family and friends can reflect on how their loved ones lived rather than how they died and to bring the issues of suicide out of the shadows so we can help to prevent it happening in the first place.
“It’s a place where friends and families have a place to go, meet and share memories. Every life lost is a terrible human tragedy with a ripple effect that has a huge and long-lasting impact on so many other lives among the veterans’ families and friends.”
Lance Cpl Andy Francis died by suicide in May 2021. The 30-year-old had served two gruelling tours in Afghanistan in 2009 and again in 2011/2012 with the 2nd Battalion the Rifles and witnessed terrible sights during some of the deadliest fighting of the war.
He was the 11th veteran from this infantry battalion to die by suicide.
His mum, Sharon Garton, of Mansfield in Nottinghamshire, said: “A death by suicide should be regarded the same as a death in action as both are the direct result of war and more veterans have now died by suicide than they did during the actual conflict.
"Andy had been diagnosed with PTSD and suffered terribly with flashbacks and memories of his time in Afghanistan which would simply not go away.
“He had just qualified as an overhead linesman on electricity pylons, had a four-year-old daughter and was about to propose to his girlfriend when he died in his caravan while on a work site in Scotland. He had everything going for him yet the mental pain and suffering would not go away and must have simply overwhelmed him. When his work colleagues found him he was wrapped in his regimental flag.’’