Steven Whitbrook, 1977 to 1998

18 February 2003 ~ 13:27

I remember my dad taking us out to a local social club while my mum was in labour, and when he rang the hospital from the club's payphone and told us she'd had a boy, we literally danced round and round with joy at having a brother at last!

It was strange that when I was 18, in my last year at school and taking A levels, Steven was just starting school. In those days I suppose mum would have been considered an 'older' mother at 36. Now it's practically de rigeur to wait until your thirties to have kids. But Steven certainly didn't mind.

He was a bright kid, very handsome and into computers in a big way. He did well in his studies as he grew up and gained nine O levels, mainly grade A.

In the sixth form, he took to skiving off school (bunking) and mum would see him driving around town in civilian clothes when he'd left that morning in his school uniform. He'd then come home in the uniform as if he'd been to school. His head of year would phone mum and tell her Steven hadn't been attending his maths lessons. They even threatened her that he might have to take his A level exams as an external student and therefore pay.

I think maybe, looking back, Steven went off the rails a little when he split up from his first serious girlfriend, Sunny, who he went out with for a couple of years from the age of about 16. I don't think he ever quite got over her.

Because he only got a grade C for his A level maths, and his first choice of University (Imperial College, where Mark and I work) wanted a grade B, Steven had to accept a place at Birmingham University to study Artificial Intelligence. These two Unis were the only colleges in England that did such a course.

He started smoking at university and, from what he told mum one night, sometimes took drugs. Mum didn't see much of him, but he had to take a year out to work and pay off debts he had accumulated so she had him home again for a while.

The last time I saw Steven was at my wedding. He came down to London with mum for it and seemed to be fine, smiling for the photographs and enjoying a fag (that's a cigarette, for all you snickering Americans) with some of our smoking friends�he even got a bit drunk. I spoke to him at mum's the next morning and he said he'd enjoyed the wedding. He went back to Birmingham the following day.

Two months later mum had two police officers call on her. Steven had been found dead in his rented room in Birmingham. It was believed he may have been there for up to two weeks. He had hanged himself at age 21.

Of course, we were all devastated. We knew he had suffered from depression before and taken medication for it, but we'd had no idea he felt so desperate. It transpired from books he'd read and, from talking to his friends at his funeral, that he'd been a big believer in alternative plains and dimensions. Had he tried to escape the torture he felt was life for one of these other existances?

The inquest found a verdict that he'd taken his own life (they did not use the word 'suicide' once; maybe they don't nowadays.) We'll never quite know why�he left no note. About two years later his one-time best friend Damien also hung himself from a bridge in Grantham.

God Rest you, Steven.


Stored nuts | Future acorns