94 ·^ COSMOPOLITAN
Today that sign is gone, the old bus
station bulldozed away. But still the
sentiment of the message remains. It’s
here, on the high street that creeps up
on you like the cold winter; a place
where there’s no noise or commotion,
but instead sun-faded paint peels off
vacant shopfronts. It’s here, where the
canopies of unused market stalls flick
in the wind, and locals rattle around in
a street far too big for them to fill. At
one end, a funeral home; at the other,
past betting shops and recruitment
agencies, a job centre and a bingo hall.
You may not have heard of Corby. It’s
a town in the East Midlands, home to
around 62,000 people. Its most famous
export is – or was – steel. But its
industrial prowess is a thing of the past
and now it’s famous for something
else entirely. Last year Corby became
known as “the suicide capital of the
UK”, a place where the suicide rate
has climbed significantly higher than
the national average.* That moniker
quickly took flight in the press and
online. And then, just like that, it was
gone. The flash of exposure dissipated
as quickly as it had formed. But what
about the town that was left behind?
As I step off the 3.47pm train into
Corby, I ask myself, how did we let
the situation here get so bleak? And
what, if anything, can we learn from it?
Years ago, someone
scrawled a message in
searing red spray paint
on the walls of the old
Corby bus station. It read,
‘Welcome to hell.’
Tia’s eyes focus
pointedly on
the far corner
of the room, her
hands leading the
pace of her story
as she tells me
about the times
where, standing
in her kitchen,
she would peer
down the length
of her torso and think of the ways in
which she could destroy herself. “I’d
be cooking dinner and I’d think, ‘Just
do it, get it over and done with.’ I knew
how I wanted to, but I think fear
stopped me. My thoughts were so
loud. It was constant.” There’s a certain
familiarity to Tia’s telling of this story.
For her, sitting here in a counsellor’s
office – clutching cups of too-strong
tea interrupted only by the far-off
sound of traffic – is like déjà vu. Now
35, she has suffered from anxiety and
depression since she was 16. This is her
second time returning to counselling,
and she doesn’t think it’ll be her last.
“I felt like I couldn’t tell anyone
I had mental health issues; that there’d
be someone waiting to take my job.
Because of the mass unemployment in
this area, you always have that fear, so
you go back to work before you’reready and you just get worse. It’s
a never-ending cycle,” she shrugs.
“About eight months in, my body
simply took over. I began having panic
attacks. I got temporary paralysis; I
couldn’t get out of bed. I kept falling
in and out of consciousness. I’d wake
up fearful, then pass out and not know
I’d been sleeping. It was terrifying.”
Tia is happy-looking, with manicured
nails and red lipstick. She’s a flight
attendant: ambitious and articulate.
In a society that is only just learning
to open up, she is exactly the kind of
person whose mental health problems
are met with confusion, and questions
like “But you don’t look depressed?”BROKEN PROMISES
On the outskirts of Corby there used
to be a large, decrepit grey sign reading
WonderWorld Theme Park. The sign