UK Beachy Head Eastbourne

Beachy Head is a beautiful cliff in Eastbourne, with a history full of tragedy. It is a notorious suicide hotspot with as many as 20 suicides a year and hundreds in its history. There are many people working in nearby pubs and driving local taxis who patrol the area, watching for potential jumpers so they can try to stop them from jumping off the cliff. One very sad tale is of a young family involved in a car crash that killed one of their children and left the other child paralysed before his death from meningitis. The parents made a suicide pact to jump off the cliff with him in their arms. 

But this is just one tale out of hundreds; another young man sent a text saying ‘I love you, Mum’ before plummeting to his death. One local man describes how he has picked up over 250 bodies from the bottom of Beachy Head. We arrived at the cliff before the sun came up; it was bitterly cold and my fingers were frozen. I stood at the edge of the cliff and felt sadness at those who felt their lives were not worth living any more and had jumped. It was a chilling moment and as I packed up my equipment and made my way back to the warm car, I was thankful for my life.