photograph – Anne Whitehead

Sounding the Angel can now be accessed in full here. In a series of four blog posts, I introduce each of the four sections of the sound work. Today’s post discusses the third part of the work, ‘Spring’. You can listen to this section here. In this instalment, I focus on the participants’ experience of returning to The Angel after they had placed the memorial tribute there. I ask: What is the ongoing relation to the place?

Our first participant returned to The Angel one or two weeks later, to see what – if anything – remained of the tribute. On this occasion, the weather was fine and the site was busy, with bus trips and a group of people in the memorial garden. He had chosen the same time of the week to go back, and the man who had been there on the first occasion was out walking his dog again. As our participant expected, there was no trace left of his memorial tribute, and he took a photograph of the place where it had been. He found comfort in the knowledge that his wife would have approved, as well as in the idea of The Angel becoming her guardian.

Our second participant returned to the site with her mother and brother, and they hung tributes in the tree together. Whenever she speaks to her mother of visiting the tree, her mother always asks what is left from when they visited last. After her friend died of cancer, our participant commemorated her alongside her brother, as they had shared the same birthday. Her more recent tributes were not ribbons but flowers, in the colours of football teams where appropriate, because they ‘just . . . go back into the earth’. She has also left a five-pointed willow star, and five little brass bells, because five is a number with particular familial significance. The participant’s ritual at The Angel has changed over time, so that she now takes a little picnic and the playlist that she compiled for her friend when she was sick. On each visit, she takes photographs of the tree and shares them with her family and friends, reflecting that it is particularly important to her that those who live so far away know that her loved ones are still important to her. She has pinned the tree in her maps, and she describes it as having many lines of connection that radiate out across the world.

While our first participant saw the tribute as a singular event and our second participant described it as an evolving ritual, for both of them the act of returning to – and photographing – the site was both important and meaningful. The act was seen to be significant in terms of the approval of others – whether of the deceased, or of family members far away. The timing of the return to the memorial was also carefully considered, whether this was in terms of the time of the week or for the commemoration of a birthday.

This section of the sound piece incorporates birdsong from the trees at the memorial site. The field recordings are more lively and vibrant than in the winter months, with the chatter of visitors and the sounds of children playing audible alongside the traffic and the vibrations resonating through The Angel.

Yesterday, I went to see the North East Speak Their Name Suicide Memorial Quilt, which is currently being exhibited at Newcastle Cathedral. The Speak Their Name movement originated in Manchester and the first memorial quilt was made during the pandemic. The North East project was led by Tracey Beadle of the charity Quinn’s Retreat and Suzanne Howes, both of whom have lost children to suicide.

The quilt is made up of three panels with 120 squares in total. Working with suicide bereavement groups across Tyne and Wear, Teesside and County Durham, the project provided a supportive community for those bereaved by suicide to remember their loved ones by making their own square. Looking at the panels, it was evident how much care had gone into the design and making of each square, and they spoke powerfully to the lasting impact of suicide loss.

Some of the squares used photographs of loved ones to make portraits of them as they are remembered now. Kelly’s aunt used a photograph of her niece to create a cyanotype on the fabric, capturing the lovely young woman that she was.

Dyllon’s mother used a photograph of her son that was on his laptop and that he himself had drawn. Tracing over the image, she sewed in details to celebrate her son’s artistic nature and love of Goth.

Other squares focused on the person’s passions. Paul was remembered by his aunt through a nurse’s uniform and stethoscope, representing his ambition to be a nurse and his commitment to his studies through a life-threatening illness. The square also celebrates the qualities of compassion and care that drew Paul to nursing as a profession, and that characterised him as a person.

Samuel’s brother shared his passion for football and they often went to see Crystal Palace together. He used the shirt that his brother wore to the games to make his square, and sewed onto it his name and the age he was when he died. Samuel had worn the shirt to the FA Cup Final in 2018.

A number of the squares had quotations embroidered onto them. Graham’s son wrote onto his square the words of a song that his Dad used to sing to him every evening when he went to bed.

Mark’s son remembered the Moomins book that his Dad had given him, and which became a firm favourite. He embroidered onto his square an image and a quote from the book.

Naomi’s best friend turned to the poetry she has read as a source of comfort and connection since her death, and her chosen quotation from Emily Dickinson was a poem that she felt Naomi would have loved.

Graham’s daughter-in-law also looked to where she had found comfort and solace since his death. Her square represents Lochranza Castle on the Isle of Arran, where she and her husband had felt a strong connection with Graham through the beauty of nature. Sand gathered from Lochranza beach has been attached to the square to form the shape of Arran, together with a magpie to represent Graham’s love of Newcastle United.

These are only a few of the squares sewn into the panels; each of them gives a vivid and intimate portrait of a person who is loved and who was lost to suicide. The inscribing of the names speaks a loss that is socially difficult to communicate and often silenced. The squares also speak eloquently of creativity and community, balancing grief with hope.

The quilt will be on display in Newcastle Cathedral until 27 March 2024.