Brenda Davies has been through more than most parents could ever imagine. After burying her eldest son Nathan, aged 36, who took his own life in March she will now organise the funeral of her middle son Danny, 30, who is thought to have taken his own life last week.
Allowing me into her cosy home on a quiet street in Abergavenny, where she is doing this interview to warn people of what she believes is a serious threat to young people in rural Wales, she is remarkably controlled with her thoughts and calm in the message she would like to send. “My sons died as a result of an increasing drug problem in our society,” she said. “There is no way in a million years my boys would have done what they did if they had not been under the influence of drugs.”
She is needlessly apologetic about the way she is about to speak. “I am doing this because I don’t want another family to go through what we are going through,” she explained. “It’s happening too much.
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“I have to be controlled with it, it’s how I deal with things. I couldn’t grieve Nathan because I was worried about Danny.
“I think people are shocked when they see me like this - collected. But I am saying to them: ‘You’ll have to excuse me because I have to be matter of fact when I speak about them.’ That’s because if I start talking with compassion I wouldn’t stop crying.”
Both men were fathers to young children; Nathan’s son Cole is 11 while Danny’s daughter Ottilie (Ottie) is just two. Nathan, a keen hiker who was at his most relaxed on a mountain, was one exam away from entering the army and had been busy growing a removal business when he was found hanged on the steps of the local bus station in the early hours of March 2. Danny, who was in his element in the boxing ring and was a skilled stonemason, was found by girlfriend Chloe hanged yards away from her home in nearby Clydach on the morning of June 8.
Sitting in an armchair in the corner of Brenda’s comfy lounge where pictures of Nathan and Danny cover the walls among ornamental messages of family and love, I am struck by how far removed she is from someone who could stereotypically find themselves in this position.
“I know, you’re not the first person to say that to me,” she says with resignation in her expression. “I’ve heard it before. People often pointed out that the boys were clean, well dressed and clearly well looked after.”
Chloe, who is sat beside us with Ottilie running around her with a blissful ignorance about what has happened to her father, grew up in the same circle of friends as Danny and they got together five years ago. “They were both popular boys,” she said, remembering Danny and Nathan in their younger years. “They’d always have the latest clothes and games, and when you went around to Brenda’s there would always be a spread on.”
So why, when they came from a foundation of love and support, did things go so terribly wrong? Brenda has a simple response. “It’s a common denominator in both of their deaths that they took drugs on those nights - cocaine and possibly other drugs." She continues to emphasise that in her opinion neither of her sons suffered mental health issues, but drink sometimes left them vulnerable.
“Nathan and Danny were very different. Nathan would go out and have a few pints and come home, and then he’d suffer for it. But Danny thought he was indestructible.”
Nathan took his life after going out the night before, but Brenda said she would “never have expected it in a million years”. “Nathan always knew when he’d had enough and he’d go home,” she said. “When they turned up and told me about Nathan I was just in disbelief. It’s the worst thing a mother can ever be told. How do you get over something like that?
“I know Nathan in his right mind wouldn’t have done what he did because he was such a private person. He’d have done it where no-one could see him, but he was in public next to a children’s playground.”
While charity 2Wish - which supports those grieving the loss of a loved one after suicide - reached out after Nathan’s death, Brenda said Danny was reluctant to accept the help. “The charity has been amazing and I know they’ve been a great help to two of Nathan’s friends,” she said.
“But Danny would just keep saying he was solid and he’ll keep on going. That’s what he kept saying: ‘We’ve just got to keep going mum and keep working at it.’ That’s what Danny was like.”
Chloe said: “After Nathan died Danny did come off the drink and he started working more, went boxing and fishing in the evenings. He was living better. But you could see his mind was doing one hundred miles an hour, and yet he wouldn’t speak much.”
Organised by their close community, fireworks were set off in Danny’s memory beside the River Usk - attended by more than one hundred people in the town last week, and a fundraiser to help with funeral costs has gained more than £4,000 in a few days, which you can see here. “I had to do something,” Chloe said. “People came out in their droves and were just amazing. All the fireworks were donated, a lady drove down from Brynmawr to give us balloons, and Ottie has been given so many gifts. We are so thankful for the response.”
Chloe has also made a huge memory board for Danny which Brenda talks me through with pride. What does she recall of their childhoods? “They were good kids,” she responded after a lengthy pause for thought. “They were a handful, definitely, but they were good people and they adored their family.”
Chloe said: “Danny was always a very clever person and good at practical things which came naturally to him. His favourite thing was showing his work off.”
As Brenda now begins to prepare to say her final goodbye to a second son in a matter of weeks alongside her daughter Kirsty and youngest son Ainsley, she wants to share what has happened to her family to inform others of the dangers of recreational drugs.
She said: “It might seem fun at the time, and you might well feel it will never happen to you and it will never kill you. That’s how everyone thinks. But it’s not all a bit of a laugh, it’s not. It comes with consequences.”
