Aintree is doing Rose Paterson proud

On Grand National Day at Aintree this Saturday, the Rose Paterson Trust will be launched. This time last year, Rose was the chairman of Aintree, and had to cancel the meeting because of Covid. In June, she took her own life. The purpose of the trust is to help prevent such events. Owen, her widower, is very frank. He believes that: ‘If Rose had been aware of the utter catastrophe she has wrought — the first victim being herself — she would not have done it.’ The worst is that it cannot be undone. It is a wound that time can do frighteningly little to heal. He says it is wrong to think of suicide only as something committed by obviously lonely and depressed people. The urge can come upon people like Rose — beautiful, loved, admired, fulfilled in work, friendship and family, yet prey to terrible anxiety. This can act like ‘a heart attack to the brain’, and suicide, especially when encouraged by sinister how-to websites, can present itself as the answer.