“Where are you going this weekend? ” asked my journalist friend, a German. I said I was heading down to Swansea in south Wales for a conference.
“Swansea?” he replied, slightly incredulous. “I heard there was a beach there, so I went with my family and some young guys just drove motorcycles up and down the sand the whole time. Swansea – interesting place. Take care at the beach.”
His words were ringing in my ears on Friday evening as I walked back to my hotel along the promenade above the beach, with Swansea Bay stretched out beyond. There were teenage boys hanging around, but none on motorbikes. It didn’t seem so bad.
I stopped to read a brass memorial plate on a bench.
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“That’s Josh,” said a man wearing a flat cap, sitting on the next bench. “If I want to sit on his one, I just say: ‘Josh, do you mind if I sit here with you for a while?’ Other times I sit with Frank – just up there.”
The man in the cap was called Raymond. He was in his 60s. He said he had worked all his life as a sandblaster, including in Ireland. He was friendly.
His face had the weathered look of a man who had possibly spent too many years thinking while looking into the bottom of a glass. Now, it seemed, he thought while looking out to sea in the company of souls on benches. I shook his hand and walked back to my hotel.
That evening I googled Josh – Josh Hobbins, who died at the age of 23 in 2014, according to his bench memorial plaque: “It will never be the same without you, our precious boy.”
According to newspaper reports, Hobbins lost his life in a traffic accident on the M4. It was the same young man mentioned on the bench – same name, same age, same date of death. He was a mechanical engineering graduate who had recently done a masters.
His grief-stricken parents released a statement when he died, lamenting that his “life was all mapped out for him” but he was taken in a “cruel, tragic accident.”
I found that Swansea Council runs a “donate or adopt a bench” scheme for people to remember loved ones. You can pay for a new bench to be installed by public authorities in a park or thoroughfare with a memorial plaque for a loved one. Existing benches can also be “adopted” for a fee. Swansea promenade, which stretches from Swansea to Mumbles, was a prime location.
I was back on the promenade at sunrise, mapping out the benches. One had relatively fresh flowers tied to it. The plaque was for Matthew Olyott, who died in 2021 aged 36. His birthday was the previous Sunday, hence the flowers.
I discovered afterwards that he was a father of three and a season-ticket holder at Swansea City football club. A couple of days after he died, the club put out a picture on social media of a Swansea jersey covering his seat: “Once a Jack, always a Jack.”
Some inscriptions were in the wood of the benches, and not on plaques. I found “Frank” with whom Raymond sometimes sat, but most of the words had worn away.
I found “Irish Tommy” – Thomas McManus – who died in 2011 aged 47. His inscription said he was a “true gentleman”. Further along was a bench dedicated to boxer Cliff Curvis, a former “British and Empire welterweight champion” in the 1940s and 50s.
Many benches were dedicated to older local couples: “Den and Betty Skelton – they loved it here.” I found one for Gwenllian Hansel, who died just five months shy of her 100th birthday. The inscription in Welsh read: “Nos da cariad.” Goodnight love.
Local man Tomo Hopkins died in 2016 aged 26. Afterwards, his friends organised a charity cycle in his honour, according to an online fund raising page. They donated the cash to a leukaemia charity.
The stories behind some benches were tinged with devastation. At the end of the promenade, near Secret Bar, was a plaque for Nyah James. She was just 14 when she died eight years ago.
A report from a coroner’s hearing described how her mother found her in bed. The coroner said she died from an overdose of prescription drugs – her intentions were not known.
Two years later, her mother spoke to news outlet Wales Online, mentioning the bench: “It’s not the same life any more, something is missing. You feel like you’ve been transported to another world, where everything is exactly the same but something is not right.”
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I found other benches commemorating people who, it appeared, had taken their own lives, according to online tributes. Young soldiers, middle-aged men, fathers. Nearby was a bench dedicated to the Samaritans.
By now, the morning sun was high in the sky and I had read the plaques of every bench in sight. Locals were out jogging and cycling along the promenade. Others were sitting on the benches, looking out to the sea.
My journalist friend had been right – Swansea was an interesting place. Unlike him, I liked the beach and promenade. It was peaceful. So I also sat for a while.
Samaritans can be contacted 24 hours a day, seven days a week, on the freephone helpline number 116 123 or email jo@samaritans.ie.
