As Alistair Crisp took his usual walk through Quinton one summer evening, his mind was on the litter creeping into the bramble like bad underpainting.”I am leading a bit of a clean streets campaign at the moment, to make sure things look nice,” the 29-year-old says of the area he has lived in for four years. “I try to do my bit.”
Those thoughts vanished when Crisp crossed the Quinton Expressway back on himself. “I walked across the bridge, that’s fine. There’s a scout group going on underneath.” But when he turned back to head home, he was confronted by the sight of a person in distress. A man hovered by the bridge, looking over the edge. Crisp quickly realised he needed to do something.
“I approached him to see if he was okay. It was difficult to get much out of him at the time,” Crisp says. Thankfully, having undergone mental health training while previously working as a teacher, Crisp “used some of the basic skills that I know to keep someone talking — active listening to make sure that I’m being empathetic.” He was able to stay with the man while other residents called the police. Another person helped keep a conversation going. “I probably wouldn't have been able to keep him talking as long as I did without that other person helping.”
After the police arrived and took over, Crisp called his wife. “She was getting my daughter to bed. I said: ‘I’m sorry, I’ve been out a while, and I’ll probably be home late’.” Crisp tells me he was well looked after by his wife, who is also trained in mental health, once he finally got home. “She knew how to help me, and that was good for being able to process the situation. That makes a big difference to people. Not everyone has that.”
Quinton was once a parish of Halesowen — culturally Black Country — before being incorporated into Birmingham in 1909. It’s one reason why, even today, the suburb feels disjointed. Another is that between 1967 and 1970, the M5 motorway and its smaller brother, the Quinton Expressway, carved the ward up. Birmingham city council’s own website describes the roads as a “great gash” and proudly states the sound of house building was replaced by the “roar of motorway traffic!”.
Quinton is like many towns within the Birmingham area, says Crisp, who now works as a transport planner. Poor urban planning and the dispersal of mental health services as a result of austerity cuts have made it much harder for local residents to access mental health care.
This story is for paying subscribers of The Dispatch. If you want to be more informed about your city, and entertained by good old-fashioned storytelling in the process, sign up for a full membership now. You get four editions a week and right now, it's just £2 a week.
In return, you'll get access to our entire back catalogue of members-only journalism, receive all our editions and exclusive news briefings, and be able to come along to our fantastic members' events. Just click that green button below. Sign up below to support local journalism.
There is also the issue of infrastructure. The bridge where the incident took place lacks higher railings, CCTV, and appropriate signage. These issues have been raised locally before; Crisp is not the first person to intervene to help a person in distress there. In late May, a middle-aged man died after falling from the bridge. Underneath the announcement of his death on social media, well wishes for the deceased litter the comments. "Love you," reads one, signed "Uncle Paddy".
In the late afternoon, a week after the incident on the bridge, I am sat with Crisp and local councillor Sam Forsyth in the city centre, just outside of The Exchange in Centenary Square. “My first thought was: ‘Oh no, not again’. It's happened there before. We've had incidents, and then worry about the person that was involved," says Forsyth. At her feet is a suitcase packed with a wig and a gown — by day, Forsyth works as a criminal law barrister.
