Roland Humphries 1980 to 2003

The first half of the year was full of the ups and downs of being a drug addict, with its consequent effects on Roland’s family, and also of confiding in his mother about his problems and his shame at his behaviour. Eventually he and Bron began to phone and see each other again, though only as friends.

In the summer he started to seem a little happier and told Rose that he hadn’t thought he would ever be able to feel happy again; he was becoming fond of a girl called Jess although they weren’t having a relationship.

Roland now wanted to sort out the mess he’d drifted back into and do something with his life. He had two attempts at stopping the heroin by just staying at home, asking his parents to look after him and help him do it, but it didn’t work. He knew he’d have to get away from Bromsgrove.

He applied for and was interviewed for an Access course at Coleg Harlech, thinking he could be on a methadone programme while studying there. His interviewer said he would love to accept him, but not until he’d been clean of drugs for 18 months – the rules had just changed. This was sickening news and he phoned Rose as he walked back to Harlech station, telling her he was walking along the railway line and hoped a train would run him over. He made it back to Bromsgrove and immediately went to get more heroin to deal with the rejection.

In the middle of September the Community Drugs Team put Roland on a waiting list for a methadone programme. It would mean waiting at least 6 weeks during which he had to show that he was decreasing his use of heroin. He desperately wanted to get off the drug and was feeling more and more tortured. Roland said he knew Jeremy must be very disappointed in the way he’d turned out and he wanted him to know how sorry he was.

The weeks slowly passed, a deeply anxious and stressful time for him and his family for many different reasons stemming from the drug habit, which only those involved with drugs or a drug addict could really understand. Roland even talked about suicide once or twice, to the distress of his parents, saying they should be happy for him if he died, knowing that he would be free from his pain.

There was also much optimism when he’d talk positively about ‘not long to go now’ before he would get on the methadone and finish with heroin, and things he would like to do or places he would like to go to once he’d sorted himself out. He was now wondering about applying for Pershore College again - he would like to work with nature, especially trees. He sent Jonathan a chatty and amusing email, as he’d been out of touch with him for a while even though they were very fond of each other, and he had a long phone conversation with Jacob, and he was planning to visit Jess (who was now also away at university) in November. On 23 October Roland unusually sat at the kitchen table for a conversational and relaxed evening meal with Rose and Jeremy.

On the afternoon of 24 October somebody phoned wanting to speak to Roland and then he unexpectedly went out; Rose and Jeremy were not to know that their son would never return.

They were woken at around 3 am by police coming to say that Roland had been found dead in a house in Bromsgrove – the house of the person who had phoned him earlier.

 When the post arrived some hours later it contained a letter addressed to Roland, giving an assessment appointment for the methadone treatment.

The coroner’s report concluded that death was caused by heroin and alcohol; there was not enough of either of them alone to have caused Roland’s death, but the action of both together can cause suppression of breathing.

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