Calls to the service from suicidal children increased by 14 per cent last year, according to a new report. More than 1,000 youngsters contacted the charity to talk about killing themselves and 1,500 more mentioned suicide during the course of other discussions.
ChildLine is calling on the Department of Health to set up an in-depth investigation into the rising rate of suicide and attempted suicide among young people.Esther Rantzen, the president of ChildLine, said: “All young death is agonising, but suicide is among the cruellest of all because it is preventable. The ChildLine children’s charity has warned of a sharp rise in the number of young people who phone its helpline saying they are contemplating suicide. But in a village of 3,000 residents, the social club still has 520 members.* Annesley, NottinghamshireThe old colliery is derelict, still strewn with orange overalls, boxes of receipts and glass from the canteen where the cricketer Harold Larwood, right, once supped tea.* Ellington, NorthumberlandThe last 18 workers left the site in November last year when the colliery closed, marked by a march past the gates with brass band accompaniment. The village sells itself to tourists as the home of the last deep mine in the Northumberland coalfield.Additional reporting by Deborah Linton.

The fate of four pit towns * Orgreave, South YorkshireSite of a battle between police and miners during the 1984 strike. Developers plan to build a leisure resort on the site, including the largest theatre outside the West End, an extreme sports centre, a spa, exhibition centre and golf range, and homes for 8,000 people* Cortonwood, South YorkshireThe cricketer Johnny Wardle, of Yorkshire and England, was a collier at the village pit Now the village doesn’t even have a team. UK Coal has announced it is to withdraw its annual £80,000 sponsorship for the colliery band. “We’ll never recover that sum from one sponsor so it’s going to be a battle to secure a number of sponsors who can help us towards the sum,” said Alex Vodden, a local councillor and one of the band’s trustees Herman says he will do whatever he can. “I think it touched a nerve with Weinstein, because it is quite a heart-warming story.”Herman will also be asked to help Grimethorpe through yet another financial setback which it could well do without. This means it will take its place in the national finals at the Albert Hall, where Herman’s cast, including Pete Postlethwaite, Ewan McGregor and Tara Fitzgerald, recreated the village’s 1980 triumph.In Bradford tonight, Herman will reflect on how his film nearly did not get off the ground.

Channel 4 agreed to provide half of the money, but the other half came from an unlikely source: Harvey Weinstein’s Miramax studio. “Nobody in England wanted to do a film about suicidal trumpet players,” he said. The band has 12-month advance bookings and has just won the northern brass band championships for the second year in a row. The only civic recognition of the pit is the recently erected memorial to the 154 men who perished between 1894 and its closure, 99 years later.Neither is there any indication of the colliery band’s continued success in the years since the film. Even the local Kwik Save supermarket is to close following the company’s sell-out to Somerfield. The grim facts of commercial life here are that just 37 per cent of Grimethorpe’s adult population is economically active, the average household income is £8,000 compared with a national average of £20,000, nearly 46 per cent of locals are on housing benefit and 33 per cent are unemployed.The Grimethorpe Regeneration Executive, based in the village’s old National Coal Board offices, has been too busy trying to stem the flow of economically active adults to create the inevitable Brassed Off heritage trail, which might also include the band’s rehearsal rooms. “Then, years later, I just happened to drive through there again,” he said.