I was taken aback to read tonight of the apparent suicide of Catherine Hurd, wife of Douglas Hurd’s son Tom.
The Hurds and Murrays lived in adjoining identical semi-detached houses while we worked together in the British Embassy in Warsaw – we were both First Secretaries in the Embassy. Frankly, the Hurds were not very interested in people outside their own social milieu. But Catherine had her first child while they lived next door, and seemed an extremely devoted mother. They now have five children of which the youngest must still be very young. I cannot understand the circumstances and causes of this tragedy. For a mother of young children, living a life without the slightest problem in providing for them, to kill herself seems very strange indeed. I feel very sorry for the children.
Very sad, especial with children involved.
Yes sad.
Her widower was/is a member of MI6 according to Aangirfan’s blog.
http://aangirfan.blogspot.com/2011/05/mysterious-death-of-catherine-hurd.html
His name is on this list
Thomas Robert Benedict Hurd: 95 Warsaw; dob 1964.
{http://www.mathaba.net/data/sis/mi6-list.shtml}
“I cannot understand the circumstances and causes of this tragedy.”
.
Yes, I think that is often the way when it comes to someone taking their own life. We, that is anyone who is not the person committing suicide, most often cannot understand why that person did it.
We get it. You’ve come to a conclusion here, and now you’re looking for (non-evidenced-based) claims to back up your conclusion.
Clinical depression (assuming that was the case) has nothing to do with how well your life is going. You can on paper have a fantastic life but still be plagued by depression.
People who take their own lives in mysterious circumstances are likely either to suffer from a mental disorder which sadly causes them to do so or are killed by another party.
My brother is a psychiatric nurse and whenever I talked to him about the subject, the less I understood it. As you say Tristan what goes on in someones mind sometimes has nothing to do with the outside world. I just copied this “MRI scans of patients with depression have revealed a number of differences in brain structure compared to those who are not depressed.” Suppose we all should be thinking “there but for the grace of …”. Mental illness still carries a stygma in that people should “just pull themselves together” we don’t think like that about people with cancer. I would have hoped this thread would not become another conspiracy thread but guess it will. 🙁
Dear dear Sianie…. My wonderful, and oldest friend. You are godmum to my Jack and I am godmum to your Seb. We’ve known each other since we were 5 and went to the same schools all the way through. Oh my darling Sianie – what a huge huge loss. The papers are all saying suicide, but I know you wouldn’t have done that. You loved your children too much, you were coming home. What happened? How did you fall? What a tragic tragic accident. I miss you. Your family miss you. Your friends miss you. We love you. God be with you as he will be with your little guys. Rest in peace xx
Aly,
I was scratching my head over Catherine, but as all the papers have it, I was thinking my remembering her as Sian must be a memory failure. I am sorry for your loss.
Yes, very sad. A mother of five children, two in the UK who she missed so much. Her husband Thomas was a contemporary of agent Cameron, having been at Oxford/Eton at the same time.
–
It’s unusual for someone to decide to slam the door on life without leaving a few hints and warnings first. She was (according to [cough] The Mail) about to move back to the UK in a week – thus solving the apparent cause of her depression, missing her children. She couldn’t wait a week, and preferred to die violently instead? Most unladylike, on several grounds. Any possible reason why she might have been ‘suicided’ ? (For the Aaranobitch lapdogs around here, ‘suiciding’ does actually take place, official accounts notwithstanding, every bit as much as ‘fitting up’ an undesirable takes place.)
“The Hurds and Murrays lived in adjoining identical semi-detached houses while we worked together in the British Embassy in Warsaw – we were both First Secretaries in the Embassy”
.
First secretaries eh? – the standard MI6 station rank – with shhhh – the subterfuge only applicable to one of you of course – Hint Google ‘list of MI6 officers’
.
It is indeed a tragedy of immense proportions.
.
But, of course her husband’s occupation must be considered entirely irrelevant to the matter, with even Craig Murray, super-dissident, playing the game.
.
Of one thing we can be absolutely certain – viz, any possible connection with the world of secret intelligence must and will be entirely ruled out – if spoken about at all by our esteemed MSM. It will be educational to watch the way in which it is accomplished because, in similar fashion to a good few other mysterious ‘suicides’, ‘accidents’ and other such premature deaths, one way or another accomplished it most certainly will be.
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/10/fools_believe_i/#comments
Heh JOn – I object to being called an “Aaronbitch lapdog”; I prefer “Aaronovitch reader, once in a while”. Glenn’s statement is worthy of censorship, under your standards. So I expect you to strike away.
Not unlikely she got to know the ‘strategies’ for decapitation, division, destruction. shredding of human flesh and colonization (the latest being Libya) and grew to hate the evil of it all.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-13514788
.
Nato planes have launched a series of air attacks on Libya’s capital Tripoli, with correspondents saying they may be the largest so far of the campaign.
.
Between 12 and 20 explosions were reported in the early hours of Tuesday.
.
Libyan government spokesman Moussa Ibrahim said three people were killed and 150 wounded in the strikes.
Mary,
she seemed quite a gentle and rather “New Age” person, at least in the 1990’s when I knew her. I recall she once showed me some crystals she had placed in her home for some spiritual benefit they radiated. What I remember about it is being flabbergasted by the amount of money she had spent on them – hundreds of pounds, which was a lot of money back then. I thought somebody saw her coming. She struck me – and I did not know her well – as divorced from realityboth in terms of believing in silly stuff like that, and in being completely insulated from the money worries that afflict most people. I give the crystals example just as an illustration of those traits.
Mary, stay on topic. Was this woman’s death part of a conspiracy?
“Mary, stay on topic.”
The husband of the dead woman is a senior, serving intelligence officer specialising in North Africa and the Middle East. To any objective observer those are very relevant considerations. Mary is therefore rather more ‘on-topic’ than her critic.
Thanks for that wikispooks.
I will leave the direction of the comments on this topic on the blog in the capable hands of Larry from St Louis aka Yugo Stiglitz.
Glenn:
When a friend of mine killed himself several years ago people who were a lot closer than me said they saw nothing coming. He was just about to start Uni as a mature student and by all accounts everything was on the up. Next thing we hear he was dead :-(. As you say it maybe unusually but by no means unheard of.
Murray – your commenters are dutifully providing you with conspiracy fodder, yet they’re not presenting rational arguments, and certainly not any evidence. Let’s give them another day.
The vagaries of this comments system are confusing – ‘reply’ seems to have vanished, also posting time – and how DOES one implement an avatar/icon for ease of identity? Anyway:
Apropos Craig’s reply to my first comment above: Please accept my apologies for the somewhat ascerbic tone of the comment; it’s a reflex thing with me and doesn’t win friends I know – but I’m too old and long in the tooth to change I’m afraid – a sort of ‘grumpy old man syndrome’.
Also, the (my) handles ‘Sabretache’ and ‘Wikispooks’ are synonymous when it comes to comments on Craig’s blog – or anywhere else for that matter. Unlike some, I’m not trying to confuse with multiple personas (Cass Sunstein Style). It’s just that the difficulties of coping with evolving blog comment authorisation/identity systems whilst linking to the appropriate website have resulted in this sort of dual identity – that’s all.
I was thinking about another death recorded as suicide, that of Timothy Hanpton, the UN nuclear physicist in 2009.
.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1224377/British-nuclear-experts-17th-floor-UN-death-plunge-suicide.html
.
Craig wrote about it too {http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2009/11/nothing_to_see/}
.
Was there ever an inquest in this country? He was a UK citizen and one should have been held. Can’t find any links subsequent to the original report.
‘I was thinking about another death recorded as suicide, that of Timothy Hanpton, the UN nuclear physicist in 2009.’ – Mary
And whilst we’re on the subject nothing ever heard again on:
Gareth Williams – GCHQ secondee wound up in holdall in Pimlico.
Maria DiBiase – another apparent suicide from UN (this time 19th floor)
“Frankly, the Hurds were not very interested in people outside their own social milieu…”
Isn’t that more or less a definition of “social milieu”?
I am sorry, it was a tortuous euphemism. In the circumstances, I didn’t want to say “appalling snobs”.
Wonderful to read Mary at full stretch. Emotion has a peculiar way of breaking through walls of silence.
@ Numberstation
Don’t forget whistleblower Dr.David Kelly. Contrary to most of the evidence we are told that he apparently committed suicide.
I have no knowledge of what went on in this poor womans mind BUT I do know what goes on in mine.
To others I know I seem a happy, quiet guy who made enough money to retire @ 48 – 2 cars, 2 houses- the veneer? happy, laughing, always a joke but deep inside I feel a complete and utter failure, so utterly lonely and alone I sometimes scream in pain.
No one knows what goes inside your head!
Sorry Ttommy. I know exactly, being bipolar myself. Though in my case it doesusually take something specifically unpleasant to trigger serious depression, whereas the manic phases are less obviously triggered.
Ttommy & Craig
–
I admit I don’t fully understand depression and listen to yours and others admissions. One such realization of depression I listened to was that of David Hart Dyke the unfortunate captain of HMS Coventry which sank in the Falklands Sound, bombed by two low flying Skyhawks. David knew his ship, deployed to the North of West Falkland, was there ‘to draw enemy fire towards us’ and away from the landing zone of San Carlos Water; his ship deliberately risked or indeed sacrificed for a ‘greater cause…’
–
What followed was a long period of acute depression from a profound feeling of guilt and an acute sense of failure, yes, ‘something specifically unpleasant.’
–
It was the ships company, the ‘family’ of HMS Coventry, young men that ‘went out of their way’ to restore David’s spirits.
–
So it is here, more than just a place to express ourselves; we are really a family fighting for justice with the power of reason, intuition, truth, insight, intent and compassion. Our minds are under attack in a dangerous and deceptive world, but together we are strong and strong seeds produce many flowers whose sweet scent draws many more towards us and within us.
Mark I have just been reading the wiki page on HMS Coventry. It really was a sitting duck. Nineteen crew died and thirty were injured in the explosions which sank her. No awards for bravery were awarded to any member of the crew. Yet the old witch Thatcher still lives on. Does she ever have nightmares? Probably not.
Its captain, David Hart Dyke, is the father of the comedienne Miranda Hart. I read that he was badly burned. She was ten at the time and at that age must have been greatly affected by the family tragedy. They do say that comics are always hiding a sadness.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miranda_Hart She is very top drawer. A veritable Burke’s Peerage, Debretts or whatever.
Like the Murrays we served in Jordan with the Hurds and followed them to Warsaw later too. Sian, as we knew her, was a wonderful person, kind, creative and a great and devoted mother. That she would do such a tragic thing (if indeed she did) is testament to how very ill she must have been. We have nothing but happy memories of the family, they were most certainly not snobby, nor is anyone working at the foreign office with five children rich, no matter who your father may be. Rest in peace lovely wonderful Sian – my memories of you are drinking odd blue cocktails at your 40th in Jerusalem, wandering the souk in Damascus with a huge floppy hat and deep in bracken on a cliff in Dorset when we were both evacuated from Jordan laughing laughing laughing.
Thanks Mary – a little secret shhh!-
–
David sent a signal to Admiral Woodward arguing that Coventry should, ‘operate much further to the west of Jason Island’ – where Coventry *could engage low flying Argentinian aircraft* –
–
He was ignored and remained, ‘a sitting duck’…
Ho utterly dreadful. Poor woman. And one cannot imagine how her husband and children must be feeling. Of course, everything else we write here will be speculative. One thing I’ve learned over the years is that there are no real rules with suicide. In general, men tend to kill themselves in florid ways – hanging, leaping off bridges/buildings, etc. – while women tend to take overdoses, but there are many, many who do not follow these statistics. Two school girls jumped off the Erskine Bridge near Glasgow a couple of years agon and I know of many men who have taken overdoses. Often, with ‘serious’ attempts (as opposed to ‘cries for help’; these are terribly serious too of course, but with these the person doesn’t intend actually to kill themsleves, though tragically the mortality rate from these parasuicides, as they’re called, and attempted suicide actually are about the same), there will be no inkling that a person is going to do it. I often meet people whose relative has committed suicide out of the blue and no-one saw it coming. In other cases, there may be a history of depression, drinking, etc. but the act itself was unpredictable. Not always, of course. Generally-speaking, while parasuicide is an attempt to gain maximum attention (a cry for help), suicide is a secretive act at the time – though not secretive after the event, of course. There is often no note, etc. I have no idea what might have happened to this woman. Her husband’s possible profession seems to raise suspicions of foul play, but remember that the spouses/relatives of SIS officers would probably not have any lower suicide rates than the general population (one would have thought). Falling off a roof, or out of a window, though, seems redolent of (?Russian) Mafia hits and so on. Speculation, as I say. I am suspicious (because I always am) but I just don’t know. No doubt we’ll start heaing backstories of depression now.