Family and friends will line up with thousands of others for the Leeds MoRun 10k to pay tribute to a teenager who took her own life. Charles and Lindsey Hall told Martin Paul about their sadly missed daughter.A GRIEF-STRICKEN family are to complete their daughter’s charity challenge while struggling to cope with a double tragedy.
Charles and Lindsey Hall, along with son Cameron, were left devastated when their daughter Sophie took her own life on Sunday, June 26, just five weeks after her uncle Martin had also ended his life.
The 19-year-old had planned to take part in the Leeds MoRun 10k later this month to raise cash for the Men’s Mental Health charity in memory of her uncle.
Now the family, who own the Rokeby Inn, on the A66, along with staff and friends, will be taking her place in the challenge on November 19. The family has raised already almost £7,000 through a host of events, which will be split between Young Minds and Men’s Mental Health.
The Halls described their daughter as a happy and bubbly workaholic, who would do anything to help others.
Her dad said: “She was so precious to us. She was a real people person. [Customers] would be welcomed with a big smile, and ‘hello, how are you, nice to see you’.”
The former Darlington Queen Elizabeth Sixth Form College student was studying towards a bio-medical degree at Leeds University.
Mr Hall said: “She was extremely bright – she could have gone to every university she asked for. Kings College in London accepted her, she was that bright.”
His wife added: “Before lockdown she wanted to do law, that was her dream job. Then lockdown came and she saw how it affected everybody, and she decided she wanted to develop medicine to help people.
“She was brilliant at history and English, and she said, ‘right, to do a bio-medical degree to help people I need science at A level’. She never had an interest in it, but that’s what she did because that is what she needed to get into that course.”
While at university she worked part time at Bill’s Restaurant, in Leeds, and after each shift she would visit the nearby Sainsbury’s to buy biscuits.
Mrs Hall said: “There was a homeless man who knew Sophie because every shift she worked she would go and buy him something.
“Everyone gets [homeless people] a meal deal with a hot drink or a fizzy pop, but they can graze on a packet of biscuits through the night.”
When home from university she would help out at the pub that has been in the family for the past 57 years. Mr Hall said: “She used to help from I think when she was about three-years-old, helping me take money from customers, stood on a bar stool at the till. Then she would be outside cutting the grass for me in the summer months, with her headphones on.
“She was a workaholic, she was always working and educating herself. She was always busy, but sadly the demons got to her.
“A lot of our customers never knew what she was going through, it was just us. If a customer came in, she just smiled and was so polite and bubbly, but we knew there were issues and she was having problems.”
The family were able to secure an appointment to assess their daughter’s mental health, which happened on the day of her uncle’s funeral.
Mrs Hall said: “She actually said, ‘Mum I’m feeling really good today, I don’t want to go to the meeting’, but I said, ‘I think you should go, even if it is to tell them you are feeling good, because they are trained and they can see through that’.”
The family also got her a puppy to help her cope with her problems, which she named Stanley Winston Hall.
After the assessment Sophie was prescribed a course of treatment, but it didn’t arrive until the day after she died.
Her mum said: “Someone once said to me there is a place for all good people in heaven, and when you get to the stage where you are the kind of person God wants, he will invite you over and that’s why the good die young.
“[After her death] we went to the church and we prayed, ‘Someone please look after this beautiful young girl. She will be shy and she will be timid, but when she settles in, she will be an asset to everyone up there’.
“And when we came back home there was a perfect rainbow, and another rainbow above it, and that was our sign that someone was going to look after her.”
Sophie was laid to rest during a service at St Michaels and All Angels Church, in Barningham, on July 20. Mr Hall said: “I always wanted to walk my daughter down the aisle to give her away and I always wanted to be a granddad. But I never will and that breaks my heart.”
Her mother has since started a blog, ourangelsophie.com, about coping with the unimaginable loss of a loved one, to promote awareness about suicide and the family has embarked on a number of fundraising events.
Last weekend, a Stitch For Sophie day was held at the Rokeby Inn for people who love to knit, crochet or sew, and included a large raffle.
Mrs Hall said: “For this one we were knitting hats and scarves which will be donated directly to homeless people. We are going to have a meeting and we are going to come up with more ideas to raise awareness and to raise funds for charities that need it.”
People who wish to support the family’s fundraising effort can visit gofundme.com/f/our-angel-sophie-10k-challenge.
l Anyone affected by the issues in this article can contact the Samaritans on 116 213 for free.
