Kelly Jean Van Dyke

Kelly Jean Van Dyke - who was born on June 5th, 1958, in Danville, Illinois, U.S.A. - was an American actress and adult film performer.  From an acting family, she was the daughter of Jerry Van Dyke and his first wife, Carol Johnson; the niece of Dick Van Dyke; and the first cousin once removed of Shane Van Dyke.  As a child actress in the 1960s, Van Dyke appeared in the television series My Mother The Car and Accidental Family.  Under the stage name Nancee Kelly, she later emerged as a star of various pornographic movies.  She married Jeffrey Archer in 1981, before divorcing, and then wedded the actor Jack Nance in May of 1991.  In an unpublished magazine interview from 1990, Van Dyke claimed she was raped by her father Jerry Van Dyke from the age of 12, and that he would bring over his actor friends, Robert Mitchum and Martin Landau, to join in the fun.  She claimed that she began taking sleeping pills at that time to numb the pain, and that she had been addicted to some kind of drug ever since.  It was reported that - on November 17th, 1991 - Van Dyke was expressing suicidal thoughts whilst talking on the phone to her husband.  Unfortunately, a lightning storm knocked out the telephone lines in Bass Lake.  Her husband called the police, who broke into her Los Angeles apartment forty-five minutes later, only to find that Kelly Van Dyke had hanged herself.  She was just 33 years old.

Elias Owen

Elias Owen - who was born in the first quarter of 1863, in Llanllechid near Bangor in north-west Wales - was a Welsh amateur footballer, who made three appearances for the Wales national team in 1884.  Ellis was one of thirteen children, and his elder brother, William Pierce Owen, and his cousins, Morgan Owen and Hugh Morgan-Owen, also played for Wales.  After grammar school, Owen studied theology at Lampeter College.  At Ruthin Grammar School, Owen was initially a half-back, before becoming a goalkeeper in 1882 when the regular 'keeper was unavailable for a match between Denbighshire and Liverpool F.A.  Impressing in this game, Owen was selected to play as a goalkeeper for Wales in the inaugural Home Championship match against Ireland on February 9th, 1884; Wales won this game 6-0, with Owen's brother William scoring two goals.  Owen played in Wales's following two games - a 0-4 loss to England, and a 1-4 defeat to Scotland - before being dropped from the team.  On September 19th, 1888, Owen returned to the family home at Efenechtyd.  The next morning, September 20th, he was discovered by his two sisters, Mary and Maggie, hanging from a tree in the churchyard.  Although he was still alive on being found, he died shortly after being cut down. Official reports say he was depressed over the results of his final examinations, although family sources claim he was depressed because his wife was having an affair.  Elias Owen was just 25 years old.

Zoe Tynan

Zoe Tynan - who was born on May 20th, 1998, in Mossley Hill, Liverpool, England - was an English footballer.  As a schoolgirl, Tynan excelled at rounders and cross-country running, as well as football.  Later concentrating on soccer, she was selected to represent England at under-15, under-17, and under-19 levels.  As a Youth player, she represented Liverpool Feds, Everton, and Manchester City, before signing for Manchester City's academy in 2015.  She was given her first-team debut when she played all 90 minutes of an F.A. Women's Cup quarter-final against Sporting Club Albion on April 3rd, 2016.  Though she wouldn't play any further games for Manchester City, her performance drew the attention of Fylde Ladies of the F.A. Women's Premier League.  Signing for Fylde, she played two games for them in 2016.  On August 30th, 2016, Tynan spoke to her sister, Beth, at the family home - saying she loved her, and that "everything would be okay" - before leaving at about 3.40 p.m.  At 4.09 p.m., she sent a text message to a friend, suggesting she was intending to end her own life.  C.C.T.V. cameras captured her "calmly" climbing down onto the railway tracks at West Allerton station at about 4.15 p.m., whereupon she was soon struck by a train travelling from Birmingham New Street to Liverpool Lime Street.  Paramedics pronounced her dead at the scene, and coroner Anita Bhardwaj later recorded a verdict of suicide.  Tynan had achieved good 'A'-level results, and hoped to become a professional footballer.  She was just 18 years old.  After her death, the Zoe Tynan's Spirit of Running award was set up in Liverpool to recognise similar children who lead others by example and encouragement; whilst her first football team, Liverpool Feds - whom she had joined as a six-year-old - created the Zoe Tynan Tournament for under-10 and under-12 7-a-side teams.  This tournament has been held each year since 2017 in her honour, played on May 20th to coincide with the date of her birth.

Martyn Rogers

Martyn Rogers - who was born on January 26th, 1960, in Nottingham, England - was an English association-football player.  After an outstanding record as a schoolboy, Rogers signed as a trainee for Manchester United in May, 1976, and as a professional in January, 1977.  He made his debut for United, at the age of 17, standing in for Arthur Albiston at left-back, on October 22nd, 1977, in a 0-4 away defeat at West Bromwich Albion.  This was to be Rogers's only first-team game for the club, and he was sold to Queen's Park Rangers - then managed by former United manager, Tommy Docherty - for £7,500 in July of 1979.  Rogers's career at Q.P.R. was equally short-lived, as he only made two first-team appearances, in the last two games of the 1979-80 season, both of which were won.  In May of 1981, he was given a free transfer to Australian club Sydney Olympic.  In five years at Sydney, Rogers helped the club win the Australian NSL Cup twice, in 1983 and 1985, before returning to England.  On Saturday, February 29th, 1992, Rogers made two phone calls: one to his mother, whom he told he was in Singapore; and one to a female friend, whom he told he was in Australia.  Later that same day, Rogers's lifeless body was found in a hire-car in a car-park in Ringwood, Hampshire, after he had fed the exhaust fumes through the window of his vehicle.  He had committed suicide at the age of 32.  Coincidentally, that same month, another Manchester United player of around the same age, Alan Davies, had killed himself in similar circumstances.

Pete Shaughnessy

Peter Anthony Shaughnessy - who was born on September 14th, 1962, in South London, England - was a British mental-health activist and the founder of the Reclaim Bedlam and Mad Pride organisations.  After studying drama at college, he worked in a children's home and as a carer for the disabled, before becoming a bus driver in London.  In April, 1992, Shaughnessy was struck on the head with an iron bar after coming to the aid of a bus conductor who was being assaulted.  Shortly thereafter, he went on a hunger strike outside his bus garage in protest at privatisation of the service.  By the end of the year, he was hospitalised, after being diagnosed with manic depression.  Shaughnessy's depressive tendencies were further exacerbated when his sister was murdered by her boyfriend in Brixton, and he was then sectioned after hitting a policeman.  In 1997, Shaughnessy organised a Reclaim Bedlam campaign, initially to protest against anniversary celebrations of the Bethlem Hospital, thinking that the many unhappy experiences of 'Bedlam' patients warranted commemoration rather than celebration.  In 1999, he founded Mad Pride, campaigning for greater understanding of the 'mentally ill'.  During 2000, they helped, with punk-style campaigns and humour, to prevent several unpleasant changes to the Mental Health Act.  On December 15th, 2002, Shaughnessy committed suicide by stepping in front of a train at Battersea Park Railway Station in London.  On Christmas Eve that year, more than three-hundred people packed into St. Thomas More Church in East Dulwich for his funeral service.  Pete Shaughnessy was just 40 years old.