Sudden deaths rock Consett

The quiet community of Consett Bay, St John, is in mourning after the death of two of its residents, just days apart.Last Wednesday, 39-year-old Ricky Boyce, who was described by his wife Joyce and mother Theresa Blackman as kind and very gentle, reportedly suffered an asthma attack while he was visiting a friend in the district. He later died.His death might have prompted the suicide of an elderly woman who lived just a stone’s throw away from him.Reports are that Leola Bancroft was at home the Saturday after the passing of Boyce and she drank some poisonous substance. Bancroft died at the Queen Elizabeth Hospital the following Sunday morning.According to Boyce’s cousin, Sarah-leen Cumberbatch-Knight, who is also the next door neighbour of Bancroft, the elderly woman was very “personal”. She recalled what happened that Saturday afternoon.“The lady at the house across the street went out to do some shopping. So when she came back in she told me she saw Leola at the front door breathing very heavily. She said Leola turn to her and told her that ‘the boy just died so’. She came and knocked on my bedroom and asked me to go and see what is wrong with Leola. So when I went I saw her sweating a lot and when I touched her body it was cold but she was still breathing . . . “I got sort of scared, so I started shaking her until I got a response. When I got the response from her she look at me and called my name. I say to her, ‘What happen?’ And she turn to me and tell me she now poison herself and I should call the police. I was so frighten I ran past my home and the rest of neighbours’ home.“She told one of her sons that she would soon be following Ricky. So I asked him why he didn’t acknowledge it. I feel she did have a lot of stress because a lot of mornings she used to just come to me and start crying. I would say to her: ‘Talk to me’ and she would just cry,” said the 44-year-old.“I still look to see her raking her yard and hollering for me,” she added.As she tried to remember her last conversation with her cousin, Cumberbatch-Knight said the last time she spoke to Ricky was exactly one week before he died. A grief-stricken Joyce said she was not coping too well with the passing of her husband and she was not eating as she should. She remembered her husband preparing to attend the graduation of their 11-year-old daughter.According to Theresa, “It is sad that I had to lose my child so.”The grieving mother said Ricky used to provide for her and he would help her around the house since she was injured in an incident involving a police officer some time ago.“Even [on Tuesday] I couldn’t do anything at all. I saw Ricky the morning before he died because he went up the road here and somebody asked him if he not going fishing and he said, ‘. . . I don’t owe the devil, so I not going fishing’. Those are the last words I heard my child spoke,” she said. The Consett Bay fisherfolk described their colleague as very quiet, mannerly and hard-working.Ricky Boyce also leaves three children to mourn.