Dad who tried to take his own life is creating The Field of 4,300 Lights to raise suicide awareness

A Liverpool dad-of-two is creating The Field of 4,300 Lights – one for each man lost to suicide in England each year – to help raise awareness of men’s mental health.

Joe Jones came up with the idea while he was receiving treatment after attempting to take his own life last year.

The 34-year-old now wants to use what he went through to help others.

“This project exists because I came close to becoming one of those numbers myself,” he says.

“The Field of 4,300 Lights is my way of turning that experience into something that may stop another family from receiving that call. It’s about visibility, honesty, and reminding men, before crisis becomes final, that they are not weak for struggling, and they are not alone.”

Joe was inspired to create the large-scale light installation after seeing something similar in Australia.

He explains: “They have around 2,000 male suicide deaths each year in Australia and I saw a video where they put a shoe out for each person in a field. It spanned the whole field and it was so powerful.

“That’s when I thought, I’d love to do something like that, something that has that kind of impact, and really makes people think.

“You could tell people that an estimated 4,300 men are lost to suicide in England each year, but seeing all those lights really gets the message across and brings it home.

“Each light symbolises a life a son, a dad, a brother, with the aim of creating a moment that stops people, opens conversations, and visibly reinforces that support exists before crisis becomes final.”

Joe, who has a partner and two young children, aged one and six, says he would never have believed he would ever find himself considering ending his own life.

“You think ‘I’d never do that’ but until you’re in that mindset no one will ever understand how desperate you are.

“I was getting no sleep at all, having nightmares and panic attacks. You’re not in control of your own mind and your own emotions, so in your head you normalise it. You tell yourself it’ll be fine, that everyone will be alright without you, and that’s the dangerous part.

“All I wanted was peace in my mind and taking my life was the option I thought would bring me that.”

Joe, from north Liverpool, says surviving an attempt in October last year changed how he saw men’s mental health.

“It showed me how easily pain hides behind competence, humour, and strength, and how dangerous silence can become when men feel they must carry everything alone.

“I also saw the impact this has on families, partners, children, parents, who are left trying to understand what they never saw coming.”

Joe is currently finalising a location for The Field of 4,300 Lights, but has teamed up with men’s suicide prevention charity Andy’s Man Club who’ll be one of the recipients of the project’s fundraising.

He hopes Liverpool will be the first of many places around the country to host the installation, helping to spread the message of support so people who need it know exactly where to turn.

“The help is out there and even now, I’ve got that, but it’s so underfunded. So that’s the aim, to raise as much money as I can so I can give it to Andy’s Man Club and other charities like Alfie’s Squad which supports kids who are bereaved after their parents commit suicide.

“The project will be firmly rooted in Liverpool and then hopefully we can bring everyone together and get more and more people involved to make this as big as we can.”

As founder of Your Light Matters UK, a Liverpool-based mental health and suicide awareness initiative, Joe is also planning a wider awareness campaign across billboards and social media, and he’s designed hoodies and tops with a symbolic lotus flower logo to help raise money for the charities.

“I’m in a massively in a better place now myself, everyone says they can see how happy and positive I am, and I feel more in control now,” he adds.

“I’ve always liked helping people, I’m a big softie, and people have always told me I’d be good at caring so I think this is my time to do that.”