What country has the world’s highest suicide rate? Could it be a place with a repressive regime that doesn’t allow free expression of one’s creative powers or one’s sexual orientation? Or perhaps somewhere wracked by wars, diseases and hunger? I can think of quite a few places that would fit the bill here: maybe North Korea, Iran, Afghanistan…

No none of them. It’s instead a country with fully democratic institutions, an excellent health system and substantial subsidies to prevent anyone from going hungry.

That country is Greenland with over one person in every thousand ending their own lives. That places it well above the next country with the highest suicide rate, South Korea in which only (!) one person in every four thousand commits suicide.

Indeed, suicide is a significant public health issue in Greenland. Posters that warn about suicide are even more common there than those that warn about smoking.

What is the most usual method used for ending one’s life in Greenland? It’s by using firearms, due to the widespread availability and cultural prevalence of guns, particularly for hunting purposes. Other methods, such as hanging and drowning, are also reported but are less common compared to firearms.

Why does Greenland have the world’s highest suicide rate? It’s been attributed to various factors, including socio-economic challenges, cultural dislocation, and substance abuse.

One might think that Italy has a far lower suicide rate than Greenland. After all, the country has a much more amenable climate, excellent home-grown food and wines, a rich cultural heritage, an ebullient social milieu and ..the sun doesn’t disappear for half the year as in Greenland!

Indeed Italy’s suicide rate is almost twenty times less than Greenland’s with only six people in every one hundred thousand doing themselves in.

Sadly, however, in our twenty years residence in the ‘Bel Paese’ and in one of its most attractive area, the province of Lucca, we have had to face more than a handful of suicides from persons that we knew. From the former pizza restaurant owner at Ponte d’Oro to the husband of our local estate agent to the latest encounter that happened last week when our local wood-cutter blew his brains out with the gun he normally used for hunting wild boars.

The awful thing is that it was G’s daughter who discovered her dead and disfigured father. A was also a wood cutter who often helped him.

Why, why, why?

We do know that behind so many suicides in these parts (like so many in other parts) there was a background of financial worries exacerbating a history of depression. G* had both of these backgrounds. In addition he and his wife had separated. We met his wife as she had been a student in the creative writing course we recently attended.

We first met G when he approached us to consult about cutting some trees which he had found on the maps were on our land. He, his mate and the daughter were doing a fine job clearing the local road of dangerously overhanging trees when two men from the local forestry commission turned up, somewhat brusquely told them that he had no permits to do what they were doing and issued them with a not inconsiderable fine.

Clearly we were all very shocked by this horrific occurrence but the Black Dog spares no-one. Strangely by coincidence we’d watched a 1932 film version of Hemingway’s touching novel ‘A Farewell to Arms’, an author who also blew his brains out.

We are all unwitting contributors to someone’s suicide although ultimately none of us are responsible for them. However, a kind word, just being there or a more sympathetic approach may help avert a suicide. Who knows? Perhaps our local forestry commission employees should receive further training in handling potential transgressors.