The Murder of Sophie Lancaster: Black Roses

On 11^th August 2007, Sophie Lancaster and boyfriend Rob were set upon. Their crime: being different. On the night of the attack, the pair were in a petrol station. Ostensibly fascinated by their appearance, a group of boys approached them. Rob and Sophie were Goths. Sophie’s 5ft1 frame was elongated by huge platform shoes; her hair dreadlocked and dyed a matted red; her piercings studied and studded into tongue and skull. Rob was her muse: the man that inspired these choices. Juxtaposed against his slender body, his hair and trousers cascaded to a towering flow. In an age of conformity, the local pair seemed foreign, other, unnatural.

The boys said they had a group of friends that they would love to introduce them to. They were in the park; they should come meet them. Seduced by the lure of celebrity, Sophie and Rob walked to their doom. There in the park, Rob was set upon. A Manchester rain of punches fell upon him; a shower of kicks cursed his skull. Sophie magnetised by love came to his aid. These boys cared no jot for gallantry; they gave her the same treatment as Rob. Thirteen days later she died in hospital. Her mother who brought her onto earth was tasked with the task of burying her in it.

Sophie and Rob

Since then, Sophie’s mother Sylvia has been a vanguard for change: setting up the Sophie Lancaster Foundation, she has raked her tragedy to raise awareness on the need to protect difference. Her efforts were rewarded with the law re-classifying any attack on a subculture as a hate crime. Last year she was rightly rewarded an OBE for her efforts to ensure these crimes aren't repeated.

The Murder of Sophie Lancaster: Black Roses is part of BBC’s poetry season. Poetry is often criticised for being too elitist, too unconcerned with the experiences of normal people, a little too in love with itself. Seconded to Afghanistan to write war poetry; commissioned by Channel 4 to versify the experience of female prisoners, Armitage’s social commentary doesn’t deal in such naval gazing. A few years ago, he wrote Black Roses; its success garnered a radio commission; its power necessitated it be re-packaged for TV.

Simon Armitage

The piece begins with Sophie’s mother, played by former soap star Julie Hesmondhalgh, telling us the reason for Sophie’s moniker, black roses. Often Goths are dismissed as suicides-in-waiting, death obsessives that have one foot in the grave; more interested in dark hate than light love. Dress can contrast personality though: although the uniform shouts Satan, their outsider status aligns them with the underdog, making them more likely to show compassion to the downtrodden and dispossessed. Sophie, a vegetarian and pacifist, was an angel in black robes; a girl that cared for the plight of others. She was her mother’s black rose.

Hesmondhalgh inhabits Sylvia’s actual words to recount the story of Sophie’s life. Interspersed between this verbatim testimony is Armitage’s verse, told from Sophie's perspective. What we get therefore is a powerful coalescence of experience: the real of Sophie’s mother and the imagined of Sophie. This howl of planet Earth combined with the cry of the afterlife makes for a truly sublime brew.

Julie Hesmondhalgh as Sylvia

Armitage’s words are channeled via actress Rachel Austin, who as Sophie stalks the gothic landscape of isolated woods and moonlit parks. Her gentle Manchester burr inflects the words with a melancholic beauty, elevating the writing of the page. Explaining her teenage alienation and subdued quietness, she argues there wasn’t ‘an ounce of fat on my thoughts, on my limbs. I read, I wrote. I painted. I drew. Where it came from no one knew but it flowed, it flew. Armitage beautifully characterises what it means to be dismissed as introverted: how within a trapped mouth can lie a garrulous imagination. Paradoxically, maybe people occupy an alternative black universe because the actual one appears too drab and colourless for them.

Rachel Austin as Sophie

After the petals on the black rose have been pulled, Sophie’s voice is shown from her hospital bed: Mum can’t you see that somewhere inside this swollen bloodshot, abstract mess is my heart shaped face, my swan like neck. These black bruises, the black roses of my self-defence. The delicacy of these words ‘heart,’ ‘swan’ and ‘rose’ demonstrate that in spite of the harrowing attack Sophie’s black beauty cannot go undimmed. Armitage is demonstrating that within thin frames exists the incredible capacity for courage: Sophie’s bruises are roses, badges worn to show love's self-sacrifice.

The piece ends with Rob emerging towards renewal and Sophie slipping towards expiry. From her deathbed, Sophie apologises to her mum for her unresponsiveness: Mother, mum. Don’t think me rude if my eyes don’t light up at my favourite things, my clean pyjamas, my new toiletry bag … As you did then, do now. Mop my brow as you mopped my brow. Climb into my bed as you climbed into my bed. Lay at my side as you laid at my side. Lying as helpless as a baby, Sophie bids her mother re-enact her former duties: as comforting as these gestures may be, they shouldn’t have to be performed for a girl in her twenties.

This love song to maternalism, and what is left when it's snatched away, needs to be heard.

Watch it, share it, spread it. Don’t let these voices go unheard.  

The Murder of Sophie Lancaster: Black Roses  is available on iPlayer.