Rugby legend's heartbreak over wife's death as he reveals her poignant final act
The 'unfathomable' tragedy left the former British & Irish Lion 'utterly broken-hearted'
Rugby legend Scott Hastings and his wife Jenny Hastings in October 2010
(Image: Daily Record/Sunday Mail)
Scotland rugby legend Scott Hastings has opened up on the death of his late wife Jenny, revealing that he now swims every week at the same spot where she took her own life.
Jenny, a 60-year-old mother-of-two, disappeared on September 3 last year, while swimming at Wardie Bay in Edinburgh where she swam regularly. She was reported missing, with a large-scale search immediately launched, but her body was recovered a few days later on what was the couple's 34th wedding anniversary.
In a statement, Jenny's family said that she had struggled with mental health issues since she was a teenager, while she had been gripped by severe depression as an adult and had previously attempted suicide.
A "broken-hearted" Hastings paid tribute to his wife at the time, saying: "She suffered for well over 20 years. She just got herself into a headspace and decided that was the best option, despite having had visits from doctors within 40 hours, and a mental health practitioner had visited literally hours before, but the trickery of the mind is so difficult.
"I'm utterly broken-hearted, she was such a beautiful, loving mother, wife, sister and we miss her dearly. Suicide is preventable and for many, many years Jenny prevented suicide. Unfortunately, she worked out that she felt that she was doing the right thing.'
Nearly a year on from Jenny's death, Hastings - who won 65 caps for Scotland and represented the British & Irish Lions on two tours - has opened up again on the tragedy, revealing he goes open-water swimming every Friday at the spot where his wife died.
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"[It's] beautiful and calming," he told The Sunday Times, before admitting that his mind "wanders out to the buoy where she was".
"She was a water baby,' he added. 'This time last year we were on a cruise in the Norwegian fjords. I swam in the sea with her for the first time. It was just exhilarating.'
Reflecting on how the tragedy unfolded and revealing his wife's poignant final act towards him, Hastings said: 'When I arrived at Wardie Bay, I saw her bag was there, I saw the buoy, but I didn't see her. I knew she'd gone.
"What more could we have done? There was a secrecy behind it. She carried out her plan. This was her wish. That I find very hard to come to terms with.
"[There were] no notes or anything like that, but under my pillow she left a [self-help] book entitled Don't Worry. "She got all the charity bags and put all of her clothes in them — we didn't have to deal with it.
"She was going to carry out her plan. It's unfathomable for us but it made total sense to her."
Hastings - who is an ambassador for mental health charity Support in Mind Scotland - is now supporting his friend and former team-mate Iain Sinclair with a swim spanning the 60-mile Caledonian Canal, to raise money for mental health charities and other good causes. Sign up to Inside Welsh rugby on Substack to get exclusive news stories and insight from behind the scenes in Welsh rugby.
While he says that becoming an advocate for mental health has been part of the "healing process" for him, however, the 60-year-old admits the idea of growing old without Jenny "really upsets" him.
'The tragic thing is that I can't grow old with her,' he said. 'That really upsets me, because there was a life ahead of us, and she didn't see that. I miss her every day.
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"We returned her ashes back into the water a couple of weeks [after her death], because that was where she wanted to be,' the former Scotland international added.
'I didn't have to identify her body, so my memory of Jenny is just this radiant, happy person. Yes, she struggled. But she was at peace in the water.'
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