"My dad recorded that record in 1965 and less than 25 years later he took his own life for reasons I don't understand." "He was 44, the same age" "I now, so I was aware of homing in on this age and also aware of suicide in the news." "What I didn't know is it's the biggest killer in men under 50 and that men are more likely to do it than women by absolutely miles." "So I wanted to try to find out why is. -- why that is." "This is now button which my mum tried to put together for me of my early life and pictures of me with my dad." "Me being born, no sign of dad." "There's me getting christened." "No sign of dad." "Looking back at the past, my overriding sense was how little I really knew my father or the scale of the problems he was facing." "He looks quite distant, quite..." "He looks like he's in a dark mood, and that was typical of later on in his life." "What I do know is that in the very early hours of one January morning in 1989, my father left the family home and took his own life." "I'm not angry at him for doing it." "I feel very sorry for the poor guy." "I'm just confused." "As to why that happened." "The latest" "National statistics show the shockingly high incidence of male suicide." "Nearly 5000 men take their lives each year and it remains the biggest killer of men under 50." "Overall, men are up to four times as likely to kill themselves as women." "We see the rate goes up and it goes down." "It's gone down for women so if it's gone down for women, what happened?" "Can we replicate that for guys?" "At the moment, we really aren't tackling this full on, we aren't tackling it sensibly, we aren't serious yet." "I think that's the biggest challenge." "To reduce the stigma around suicide." "We've done it with other things." "Cancer, now we talk about it and because we talk about it openly it gives people permission to go and get help." "Male suicide is currently at its highest rate for 14 years." "It has been increasing significantly since 2007." "Hello, Samaritans." "My name is Stephen, what can I call you?" "For over 60 years, the Samaritans have been offering support for those in emotional distress or contemplating taking their own life." "Do you have feelings of suicide when you're going through a bad patch?" "It's a very difficult position to be in." "They have conducted in-depth research into the subject of male suicide." "They found that a complex there play a part." "These include financial and emotional problems, social background, personality and the challenges of midlife, but the" "Samaritans acknowledge there are no easy explanations." "When somebody chooses to take their own wife, there are as many reasons as there are individuals who have chosen to do that." "It's very difficult, but it's important that we accept that we will probably never know the individual reasons behind individual cases." "All I'd learned so far was that the problem was widespread and complicated." "To unravel it, I wanted initially to examine the belief held by many that suicide can be explained by mental illness." "Glasgow University is home to one of the world 's leading research centres into suicide." "Professor Rory O'Connor conducts a wide range of experiments into the psychology of suicidal behaviour." "What we're trying to do with this task is tapped into that, to understand and predict who is more likely to kill themselves and crucially, also try to understand better the distinction between people who have thoughts of suicide and go no further." "How do they differ from individuals who make the next step?" "Translate thoughts interaction?" "How do you get there?" "I'm interested between the relationship between mental and less and suicide." "Most people who commit suicide have a mood disorder like depression." "We think about 90% of people who die by suicide have a mental illness, but less than 5% of people with depression take their own lives." "Depression is a necessary but not sufficient explainer." "It's present in most cases, but it doesn't explain why." "Most people who have depression don't kill themselves." "Absolutely." "The research revealed that although mental illness was a significant factor, it was just one piece of a complex puzzle." "I was struck that it was men of my father 's age who are the group at most risk of suicide." "So what are the additional factors that make middle-aged men take their own lives in such numbers?" "We are off to the north-west because I was brought up..." "Most of my teenage years and that was where my dad lived when he died." "The reasons people take their own lives are complex and I'm very unclear as to what happened to my dad." "So I'm going to go and talk to my mum to see whether we can shed any more light on it." "It will be tricky because it's an extremely touchy subject." "That's an understatement." "It's not something we really talk about as it always leads to family arguments." "But we're going to try." "It's been 25 years and she might be ready to tell us a few things about it." "He was a wonderful musician, he was a fantastic guitarist, as you know, he was a sportsman." "He was a very popular person." "He was chairman of this and Council of that and he was a very charismatic, very friendly, open..." "He had loads of mates come he was quite gregarious." "Very gregarious." "He wasn't the most communities in person as a father." "He was very private because he was brought up in a presbytery and family, he was the oldest of five children." "It was a stiff upper lip." "You didn't talk about your emotions, you didn't discuss any problems you had, it was just putting on a brave face for everyone." "It was a very, very happy marriage." "I loved him very much and I think he loved me very much and we had a very happy family." "I didn't realise, I didn't know all the problems he was having because we never discussed it." "When I was growing up, the picture we all had off my father was of a stable, strong figure and a pillar of the community." "That was Alton Towers, coming off the corkscrew." "There he is." "But I now learned there was a hidden side to his life." "He started having affairs, which I knew nothing about." "It was such a shock." "I didn't realise the huge financial problems he was having." "I should have done." "I think he thought that he had dug himself coal so deep that he couldn't get out of it. -- dug himself a hole so deep." "One morning my mum woke up and there was no sign of my father." "I looked around and I shot out of bed and ran out." "Beside him was a letter." "That he had written." "To me." "And..." "I realised it was too late." "What did the latter say?" "It just said I love you, my darling." "I love you, my poor darling, I'm so sorry, so sorry, so sorry, and the writing got longer and longer." "And..." "My dad was 44." "This falls within the traditional peak range in which men take their own lives." "In 2013, there were nearly 600 deaths in this age range alone, over ten week." "And what" "I now knew of my father's background mirrored the Samaritans research." "Challenges of midlife, he was 44, same age as me." "Relationship breakdown." "Emotional literacy." "Socioeconomic factors." "There were money problems around, he was under the cosh with that and didn't think he could see a way out." "That may help explain the spike in middle-aged men such as my father taking their lives, but it didn't explain other age groups." "Suicide is also the leading killer of 20 to 34-year-old men, accounting for nearly a quarter of deaths." "When" "Crist walked into the room at university, the room lit up." "He lit the place up, everybody was waiting for Chris to come in." "He was so personable." "He looked good, he looked smart, he was very articulate, he seemed confident." "He left me a 5-page letter in which he sets out to say he was sorry he took his life." "He says that he am very much admired me and wanted to be liked me and he described Sheila in a million and says he couldn't have wished for a better stepmum." "But he had felt so awful and had struggled for so long and couldn't cope any more, couldn't carry on." "Following the death of his son, Stephen became a trustee of the charity in Warrington." "Papyrus prevention of young suicide was formed about 18 years ago by parents who have lost their children to suicide and I wasn't aware when I lost my son that it was the single biggest killer of young people under the age of 35." "I never realised that." "It's making people aware of the problem and it's also trying to make people be prepared to talk about it, to address the stigma." "Talking to Stephen, I uncovered another common thread." "Despite their close relationship, Christopher could not tell his own family about his state of mind." "He clearly didn't want me to know about it, he didn't want me to know he was struggling inside, he wanted me to think he was coping and strong." "Stephen now believes that communication is the crucial issue for young men." "That's what it's about." "I feel this great sense of it -- anxiety, everybody around is strong and confident, and that you've got this anxiety and you're not coping very well." "That's what perhaps girls and women are more willing to admit, that they can't cope." "For men that seems to be a problem." "Over the past 35 years, the proportion of male to female so with sides has increased year-on-year and men now account for 80% of all deaths. -- suicide." "We've heard the example where you come into work on a Monday morning and perhaps there's somebody in the office who is upset." "They are crying." "I put it to you that that was a woman, a female colleague, somebody would gather that person together, take them to the toilets, have a chat and come back and probably little would be thought of it." "If you come into the office and find a man crying at his desk, the reaction of the people around that person is far more dramatic." "People assume something really bad must have happened." "I think there's an interesting difference between the way we react to men and women expressing the way they feel." "I was now beginning to form a clearer picture of the common factors accompanying male suicide across all age groups." "Most striking was the shared difficulty both my father and Christopher had in talking to someone Ash anyone. --, anyone." "The next important step was to talk in depth with someone who had considered suicide." "It all seemed meaningless and I thought, I do not need it." "If you are talking to yourself, all the negative things come out." "Matt was 21 and working in a clothes shop in Manchester when he decided he was going to end his life." "I was wandering around town and I passed the Samaritans on" "Oxford Road." "I thought, you know what, I have nothing to lose." "That contact with the Samaritans turned Matt's life around." "For the first time, he felt he could open up." "The main thing that put me off talking to somebody was this idea of a weakness." "If you could not sought sure problems out yourself, then..." "What I felt at the time was, you were a weak person." "In talking, he began to confront some of the preconceptions about his identity as a man." "I have always been an expressive person, if you like." "Quite effeminate, maybe." "It did not really fit in with my group of friends, sort of thing." "I always felt like an outsider looking in." "That was obviously difficult." "When you are growing up, nobody likes to be an outcast, do they?" "We need to allow guys to see other people and other mental about the issue in a way the sting can be taken out of it and they can see this is something that is really common." "If we can talk about it, then we can start to explore ways in which we might be able to tackle it." "Manchester is the birthplace of the Campaign Against Living Miserably, CALM, a charity designated to promoting mental smack mental health." "It uses a variety of records to reach -- a variety of methods." "One of CALM's ambassadors in Manchester is this singer songwriter." "Liam became involved after one of his close friends killed himself." "I went through a time when you rack your brains and ran over scenarios." "If I had answered that text or whatever." "People say he had a sadness in his eyes." "He never let on anything was wrong." "CALM's message is simple, the issue of identity meant inability to communicate and the high level of suicide are all closely linked." "What has happened is that men and their roles and what we expect from them has become smaller and smaller and smaller, so they are not seen as being able to occupy other areas of life." "It has boiled down to being strong." "If you're going to add anything to that it is silent." "The phrase that comes back is to man up and grow a pair." "The number one issue is gender." "If you do not think what it is about gender then you're missing the plot entirely." "Wiesberger it was this expectation to conform that proved so problematic. -- it was expectation." "In society, I was trying to be this normal person, basically." "What was making me even more stressed out, if you like, I was always missing out." "I could never achieve normality will stop you had to be strong like a man is supposed to be." "Matt's story made me realise the social pressures put on men is immense." "How can we deal with this?" "Men are the way they are." "What do we need to do?" "Men, we know, for example, go to football matches, play rugby, whatever it is." "If we can use these other venues as a way of providing social support, mental health support, that will be really important." "This was the very last place I expected to find vulnerable man. -- men." "I had grown up around here and Warrington Wolves had always been my team." "If you're looking for an arena format show, tough, uncomplicated maleness and rugby is it. -- for Matt Cho." "You had a reputation as a hard man, I understand." "I did get sent off a few times." "The game was like that then." "It was a rough, tough game." "You had licence to kill." "It is a typical match day atmosphere in Warrington with supporters gathering in the local pub." "It did not take me long to find someone who had suffered the same loss as me." "I was eight years of age, kind of thing." "My mum and dad were arguing and Rowling, which they did in the 70s." "You asked your mum where your dad is and I did not know what committed suicide was." "That chance meeting was not that surprising." "The Northwest has one of the highest rates of male suicide in the country." "Latest figures show over 550 men took their own lives." "In this area alone, it is over one day." "Here in the heartland of the toughest of sports, there are signs of a solution." "Recently there has been a sea change in attitudes to mental health and male stereotypes." "Former Warrington player and England international Paul Sculthorpe and his brother, Danny, have lived and breathed rugby all their lives." "He suffered an injury which ended his career." "I got told the club I was at whipped up my contract." "I ended up losing my house." "I had two kids to support at the time." "I started suffering from depression." "Every day, I was going to kill myself." "That is all I could think of." "Things got tough." "Like blokes do, I kept it hidden." "Then Danny did something men from his background find so difficult to do." "He reached out for help." "When Danny told the family, was this news to you?" "He was going to be down." "We probably did not realise how deep it was and the thoughts of suicide." "He had said how he was feeling." "He was a big man to do something about it." "Four years ago, rugby decided to tackle the stigma of mental's mental-health head on." "Thank you very much indeed for being here this afternoon." "My name is Phil Cooper." "Combining NHS staff and former players, state of mind is an initiative which encourages men to come together and talk about difficult thoughts and feelings. " " State of Mind." "You would just presumed to be tough, mentally, because it is a Rugby" "League World Cup it is professional rugby." "Ultimately, what we are trying to do is to get people to talk about how they feel." "If they do not do that potentially, little problems become bigger and bigger." "People will not get support and help if they do not do this." "Ian Knott is a regular volunteer with State of Mind." "A professional player for many years, he suffered a life changing injury and it got -- hit rock bottom." "I thought to myself, what is the point of being here?" "I did not want to be a part of it." "It is hard for me to talk about now but it..." "Sorry." "Take your time." "It is absolutely fine." "Eventually, when I got to the point, the lowest point, something just clicked." "Something changed inside me where I realise that life is worth living and my friends and family and support network around me helped me out." "I took it was actually pretty moving." "It was some of the bravest testimony we have." "He lives in constant pain due to his back injury." "That must be very frustrating for someone who has played sport at the highest level." "I hope that testimony and bravery will help to save people's lives." "I hope it does." "Over the past few days I have been lucky enough to hear stories of some of the men whose lives have been saved by the simple virtue of opening up and talking." "Inevitably, perhaps, my thoughts turn to my dad." "When I was digging through stuff, I found this letter." "It was an eight page letter from my dad written on 27th of December, 1988." "If he wanted an example of how difficult he found to express himself, this letter is it." "There is only one significant thing which, looking back, it strikes me as significant." "He says, whatever you do, do not do law." "I was going off to university to do law." "He said, do not do that for my benefit." "At the end, he just says, keep well, keep in touch." "We are concerned about your progress." "Right, with all our love at this festive season." "Love, dad." "He was dead within two and a half weeks." "That is a tricky one to read and highlights how difficult it was for him to say anything them." "When I first set out to make this film, I had not really been prepared for how common this tragedy is." "I have learned an incredibly important lesson from unlikely sources." "Male suicide is a complex subject which involves many different factors." "The solution in part lies with those who have had the courage to confront traditional male stereotypes." "I am part of myself." "I can go round and talk about my experiences and hopefully help other people, especially men." "That is the main problem." "Men have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of." "This simple message about men opening up and talking is recognised by experts as being crucial for survival." "In occur if you have very few reasons for living the way you think about the future is a particular way, the likelihood of you becoming suicidal is elevated." "If you have loads of social support, lots of people you can reach out to and feel connected with life, feel connected with family and friends commit your risk of developing suicidal thinking is reduced. -- family and friends, your risk." "The answer is at our fingertips." "It is in conversations and talking about it." "In that sense, the answer is free." "I think we can change and we do see huge cultural change." "Women have seen brilliant cultural change over the last 20, 30, 40 years." "Three brand-new series come to BBC Two... ..with the biggest prize in gardening..."