Alastair Campbell opens up on mental health at Baton of Hope Sheffield charity conference
The Sheffield-based national suicide prevention charity, The Baton of Hope, has announced plans to stage another tour of the UK in 2025.
The charity launched it's first tour last year, which saw almost 1000 people bereaved by suicide carried a baton through 12 cities in 12 days.
The news of a second tour was announced at a conference in Sheffield, which was hosted by Prof Rory O’Connor, President of the International Association for Suicide Prevention, as well as mental health campaigner Alastair Campbell.
During the conference, the former journalist and spokesman for Tony Blair spoke openly about his own struggles with mental health and suicidal thoughts.
He said: "Obviously I'm sitting here and I'm talking and breathing and I've never taken my own life, but I've been close a few times and I understand the motivations that take people to that ultimate place where they decided that death is preferable to life.
"I just feel that as a country we can't really call ourselves civilised when we have so many people that are struggling and there just isn't the support for them.
"Families can do so much, friends can do so much but ultimately it's about stripping down the attitudes so that we're just as open about mental health as we are about physical health.
"But above all, that when people are in genuine crisis, there are systems of support in place there that will prevent them from that final awful step that ends their lives and destroys the lives of so many other people."
The conference took place in Sheffield to coincide with Mental Health Awareness Week and brought together some of the nation’s most influential mental health campaigners, including The Baton of Hope’s co-founder Mike McCarthy.
Mike McCarthy founded the suicide prevention charity after his son Ross tragically took his own life in 2021.
Ross McCarthy had been struggling with his mental health for years, but his father Mike said that the problem was exacerbated by the isolation caused by the lockdown.
He was 31 when he died and left behind a fiancee and three-year-old son.
Ross McCarthy left a message behind asking his family to campaign for better mental health support.
The charity's first baton tour in 2023 was hailed by Prime Minister Rishi Sunak as the biggest suicide prevention initiative the country had ever seen.
Mike McCarthy said: “We have already had many emails from towns and cities asking how they can get involved with the next tour and that’s despite not having made anything public.
“Based on last year’s tour this will be an incredible opportunity it’s to make sure the subject of suicide is no longer swept under the carpet and for communities to come together to stand up to suicide.”
“We cannot turn a blind eye to the national catastrophe of suicide any longer. 6,000 people every year in the UK alone are being lost to something that is now widely described by expert clinicians as preventable.”
“We can either accept the evidence that referrals to mental health services have surged and try as a compassionate society to do something positive about it as a collective or we can dismiss it as part of a “sick note” culture.
“Through our major conference and 2025 Baton tour, we are calling for a sea-change in the UK’s complacent and neglectful attitude towards suicide prevention, aiming to drive collective action.”
“Our message is that everyone is capable of generating hope when it comes to preventing suicide.
If you are struggling to cope, call Samaritans for free on 116 123 (UK and ROI) or contact other sources of support, such as:
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