LAST week the main man in the Media Department of the council emailed me in a panic.

Tomorrow is Time to Talk Day and we need a quote from you.

It’s about mental health awareness.

I strung together a few words about not being afraid to share your problems and about there being agencies out there ready to help you. This was duly embellished and issued as a press statement. Job done.

Mental Health Awareness. I decided to take a closer look. What exactly is going on? An explosion of despair. Surely it’s not new? Were things not a lot worse back in the good old days? Are we just a weaker breed nowadays? Wimps. Can we not just get on with it? For goodness sake get a grip!

But it is okay not to be okay! Sometimes your coping mechanisms just can’t cope. Not everyone has a support network around them. The end of one’s tether can come quickly.

On Monday evening I was at the football park at Notre Dame. It was windy and the rain was going sideways. There was a game of sevens going on. Football therapy from Man On Inverclyde.

I had come to meet Sam. A no nonsense lad from the east end. Ex-army. Iraq and Afghanistan. Pals killed. PTSD. Off the rails. One mate’s suicide after another. Back on the rails. Lived in experience. Qualifications. He’s telling me like it is. Face on.

This football match. Some of the players are volunteers. Others are there for their own reasons. They just troop up on a Monday night and get a game. For ninety minutes they play football.

We are so busy, says Sam. Our aim is to do ourselves out of a job but while the country is governed the way it is we will be here for a while!

The socially isolated. Survivors of abuse. The bereaved. Those finding a way out of the drink and drugs and those doing their best not to get into them.

Those being strangled financially, struggling to make ends meet, heating or eating.

Businessmen at the end of their tether about to lose it all. Those affected by suicides. Some that have tried it and failed. They come from all social classes. I’ve watched millionaires being guided by guys from the homeless centre, he says.

Seventy-five percent of all suicides are male, he tells me. But more women attempt it!

My head struggles with those and other statistics.

Suicide prevention is their main business. Turning lives around. Taking people from a bad place to a good place.

Man On Inverclyde is a relatively new charity but what an impact it is having. Invaluable! They’re there for you if need them. Nelson Street. No stigma. No judgement. No pressure. Your pace.

And what they do is being recognised as an example of how to get to the heart of a problem. Its model is being held up as a template for others to emulate nationally.

They’ve received awards but saving a single life is their greatest reward. My humble admiration goes to the team at Man On and to those others doing similar work.

Therein, of course, lies a lesson for all of us. Be kind to the person next to you. You have no idea what they are facing today!