Blokey Blog: A face we all keep in a jar by the door

03 Sep Blokey Blog: A face we all keep in a jar by the door

So why, at 62, am I running the Worcester Half-Marathon?

Partly to get fit, of course. But the real reason isn’t about me, it’s about ALL of us.

As part of the Worcestershire Ambassadors team, I’m running to raise funds to support Worcester Community Trust’s mental health projects.

Mental health is a subject some people feel comfortable talking more freely about these days thanks to brave people who have spoken out about their own difficulties.

Yet it remains a hidden killer and blight on too many folks who fear asking for help.

It isn’t just Eleanor Rigby who puts a brave face she leaves in a jar by her door. We all do.

We all wear a ‘game face’ when we venture out – with the most seemingly ebullient, carefree and confident people often struggling the most.

Tragically, the most commonly affected social group is young people, whose golden futures should lie ahead of them but all too often they are wracked by doubt and fear.

Social media and the pressures of being contactable 24/7 doesn’t help of course. Even in posting this blog I’m expecting a backlash from brainless bullies whose own inadequacies are played out online.

The problem is we just can’t talk about it. It is bottled up in that jar by the door.

Back in my radio days, in making a feature for Radio 4’s erstwhile Saturday morning Home Truths programme (hosted by the late great John Peel – a rare, openly emotive man who was never afraid to show his feelings on all manner of subjects) I interviewed a TV children’s entertainer – a clown, no less – whose career was experiencing a dip.

He was suffering severe depression as a consequence but couldn’t tell his immediate family. He told me this in the front room of his house while his family played in the back kitchen.

He just couldn’t look them in the eye, preferring to convey his true feelings on air as a way of ‘speaking’ to them. Compelling radio, of course – given the appropriate time and space only that king among broadcast stations Radio 4 can truly provide. It was the only way he could reach out to his family to tell them how he felt. The tears of a clown, eh?

That face again…

Worcester Community Trust reaches out to real people in the city. People with thoughts, feelings and emotions too readily locked away.

As a family, we delivered weekly food packages for the trust during lockdown last year. In some cases, our son’s smiling face was the only human interaction some folks had all week. Understandably, they just wanted to talk.

So many of us are isolated with our emotions for one reason or another. We deserve support. Moreover, people need to know where they can access help, confident they will be heard.

We’re not all lonely people – but can feel alone with our thoughts. That dilemma has to change.

Please donate to this good cause. Not for me, but for others.

This blog is part of my Blokey Blog and Test & Challenge blog series. To make a donation to Worcester Community Trust visit my Just Giving page.

Chris Green