William and Kate pledge to make mental health their priority

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge have pledged to make the issue of mental health their priority and raise awareness to help tackle the problem.

William and Kate voiced their feelings during a day spent highlighting the work of charities and individuals supporting those with suicidal thoughts.

When the royal couple met Jonny Benjamin, who famously tracked down the man who saved him from throwing himself off Waterloo Bridge, the Duke said they both needed “to do something about” mental health.

And later, in a discussion with young people invited to Kensington Palace to hear Mr Benjamin’s story, William urged them to speak out about their mental health problems.

William told the group of 14 and 15-year-old students that he felt “we don’t listen, we don’t talk enough” and called on them to be there for each other.

Mr Benjamin was joined throughout the day by his Good Samaritan Neil Laybourn, who stepped out of the crowd to talk the vulnerable man away from danger.

Mr Benjamin started the #FindMike search in 2014 to track down the unknown passer-by who stopped him killing himself in 2008.

Then 20, he had been diagnosed with a combined schizophrenia and bipolar condition and said he felt his life had hit ”rock bottom” before the intervention of a stranger, identified as Mr Laybourn when the search went viral.

The pair met the Duke and Duchess at London’s St Thomas’ Hospital where Mr Benjamin was sectioned after that fateful day and William said: “Someone told me five people a day try to kill themselves. I was just blown away by the statistics.”

Sitting beside Kate on a sofa talking to the two men, he added: “For both of us, the mental health piece has got lots of aspects. It’s such a big issue that we need to do something about it.

“We feel it’s been raised higher up the ladder. It’s suddenly bubbling just under the surface. Now we need to get up to the next level, to the surface.”

The Duchess, in a green Erdem coat, stressed that childhood problems were the root cause of many of the afflictions of adults.

“We see through the work we do with addiction, homelessness, and knife crime that a lot of it stems back to childhood,” she said.

Last month figures from the Office for National Statistics revealed a 3% rise in suicides in England, though the numbers fell in Scotland, Wales, and Northern Ireland.

Altogether 6,122 people died by suicide in 2014 in the UK, down from the 6,242 who took their own lives in 2013.

The royal couple and Prince Harry have made mental health a major focus of their work in the year ahead. William is particularly keen to better understand the difficult issues around suicide, bullying and the mental health of young men.

These are issues he has been exposed to both in his official work with homelessness charities and in his work as a pilot with the East Anglian Air Ambulance.

Mr Benjamin told William and Kate during their chat earlier in the day: “Suicide is still a massive taboo,” and when the Duke asked why, he replied: “It’s the shame and the embarrassment.”

Turning to Mr Laybourn, who is now a close friend, he said: “When I met you on the bridge it was the first time I’d ever opened up and used that word – suicidal – because I was so ashamed and embarrassed.

“I was 20 and everybody was saying to me you should be having the best time of your life, and I was at uni and I was obviously struggling but I couldn’t say that because I was too embarrassed.”

“I was about 16 when I started hearing voices in my head, what I thought was the devil, I was so embarrassed, I kept saying to myself – you should not be feeling this way.”

Mr Benjamin later told the secondary school pupils that struggling with being gay had also been a major issue with his mental health

The Duke and Duchess began their day with a private visit to the Maytree Suicide Respite Centre in Finsbury Park to meet its small team of staff and volunteers and some former residents.

After listening to the discussion with young people at Kensington Palace they met a group of people who had experienced a family member or friend committing suicide.

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