GARY’S MUM & DAD ROGER & CAROL

Carol: I know he is our lad, but since he has gone we have never heard a bad word said against him. We’ve got lovely memories, but no answers. All the time your mind thinks about why. Roger: We haven’t got a clue. Carol: If you don’t know the reason it happened you are never at peace. We didn’t know there was anything wrong with Gary. You never recover. Never. It’s the biggest shock anyone could ever experience. Roger: At such an early age, deary me. Carol: People on the outside looking in would think he had everything going for him. But something was troubling him.

Roger: There’s been some brilliant people trying to help us. Chris Coleman, for instance, has been good whenever I’ve met him.

Carol: It doesn’t get any easier. You can live with it more if, say, it was a car accident. Or if you knew he was ill, or could see he was ill, but we didn’t know anything. One thing it’s done, I hope, is that it has helped open the doors for people to talk about mental issues. All we can think is that Gary was suffering from depression, although you’d never have known. He would put a smile on his face all the time. But that’s a man thing, isn’t it? Roger: I just hope people learn from our experience. Carol: I hardly watch football any more. Roger: No, Carol won’t watch football. Carol: It’s too much for me if I watch it. I can still see him there playing. So I can’t do it, no. I can’t watch it.