Counting the cost of the suicide of a loved one ...

them. I was devastated when I realised it was a dream, I so wanted it to be true.

“I wished I could have done something to help even though I was just a girl.

“Even though I talk about Dad a lot, I can’t bring myself to talk about the actual suicide. It feels like a kick in the stomach.”

And Ellie does talk about her dad. It’s a way for her to keep him alive and know that despite what he was feeling at the time of his death, and despite his flaws, he was here and he mattered. “IT leaves you with guilt and questions you would never have if they died of an illness”

It was a normal day at work when Gemma Smith’s dad John called. Picking up the phone, her life changed forever. “Richard’s been found dead”. Gemma froze.

That was only six months ago in March this year. Farmer and landscaper Richard Smith, 40, killed himself by carbon monoxide poisoning in his van at Storthes Hall woods, only minutes from where he lived with Gemma in Thurstonland.

He had been struggling with relationship problems with his ex-partner, to whom police later recovered text messages sent on the morning of his death. I meet Gemma at the family home. “Richard was a very loving and kind soul. He would do anything for anyone”, she tells me.

“He was the type of person who would get home from work and cut the neighbour’s grass for no reason other than noticing it needed doing.

“He had his demons, but at the time of his death he was loving life. He was going out with friends, had a good job and seemed happy.”

Gemma, 35, a plumber, has been attending support groups for suicide bereavement over recent months as she tries to come to terms with losing her older brother, to whom she was extremely close.

“It leaves you full of guilt and asking, ‘should I, would I, could I.’

“You wonder if one thing had been done differently, would they still be here? And the worst thing is you’ll never, ever get to find out. You wouldn’t get that if a person had died naturally, say from cancer. It means there’s no sense of closure.

“I have struggled myself and I get it. For that reason, there are some days I’m really angry at Richard for leaving me here, but at the same time I understand he couldn’t take it anymore and I wouldn’t want him to be in pain.

“I just wish people would understand the reality of mental illness; depression is like being told to stay awake when all you want to do is shut your eyes.

“You’re being forced to stay alive when you feel like there’s nothing to keep you here. Imagine your first ever heartbreak and that feeling that you’ll never get over it, then imagine “NO-ONE had a clue – there were no signs.”

Andy Roberts was just 23. A popular young sportsman and doting dad to his two-year-old daughter, he had been playing football just two days before he was found hanged in woods in April 2016.

His friends and family had no idea he was struggling.

Andy’s brother-in-law Luke Ambler, a former player for Halifax RLFC, was so grief-stricken by what happened, it led him to set up Andy’s Man Club, an outlet for men to get together and talk about their mental health in order to prevent further tragedies. Dad-of-two Luke, 28, says Andy’s death ripped the family apart.

“We were just devastated – words can’t explain”, he tells me. “He just went completely off the loop. He was playing football on the Sunday, then chatting with his friends on Monday only the day before.

“On Tuesday, he was dead. It is just the worst news you can ever be given, the worst pain I have ever been through. He had no history of depression – nothing at all. Often with these things no-one has a clue what’s going on. It is the worst pain I have ever been through.”

Andy’s daughter was just two when he died, and is still too young to understand what happened. “She just knows Daddy isn’t here anymore,” Luke adds.

Luke says that the pain left by suicide “never goes away”, and that talking is the best solution.

Andy’s Man Club has gone on to help hundreds of men either struggling with their own mental health, or who have been bereaved themselves by suicide. The charity holds regular meetings in Huddersfield, Dewsbury and Halifax.