Forget their pride help – just like me

that can be hard. The camaraderie is suddenly gone.

“The suicide figures speak for themselves. These people need help and they need to be looked after.

“I saw best friends killed before my eyes. I saw women and children hacked to death in front of me. Those sorts of scenes fundamentally change who you are as a person.”

Neil was so badly affected he was told to take early retirement from the Army. He said: “I had issues. I had to leave. I would have killed myself.”

But after just a couple of years on “civvy street” his post-traumatic stress disorder surfaced with a vengeance. Then the firm Neil worked for folded and he lost the pub he was running – and his home.

He said: “I spent Christmas on the streets. I slept in my car and I’d go to supermarket toilets in the day to wash. I did that for three months.”

It took Neil five attempts to find the courage to ask Forces charity SSAFA for help. He said: “There is a stigma. There’s no shame in asking. No one is going to think any less of you.

“Anyone struggling must put their pride aside and reach out.”

Neil is training to be a social worker and is a SAAFA volunteer, helping veterans “as desperate as I once was”.

For more information on SSAFA’s work visit ssafa.org.uk