BMF CONFERENCE 2019 IT’S GOOD TO TALK
Mental health came under the spotlight at the BMF Conference, with a presentation from Jonny Benjamin MBE and Neil Laybourn.
Neil Laybourn and Jonny Benjamin MBE met on Waterloo Bridge when the latter was sitting on the bridge edge, thinking about jumping off. Laybourn was the passer-by who stopped and talked to him, saving his life and, eventually changing both of their lives. Six years later, they met up again after Benjamin set out, with the help of Mental Health UK, to find the man whom he knew only as Mike. Now they campaign together to raise awareness of mental health issues, using their shared story as inspiration.
Benjamin explained that his mental health issue started as a child when he developed depression, began hearing voices in his head and started to feel isolated from everyone around him. “In my teens, the voices became more sinister, I had to do everything in threes and was misusing alcohol and self-harming. I thought I was the only one who felt like this,” he said. Eventually, he received a diagnosis: he had schizoaffective disorder, which is a combination of schizophrenia and bi-polar disorder. Then one day, he left hospital and went to Waterloo Bridge with the intention of killing himself by jumping off.
Laybourn was walking to work along his usual route one day when he saw a young man sitting on the railings of the bridge. “What struck me as odd was the fact that everyone else was dressed for Winter – it was January – yet this person was in a t-shirt and jeans, shivering,” he said. “It just rang an alarm bell with me and I thought that, as he looked about the same age as me, maybe I could help. I said the most inane thing I possibly could – hey mate, why are you sitting on a bridge?” Laybourn kept talking and, more importantly, listening. Benjamin said that was what made the difference and got through the darkness that was enveloping him. “It was the feeling that there was someone there who was listening of having someone to talk to at a time when I believed I had no-one.” He added that there were two key things that Laybourn said that somehow got through the fog to him. “These were: ‘Don’t be embarrassed mate. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about’ and ‘Mate, you’ll be OK. You’ll get better’. No-one had ever said that to me before.”
By the time another onlooker had called the police and an ambulance and Laybourn had given a statement to the police, the pair had been separated. Laybourn went on to work and his life and Benjamin gradually got better.
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Six years later, with the help of the charity Mental Health UK, Benjamin launched a campaign to help him find Laybourn who he knew only as ‘Mike’ and also to raise awareness of the issues and to get people talking about them. The #FindingMike campaign went round the world.
“Within a few days, we had hundreds of people come forward and 38 leads, all of whom had stopped and talked to someone like me on a bridge” he said.
Laybourn wife saw a post on social media and they put two and two together and realised that he was, in fact, Mike. The campaign and their subsequent meeting was documented in a Channel4 programme The Stranger on the Bridge.
There were some key messages that both Benjamin and Laybourn wanted to get across: We may have separate brains and bodies, but health is health. We have legs, hearts, arms, livers all of which have things go wrong with them from time to time. It’s no different to when we get things wrong with our brains. There’s nothing to be embarrassed about. You wouldn’t get embarrassed if you fell over and hurt your leg. Suicide is the biggest killer of men under the age of 45 in this country. It is the ultimate end of someone’s mental health problems We are on crest of a wave, awareness is rising but we do need to talk about it more and continue to raise even more understanding. We all manage out mental health issues every day. No-one should have to hide it. We can all talk, we can all listen. If we remember this then we can get those statistics down. BMJ
IT’S ABOUT THE PEOPLE: When he left school, Michael Caulfield served an apprenticeship at a racing stables in Lam- bourn when he left school, aiming to be the next Lester Piggott, or AP McCoy or Richard Dunwoody. Alas, he told delegates, three things stopped him “I grew too tall, despite a rigourous diet I grew too heavy and thirdly, I was completely rubbish.” However, in 1998, he became chief executive of the Profesional Jockeys Association. “I did that job for 15 years and realised that jockeys were challenged psychologically, emotionally and physically. They literally can’t eat. So at the PJA we put in place structures to help them, to get them talking and understanding their moods swings, their depression and weight loss issues: all the things that go with being a jockey.” A conversation with former champion jockey AP McCoy lead to Caulfield training as a psychologist, specialising in sports psychology. He has worked with sports stars across the spectrum, including Sir Mo Farah, Gareth Southgate and Frank Lampard. Caulfield said that he has never been so proud of sport as he is at the moment, with so much good happening around inclusiveness and understanding of people.
The way that sport is changing in the way it deals with it people can help business to under- stand how to treat its people better, Caulfield said. “People are people: whether they are sports professionals or business professionals, they are living breathing feeling human beings and not performance tools. We need to treat them as such.
“Everything we do in life and business and sport revolves around people and how they treat us and how we treat them. Today is less about the Jose Murinho style of sports management, and more about the Gareth Southgate, inclusive style,” Caulfield said. “Southgate is prepared to invest time in his people. It’s not just about the 4,4,2 or what- ever, it’s about people. He gets this; he has humour and humility.
“In sport ,in business, in politics the attitude Win At All Costs is toxic. It ends in tears. It never ever pays. “
Caulfield finished by urging delegates: “Ask yourself in your business, do we have the space to let people offload? It’s all about the people.”
www.buildersmerchantsjournal.net July 2019
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