A Day in the Life

When I say, "Time to Change", I am referring to the new national anti-stigma campaign going on in the UK at the moment. Many of you may have not heard of it, but there have been adverts on TV, and indeed, millions of pounds is being spent on this attempt to reduce the stigma surrounding mental ill health. The campaign has also been endorsed by celebrities who have themselves experienced mental ill health, from Stephen Fry to Ruby Wax and even Alistair Campbell (yuk!). Only recently the campaign put two new films on its internet sight dealing with the misconceptions and misunderstandings surrounding schizophrenic illness. And here, obviously, is where things began to get a little sticky. One mention of "that word" and it seems many begin to get the heebie jeebies . The veil comes down, the stereotypes kick in, and people are generally scared to death. The films themselves actually try to deal with these fears though, and defuse them. In the first film, it starts l...

Unfortunately I have some very sad news to relay in this blog. A member of The Pathways Group, the team behind the making of our short film, "The Search" (see my posts entitled "Hollywood Here I Come" parts 1,2 and 3) has tragically passed away. His name was Matthew John Aitken, known to us and to his many friends simply as "Matt". He was only 37 years old at the time of his death. The reasons for his abrupt and shocking departure from us are not fully known to me, so I shall not speculate, other than to say Matt lived life, despite his diagnosis of mental ill health, to the full. His many interests included an abiding love of rock music, particularly the heavy metal variety, and he seemed to constantly be attending gigs where his favourite bands would play. Indeed, with his appearance of long hair pulled back into a pony tail and his many piercings and tattoos, you could say that Matt looked for all the world like a rock star. In fact, I think at one po...