Mental Health Awareness Week

Commemorating a journey of creativity 

How appropriate that my guests on The Writer's Room broadcast this week should be members of the creative writing group at Newport MIND - it was a great way to mark Mental Health Awareness Week, to celebrate their writing and to give some publicity to the anthology "More Than My Mind" which they produced last year to mark 40 years of Newport's branch of the organisation. On the programme, along with their facilitator Helen McSherry, they read extracts from the book and other work and talked about their lives and their experiences of mental health problems; they spoke eloquently of the value they placed on the group itself and on the power of creative writing to help overcome problems that they faced.

The group's anthology came about through collaboration with a renowned Newport poet, Paul Chambers, and a National Geographic photographer, Daniel Alford. Some of the poems within it were written by members of other organisations the group connected with, including Age Alive, a Black and Minority Ethnic organisation. Under Daniel's tuition, the MIND Photography Group produced superb photos to complement the writing and the hard back book is really beautifully presented. Copies are for sale through Newport MIND and they're also available at the Riverfront Arts Centre in Newport - they're well worth a look at.

Helen McSherry with Giles Hibberd, Patrick Jeremy,
Mark Haines, Eamon Sweeny and Mark Vrettos