A woman is helping to organise an epic cycle challenge from west Wales to France to raise money for mental health charities - four years after she found her brother dead in her garden. Andrea Holley, who lives in Gorslas in Carmarthenshire, has opened up candidly about the grief felt by her family after her brother Hywel took his own life despite desperate attempts to get him the help he needed.
Hywel Jones was 46 years old and did not have a long and protracted battle with his mental health. On the contrary, he was a successful professional who had a well-paid job as a chartered surveyor and site manager in Cardiff. Having lived in Aberavon, the father of two young sons had recently moved back to the family home in Cross Hands, 12 miles east of Carmarthen. To get the latest Carmarthenshire stories sent directly to you for free, click here.
His sister Andrea and the rest of the family noticed a change in his behaviour in the final weeks of his life, but nothing could have prepared them for what happened on the afternoon of March 28, 2018.
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"He had no history of depression at all,” said Andrea, 45. “He was a professional man who had a very good job who had never struggled with any mental health issues. In those final six months I noticed he was struggling a bit but he was making plans for his future.
“But, all of a sudden, two weeks before he died, I noticed a marked change in him. You could just tell there was something wrong. It was as if he couldn’t see a way forward. He went to see his GP but I think he didn’t really want to show that anything was wrong, he didn’t want to say how bad things were, so he was given some tablets and sent on his way.”
On the day Hywel died Andrea spent time with him at her home, doing all she could to get him the support he needed. They spoke to NHS Wales on the phone but, according to Andrea, “he convinced them that he was fine”. Andrea left the house a short time later but called the NHS again to say that she was “deeply concerned” about her brother.
“But I didn’t think he was going to kill himself,” she said. “I thought he was having a breakdown. I spoke to social services too and they told me to get him registered with my local doctor and to get him down there to see someone the next day, so that was the plan.”
Tragically, that plan never came to fruition.
“I last spoke to him at about 12.30pm that day, when he said he was going for a walk. By about 3pm I couldn’t get hold of him. I was starting to get a bit worried but not for one second did I think he was contemplating taking his own life. His car was still outside my house so I knew he hadn’t gone far.”
Andrea was, at this point, walking around, looking for her brother. She was on the phone to her husband Dan, who was out in Majorca on a cycling trip, when she approached an old shed at the back of her garden. Still on the phone, she opened the shed door.
"I opened the door and I saw Hywel,” she said. “I remember telling my husband that I had to go because I had found my brother dead. I was in a state of shock. I closed the shed door, got off the phone and called the police.”
After calling her husband back, Andrea then told her sister Sharon of the tragedy and they both set off for their parents’ nearby home to tell them the news. The grief of losing her brother was “like nothing I have ever been through in my life”, said Andrea, but, she insists, she was happy that she was the person who found him.
“I’m glad he did it where I could find him. I’ve always accepted why he did it but I’ve never been angry with him.”
On Thursday morning (May 12), Andrea’s husband Dan and two friends - Paul John and Dr Adrian Raybould - will cycle from Llandeilo in Carmarthenshire to its twin town of Le Conquet in north-western France to raise money for two charities. Firstly, they will embark on a 220-mile journey to Plymouth, setting off at 3am, before catching a ferry across the channel and completing their cycle with a 70-mile ride to their destination.
And just to add to the scale of the challenge, they’ll carry out the whole journey riding homemade bamboo bikes, having previously completed similar fundraising rides including one from Llanelli to Anglesey. Andrea herself will make the first part of the journey by car but will join the men on the French leg of the challenge, along with members of a local cycle club in Le Conquet. “The first day will take about 14 or 15 hours on the bikes, and I’ll join them for a bit of the second day which will obviously slow them down!" she said.
All costs for the trip are being paid for by Andrea and the rest of the group, with every penny raised from the challenge going to either mental health charity Mind or Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide, who help people overcome the isolation and pain experienced when someone they know has taken their own life. If you want to donate to Mind you can do so here. If you want to donate to Survivors of Bereavement by Suicide you can do so here.
“Nobody could help my brother because he was not asking for help himself, it was his annoying kid sister doing all the asking for him,” said Andrea. “Why is a struggle with mental health seen as something you have to prove? You don’t ignore a lump in your breast or a broken leg, but it’s harder to get help for your mental health.
"I want to raise awareness and these two charities we’re raising money for do a lot for people who are struggling and they rely on donations. People, especially men, need to open up more and talk to someone when they are down.
"When my brother died the biggest shock for everyone was that he had killed himself. People couldn’t believe that it had happened to him, and it made me realise that it could happen to anyone. He was wrong to do what he did because it was a permanent solution for a temporary set of problems. But I’ve never been angry at him at any point. I just miss him, every day.”
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