On the 16th February 2009 a very dear friend of ours Miles Seegobin, aged 28, took his own life. I had known Miles for a number of years and my two boys Luke and Ben idolised him. He was bright, intelligent, always had a point of view, spent hours talking to the boys and seemed as though he had all the options he could possibly want, to have a wonderful life.

Sadly unknown to us and many of his friends was that there were two sides to Miles' personality, the life and soul of the party in public and a manic depressive in private.

Life became too much for him to cope with and he took the ultimate decision last year to take his own life leaving behind his Mum, Dad, Sister, Brother and hundreds of friends.

People with a Mental illness do not have to suffer alone, there are Charities out there who can help and it was with this in our thoughts that all his friends decided to raise money for 'mind' a charity that supports people suffering from conditions like this.

We've already raised quite a lot of money, we produced a 'Men of Mells village' calendar and yes I'm in it, sold out now, bringing in over £6k so we have made a good start, but I want to do more.

So on the 7th March I will be running the Bath Half Marathon in memory of Miles and to raise money for Mind. Please could I ask you to dig deep and to sponsor me so that Mind can continue to help to support those who are affected by this almost invisible illness.

Thank you so much.

Nigel