Steve Yates was the ‘Everyman’ - he had a normal job, a loving family, a wife and children.

His upbringing was filled with nothing but love and laughter, and to anyone outside looking in his life was full and happy.

But the 38-year-old from Margate - battling anxiety and feeling as though there was no way out - took his own life in a woodland in Folkestone.

In a note found by police officers next to his body, he admitted he couldn’t go on any more.

“I’m so sorry I ended up this way,” he wrote.

To add to his distraught family’s grief, that same day a counsellor got in touch, asking to speak to Steve to arrange therapy.

It showed the dad-of-two, a BT engineer, had been trying to get help, but as his mum Lorraine told them: “You’re too late.”

His childhood best friend, filmmaker Ben Akers, says the devastation and heartache of losing Steve in May 2014 opened his eyes to the struggles and pressure faced by men today.

The oft-quoted fact that suicide is the biggest killer of men under 45 rung in his ears, with the reality that his friend was one of 12 in the UK who took their lives that day - one every two hours.

“I realised the thing that was most likely to kill me, was me,” said Ben.

“I had a lot of grief and guilt that I hadn’t been there for him.

“Growing up we’d been inseparable - we were joined at the hip. You wouldn’t find one without the other.

“He was funny, generous; he was lovely.

“Then I’d moved to Australia and he’d been in Canada before he moved back to Thanet. I hadn’t been a big part of his life for 10 years.

“We’d been in touch over Facebook and spoke but that was it.”

Ben, who has had counselling to work through his grief, says years later he was reading a magazine with an article about male suicide and another about men watching sports and documentaries.

“I feel like the two connected and it was this moment I decided to make a film,” he said,

The idea for Steve: Saving Men from Suicide was born, a crowdfunder was launched and two years on, after touring the country with the film, he has done a TED talk and launched Talk Club, to help men maintain ‘mental fitness’.

The club has now reached more than 1,500 members and allows men to talk about their struggles.

“The main thing is the question ‘how are you out of 10?’ - it’s so simple,” Ben said.

“We focus on mental fitness rather than mental health issues. To be mentally fit and strong, you can compare it to being physically fit.

“If you go to the gym, do exercise, your body is fit; it’s something that we’re expected to do, to be healthy.

“If you eat a kebab every day and don’t do exercise that’s not good for your body. Yet we expect our brain to look after itself.

“But if we don’t talk about feelings and don’t process things, then we’re not mentally fit.

“Talk Club is like the gym, it keeps your brain fit.

“If someone goes to the gym, people say well done. If someone goes to therapy I say the same, because it’s the same thing.

“Except the normal reaction is for people to say ‘what’s wrong’.”

Ben says he took his film around the country to venues including pubs and prisons to get the message out there.

“The first 15 minutes is about Steve and what happened,” he said.

“But the rest of the film is about change and solutions. It’s positive. The film is a Trojan horse to get men thinking about their mental health.”

The movement has spread so far and been so successful that Ben is now looking at doing a similar project, but working with children.

“We can all have mental health issues, like we have physical issues,” he said.

“We need to look after ourselves. But this is a societal challenge.”

For more on Talk Club visit www.wetalkclub.com. You can also find more about the fundraiser for Ben's new film here.

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