Tom

Listen to Tom Dryden’s story, as told by his Mum, Jane

My son Tom didn't get to celebrate his 20th birthday. Tom was a deep thinker, kind, funny and very laid back, or he appeared to be. We always remember him skating to our local village and tickling people or brushing them as he skated past.

I'll never forget when he was a teenager he used to have secret parties while we were away, and tried hiding the rubbish in other people's bins, but him and his friends always left BB gun pellets and nerf bullets around the house and garden, which we could never understand.

I hope this campaign will alert other families to the fact that teenagers may not appear to be suicidal, and we need to always keep an eye on how they are. I wish I knew how to talk about suicide with Tom and his friends. We warned him about driving while drunk and the use of recreational drugs, but we never really considered that the greatest risk to his health was suicide. His friends and family now talk about suicide prevention all the time, and we hope that with this campaign we reach out to families that haven't been touched by suicide, in the hope that they never are.