Prince William visibly moved as widow tells of husband’s suicide

The Prince of Wales was visibly moved when he heard firsthand about the devastating impact of suicide, and had to pause during a conversation with Rhian Mannings, whose husband took his own life.

Rhian has since set up a bereavement charity – and Prince William’s Royal Foundation is contributing £1 million to the development of a national suicide prevention network.

The network, which will operate across the UK, will work to better understand the root causes of suicide and offer support to those affected.

Prince William, on World Mental Health Day, said he wanted to “build a bold and unified national response to the heartbreaking and preventable tragedy of suicide”.

In an emotional conversation, filmed, Rhian Mannings told the prince that her husband had taken his own life, five days after the couple faced the death of their one-year-old son.

The prince asked her how she coped and continued to raise two children.

“I look back and I still don’t know how we survived,” Rhian said.

“Unfortunately there is still a lot of stigma around suicide, did you feel that way at the time?” » asked Prince William.

“It surprised me quite a bit. I had never been affected by suicide. It was something that happened on the news. Nobody wanted to talk about it,” Rhian told him, during a conversation in her kitchen in Cardiff.

Prince William asked her what she would say to her husband.

“‘Why didn’t you talk to me?’ I ask myself that every day. He was absolutely devastated, he kept blaming himself,” she said.

“But I would just like to sit him down like this and say, ‘Why didn’t you come see me?’ Because he missed out on so much joy. And we would have been ok. I think that’s the hardest thing, everything would have been fine.”

The prince seemed too upset to speak.

“Are you OK?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, it’s hard to ask you the questions,” William said.

“You’ve experienced loss yourself,” Rhian said. “Life can throw horrible upheavals at you. By talking about it, by having hope, you can keep going.”

Following her own loss in 2012, Rhian founded a charity, 2wish, to help those affected by the sudden or unexpected death of a child or young person.

The charity will be one of 20 organizations forming part of a new national suicide prevention network, launched with £1 million over three years by the Prince and Princess of Wales’s Royal Foundation.

The network will be chaired by Professor Ann John, an expert in suicide prevention and consultant in public health medicine in Wales.

The Royal Foundation says suicide prevention is a “complex challenge” and there is no “one-size-fits-all model of support”.

But the new network will attempt to better understand the causes of suicide, provide support accessible to all and encourage greater collaboration between different agencies and charities.

Among the charities in the network will be the Jac Lewis Foundation in Cardiff, which Prince William visited last month.

This provides a drop-in centre, located inside the Principality Stadium in Cardiff, which can provide mental health support to the local community.

The charity’s chief executive, Elizabeth Thomas-Evans, of the Foundation, said: “From the valleys to the cities, suicide has scarred communities across Wales. »

But she hopes people in need will now be able to come in and get help.

Another partner is James’ Place, which offers free support to men in suicidal crisis in Liverpool, London and Newcastle.

Chief executive Ellen O’Donoghue said she wanted to “remove some of the barriers men face in accessing support in times of crisis”.