MOST days when they got home from work Jade Clark and her partner Matthew would watch This Morning having recorded it from earlier in the day.

It was one of the many things they loved to do together - so it is perhaps bittersweet their favourite show has recently been poignantly highlighting the major issue of male suicide.

Tragically it is something Jade has now dealt with herself after 29-year-old Matthew took his own life in November.

The much-loved bricklayer is one of an alarming statistic, picked up on by This Morning, that 84 British men a week take their own lives.

Jade, 35, says she feels more could have been done to help Matthew who she said needed counselling and the opportunity to talk with professionals rather than medicine.

And she wants to do as much as she can to help other men who may be suffering with mental health problems leading them to consider taking their own lives, setting up a charity with the help of Matthew's mum Tracey Sturgeon.

The couple had been together for four years having met when Jade's Daughter Sienna was just 11 months old.

Jade explains : "I used to go to a baby group and I had made some good friends there and one of them mentioned her friend wanted to meet me.

"He had seen my picture on Facebook and liked me and we arranged to meet up. I suppose it was blind date really and we just gelled straight away as soon as we met.

"It turned out he was six years younger than me and I was a bit worried about that but it didn't make any difference," says Jade.

They were soon inseparable with Matthew quickly being introduced to the delights of foreign holidays.

"When we first went out together I asked him about where he liked to go on holiday and he said he had never been on holiday and I did think 'well this isn't going to work !' because I love going away, my whole family do," she laughs.

But having pledged to go to Ibiza together Matthew was soon on board with the holidays.

"He loved it and my favourite pictures of us together were the ones of us in Ibiza and on other holidays," she admits.

Gazette: Happy couple- Jade with partner Matt two years ago

Matthew had soon moved in with Jade and Sienna and their boxer dog, Dave.

"As soon as we met that was it, he came round soon after and just didn't seem to leave.

"He was amazing with Sienna and has been the only dad she has ever known and they had a very strong bond and he did used to moan about Dave but he was the one who took him out all the time and he loved him too," says Jade, who lives in Colchester.

Looking back now she says Matthew probably began to experience problems with his mental health two years into their relationship when the couple suffered the devastating loss of the baby they were expecting, 21 weeks into Jade's pregnancy.

"I had the extreme sickness that Kate Middleton suffers with and things started to go wrong with the pregnancy at about 14 weeks.

"I think that had an effect on Matt but at the time I just wasn't really sure of the signs.

"He became grumpy and withdrawn and also paranoid about things.

"I would be upstairs just quietly painting my nails or doing something and he would be downstairs, calling up to ask who I was talking to when I wasn't.

"And I now realise he must have been hearing voices which is obviously another sign."

Jade says Matt had been to the doctors a number of times and eventually to hospital in an effort to get help.

"I think he needed counselling, not medicine, and I do think something needs to be done about the mental health system.

"Someone told me I could contact St Helena Hospice after Matt died, to get some bereavement counselling, so that is what I did and they set it up immediately and that has been a huge help.

"Why was that so easy for me but Matt could not get the help he needed ?"

On November 6 last year Jade was at work when she received the dreadful news Matthew had killed himself after travelling to Hornsey station in London.

Since then she and Sienna do everything they can to keep his memory alive.

Gazette: Memories - Jade with daughter Sienna, five, at home in Colchester, looking at pictures of Matt

Sienna leaves countless little notes with messages for her mummy and daddy, pictures adorn the walls and they have a medal Matt won for football as a child in pride of place on the windowsill.

"If we can't find something then we will say to each other 'Matt moved it' because he was forever moving things around the house.

"I can't help but think more could have been done to help him, and that is why I want to help other people going through it," says Jade.

The idea for a charity in his memory came about after Matthew's mum Tracey had watched the moving documentary made by music star Professor Green, whose own father died by suicide.

"She said to me 'this can't go on, we have to do something' and we were going to do something for a mental health charity but then starting talking about setting our own up.

"I found a counsellor that would do an hours session for £10 and just started thinking that for just £50 that would be five hours of talking we could get for someone."

They soon formed plans to buy a caravan to send families for short breaks.

"Going away and being outside were two of the things Matt just loved.

"One of the last truly happy times I had with Matt were when we rented a beach hut in Maldon with some friends.

"The weather was terrible and we laughed all day but the next day he was down again and that would often happen."

Jade and Sienna have also received a huge amount of support from Billericay Town Football Club following Matthew's death.

They had become fans of the club and its owner Glenn Tamplin after seeing him on This Morning and he not only agreed to a request to a minute's silence for Matthew at one of their matches but also organised a collection for the family.

"They saved Christmas for me because I had to take a lot of time off after Matt died and things were very tight.

"They even bought Jade a bag she had really wanted as a Christmas present, they have been so kind."

It is these acts of kindness, and support for others like Matthew, that Jade wants to keep going.

They have now set up a web-site for Matthew's Voice and are organising a number of fundraising events.

"I want to make it easier for men to get the help they need quickly, it just doesn't seem to be there at the moment.

  • If you need help please visit www.matthewsvoice.org.uk or www.samaritans.org