An Interview with Mike McCarthy, Sound of Silence

Content Warning: this interview contains discussions of suicide.

Sound of Silence is inspired by the real story of Ross, a 31-year-old man from a supportive family with much to live for and died by suicide.

We spoke to Mike McCarthy, the father of Ross McCarthy, about working with Brian to create Sound of Silence.

Do you remember your first meeting with Brian – and what was your motivation for wanting to work with him to create Sound of Silence? 

Brian got in touch with me after my son Ross took his life in February 2021. Brian had seen me do an interview on the local news programme and given his background in writing plays concerning quite profound social issues he wanted to write a play based on Ross’s story.

After Brian got in touch, we spoke about it as a family and there were a couple of reasons we decided to work with Brian.

Firstly, Ross left a long farewell letter and one of the things that he said was please fight for mental health support. And when my son, in the last moments of his life, asked us to do something that’s all the motivation you need. So, whenever I’ve been approached to do anything to do with mental health, my immediate question is “would Ross approve?” – and I asked myself that when I went to meet with Brian.

Secondly, we knew we could trust Brian. When I met him, I could tell that he had a good heart, and I could tell he knew what he was talking about, and he was very experienced and capable as a playwright.

Plays or creating a dramatization of a real-life story isn’t anything that I’ve ever been involved with, but Brian left me feeling very reassured that he would handle the story compassionately, sensitively and intelligently. And that’s exactly what he did.

And then how did you and your family work with Brian to create Sound of Silence?

Brian interviewed me and other members of my family, and he got all our perspectives because, for example, my daughter – who as well as being Ross’s sister was also his best mate – had a different perspective from mine.

The process of working with Brian also reinforced to me that we all process grief in different ways and we have to respect each other’s way of grieving.

And how did you find that process of working with Brian? It must have been a very emotional process to go through.

I’m always happy to talk about Ross, even though it’s an incredibly sad subject, I’m very proud of Ross and I remain very proud of him. I don’t think what he did was right, I don’t think suicide is the solution and there is always hope but I understand he felt that way.

Brian guided us all through that process very gently and compassionately, I felt very safe. And in my interview, I just spoke. He did all the hard work!

And I want to thank Brian for also giving me the platform to say all of this. I wanted to shout about Ross and his situation from the rooftops – and this is just our experience, there are hundreds of thousands of others. And he gave me that platform.

And why did you want to tell Ross’s story?

Suicide is the biggest killer of young people in this country, not cancer, not drugs, not road accidents, but suicide. And speaking to other families who have been through the same thing, it’s a very familiar, very common story. But it’s still a very taboo subject.

I’ve lost count of the mums and dads, brothers and sisters who I’ve spoken to who have said there just isn’t the mental health support until you’re at crisis point, in terms of mental health

So, I really applaud Brian for having the bravery to tackle such a taboo subject head-on and opening up the conversation around suicide because that’s precisely what we need as a society – the subject has been hiding in the shadows for far too long.

And Sound of Silence, and working with Brian, allowed grieving people like me a place to say “where’s the debate?”, “where’s the discussion?”, “where’s the media coverage?”, “where’s the classroom conversations?”, “why are we sweeping this under the carpet?”.  

Mental health advocates always say, if you go to a hospital with a broken leg, you’ll be admitted immediately. Ross had a broken mind, and he was told to wait six months, then he died two weeks later. And this is very common.

Can you remember your reaction when you saw Sound of Silence for the first time?

Yes, I was incredibly overwhelmed. I cried a lot because even though Ross isn’t here anymore, it helped to give him a voice as he’s not here to use his own.

We saw a production at Sheffield Hallam University and even though it’s not, strictly speaking, about Ross, it was heavily based on his story and it was like watching our family’s darkest time, our biggest tragedy.

And although it was very hard to watch, it prompted a really good, open and healthy conversation and I was convinced – if I hadn’t been convinced before! – to bring home the issues around suicide. 

Were there any powerful reactions from audience members that stayed with you?

There’s been so many. But one that stands out was a production at Leeds Beckett University. There were quite a few students from the university in the audience, and there’s always a discussion after the play. During the discussion, one student opened up about the way they were feeling in a way they never felt they’d been able to before. They had been feeling incredibly lonely and bottling up what they were feeling – and they were feeling much clearer about the direction of their life and the positive future they had.

And that’s very rewarding to see the positive impact a play like this can have.

It does feel like there’s been much more conversation about mental health – and especially male suicide – lately. Do you feel that there is increasing recognition from the public about the challenges and complexities around male suicide and mental health?

I can’t believe that in my lifetime it was considered an illegal act, and people who tried to take their own lives and survived were actually put in prison. What kind of society were we?

And I think language has a part to play in destigmatising suicide, we still say ‘commit’ suicide. Ross wasn’t perfect but he didn’t commit a crime. That language goes back to the dark ages, and we’re more than 60 years forward from when the illegal status was lifted and I’m afraid that if we still can’t get the language right then we’ve got an awfully long way to go.

But yes, the conversation is starting to open up. I think the past year, and working with Brian, has shown me that people at large are more than ready to talk about mental health and male suicide.

Following Ross’s death, I got involved in campaigning myself and I’ve set up a few talking groups for men in my home city of Sheffield, which are attached to Sheffield Wednesday and Sheffield United. The community foundations at both clubs are fantastic and they’ve been so supportive. These are branches of the fantastic national charity Talk Club.

From my experience, I can see it’s the younger generation of men that are driving that conversation, but I can see that older men are starting to question phrases like ‘man up’ aren’t helpful.

And that football model is very helpful because I think a lot of men wouldn’t come through the door if it was just ‘mental health’, but because of that connection with football, they’re much more comfortable.

And there are some fantastic organisations out there, doing brilliant work too – Campaign Against Living Miserably and Andy’s Man Club in particular.

And if there’s anyone reading this who has a story about health and social care to tell – maybe it’s their own experience or their family’s experience or an experience of a friend – but they might be nervous about sharing their story, what advice would you give them about approaching Brian?

My background is as a journalist, so I’ve always believed that being open about everything is the only way to really get to grips with the heart of the issue. So, if I see a problem, the first thing I think you’ve got to do is communicate about it – because too many things remain hidden if we don’t talk.

Throughout my career, I’ve had to interview people in moments of great trauma, so the Hillsborough Disaster, the Boston Marathon and the Ariana Grande terrorist attack in Manchester. And I could only really do that job because I knew that 99.9% of the time people who were in two minds about talking about their experience would generally speaking be glad that they spoke out.

If you would like to discuss your health and social care story with Brian you can get in touch.