WATCH: Alastair Campbell speaks about his brother's mental health

Mental health campaigner Alastair Campbell recently visited Glasgow to speak about how important it is that we carry on talking about mental health, campaigning to remove stigma and working to improve mental health services. He spoke at a Celtic Connections event, where he was playing the Tiree Song Book on bagpipes in memory of his brother Donald, who experienced schizophrenia.

Alastair said: "We are making a lot of progress in the campaign to break down the stigma and taboo surrounding mental illness but we have a long way to go. We have a long way to go on services too and I worry that as the anti stigma campaign makes ground we get more people coming forward for services and they find they're not there.

So we need to keep campaigning hard for the change we need. "That is why I support the brilliant work done by See Me and why I am determined to keep my brother's memory alive as one more way of campaigning for better attitudes, research, resourcing and services." See Me director Calum Irving said: “Mental health is part of everyone’s day to day life, it affects all of us.

"Alastair is a fantastic campaigner on mental health, using his personal experiences and expertise to speak passionately about this vital issue. Having high profile spokespeople using their platform to speak about mental health does so much to show that no one should ever feel ashamed to speak out. “Despite this there is still a stigma around it. To tackle this properly we need everyone to understand that it is okay not to be okay. “If mental health can become a part of normal everyday conversation, just like physical health, then people won’t worry about saying how they really feel, and asking for help."

• mental health
• Stigma
• See Me
• schizophrenia
• campaigner