A UK wide campaign aims to start Britain's biggest conversation about mental health

Scots are being urged to talk openly about their mental health next month as part of a UK-wide event to tackle stigma.

Time to Talk Day on 1 Feb aims to create the biggest conversation on mental health Britain has ever seen.

See Me, the national programme to end mental health discrimination, is bringing together schools, workplaces, musicians, actors and some of Scotland's most iconic locations to be part of the event

It continues the thousands of conversations which happened as part of last year's Start Talking campaign, which was created with See Me and clothing brand Abandon Ship, and supported by rockers, Losing Ground and barbers Hard Grind.

Losing Ground singer Jack Sutton is encouraging people to get involved in Time to Talk day after speaking out about his own mental health in the band's song Great Escapes, which raised money for See Me.

The 26 year old from Kilmarnock said: "I've suffered from periods of depression my whole life but only really identified it in my mid-teens. I sought help at the time and found my GP awkward to talk to and standoffish.

"That definitely didn't make me feel like my mental health was something I could or should speak about.

"I've had a brilliant life, been fantastically lucky and have amazing friends and family which is probably why I've always been really hard on myself around my mental health.

"It's taken me a long time to appreciate that I'm not broken, that we all need help from time to time and that what I go through is just part of me.

"It took me until very recently, including panic attacks and being unable to leave the house, to properly address what I was going through and accept that I owed it to more than myself to do something about it.

"As a band we've been lauded as brave, which is really kind, but I think it's fundamentally wrong. I think if people felt less like they had to summon courage to discuss something that was basically killing them then we’d be halfway to beating it."

Calum Irving, See Me director, said: "2018 is set to be the biggest year yet for getting people talking about mental health.

"This will start in January in the build up to Time to Talk day, which we want to see people really getting behind. It's fantastic to have people like Jack and Losing Ground using their experiences to try and reach out to others.

"If we can all do this then we can beat mental health stigma."