PROFESSOR GREEN EXCLUSIVE:

PROFESSOR GREEN has opened up about his fight with mental ill health and said he fears the current cost of living crisis will lead to many more people suffering like he has.
In an interview with GB News the 38-year-old singer said: “Mental health has plagued my family. My father took his own life when I was 24. I’ve had my own bouts of depression. And I saw the stress that my family went through, my nan in particular, who brought me up, due to money struggles.
“She was working three jobs a day and coming home tired and upset, you’re going to put money on the gas or the electricity, you know, and there wasn’t an energy crisis back then. And I can only remember selfishly, how that impacted me as a child but obviously, I also saw how it affected her. Now four out of five people are worried about how they’re going to pay their bills this winter.
“You just begin to associate money with stress, money with problems. And then, not being taught any kind of money management skills as well, it’s really difficult.”
Commenting on the current financial turmoil many are facing, the singer, whose real name is Stephen Manderson, said: “These are really uncertain times, uncertainty leads to chaos, chaos leads to confusion, people are confused. And when you’re confused and anxious, you know, there are proven links between financial stress and depression.
“The science of social deprivation, this is well documented, means people are going to have their mental health impacted, and people want to bury their head in the sand and that’s understandable.
“Why would people want to learn money management skills when they feel like they haven’t even got the money to manage? But it’s important they seek and access the services that are out there to help them. A lot of people don’t feel like there is any help out there, but there is.”
Speaking as part of a new campaign by the British Gas Energy Trust which is aiming to offer that help, he told Isabel Webster and Paul Hawkins: “Some people are so isolated, they don’t have anyone to talk to, and I feel strongly enough to come out and talk about it all.
“I will never get rid of my working-class anxieties. I still have a mortgage I have to pay off, I still have bills I have to pay, I’m self-employed, work dries up for me. I’ve mismanaged money because I didn’t know how to handle it.
“But now I’m trying to be smarter. I’m trying to be more frugal and think about what I spent as a kid now. Everything’s really serious. You know, I’ve been quite careless, not just with my money, but with my time and with my wellbeing and my life. And I’m not that anymore. Because I have a kid, I have someone to support. My kid has a chance to grow up differently and not have those anxieties that I grew up with.”