England legend Alec Stewart reveals heartbreaking final messages to Graham Thorpe

Alec Stewart tried to reach out to his former team-mate Graham Thorpe in the final months before he took his own life.

Thorpe passed away in August at the age of 55 and was laid to rest at a private funeral last month following an outpouring of tributes. He was a stalwart for England and Surrey, scoring 6,744 runs in 100 Tests for his country as a talented left-handed batter.

Thorpe's family have been praised for speaking openly about his mental health struggles, detailing how he had been suffering from “major depression and anxiety” in recent years. Stewart was one of his closest friends in cricket, having played with him for England and Surrey, and he has now spoken about his grief at losing his former team-mate.

“It’s so difficult to sort of get my words right on this,” Stewart told The Telegraph. “It was always going to be when, not if this would happen because it had gone on for so long, and the amount of help that had come his way, and so many people were trying to help, but you’ve got to help yourself in the end. And he just didn’t want to.

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“And this is the way I’ve tried to look at it, is that we’re all very sad and upset we’ve lost a great person, but wherever he is now, he’s got to be happier because he wasn’t happy here. And that’s how I’ve tried to sort of deal with it, in that we’ve been selfish by being upset that Thorpey is not with us, instead of thinking that he’s much happier now wherever he is looking down on us.

“The last time I spoke to him in person was early March, because he just stopped responding. After that, you’d leave messages, whether it’s voice messages or WhatsApp messages. You’d see he’d read them, but that shows how dark a place he was in.

“So many people tried to help and reach out, it comes to that individual having to help himself. And that’s the sad thing about it, because as a player, we know what a fighter he was – brilliant player, brilliant person – but they say when you get in this dark place, it’s a horrible place to be.”

Thorpe left behind wife Amanda and children Henry, Amelia, Kitty and Emma. His widow Amanda told The Times : “Graham was renowned as someone who was very mentally strong on the field and he was in good physical health. But mental illness is a real disease and can affect anyone.

“Despite having a wife and two daughters whom he loved and who loved him, he did not get better. He was so unwell in recent times and he really did believe that we would be better off without him and we are devastated that he acted on that and took his own life.”