As part of our campaign to support our troops, Emma Cowing hears the heartbreaking story of a bereaved father and tells how fundraising for the charity Combat Stress helped him through after the suicide of his soldier son

• Picture: Ian Rutherford

JOHN HENDERSON carries his grief quietly. He is a friendly man. He cracks jokes and is up for a laugh, but his loss is always there, just on the edge of vision. "You hear a song on the radio or somebody says something to you so innocently, just something small and stupid," says the 43-year-old, shaking his head, "and it brings it all back."

In September 2005, Mr Henderson's 18-year-old son Stuart took his own life. Stuart was a soldier in Cyprus serving with 2 Scots the Royal Highland Fusiliers, a battalion that forms part of the Royal Regiment of Scotland. He had passed out three months earlier and had been posted to the island not long afterwards. Mr Henderson, from Carntyne in Glasgow, says neither he nor his wife, Catherine, had an inkling anything was seriously wrong. They knew Stuart, who was dyslexic and also suffered from dyspraxia, had been up and down on whether or not he was enjoying life in the army, but nothing more than that.

"He never said anything," his father says. "I had spoken to him the night before and he seemed a bit happier. The next day, I was at work and I got a phone call that somebody from the army was at the house looking for me, and I just thought 'what's he done? It must be something stupid'. I never for a moment thought it would be that."

The first few weeks following Stuart's death were terrible, as the Hendersons struggled to make sense of their only son's death. Then, at Christmas, they saw a programme on television about soldiers who suffered from mental health problems as a result of their time in the military.

"We started wondering just exactly what happened to these guys and if there was something we could do to help. So I contacted a guy at the Royal Highland Fusiliers who was really helpful and he told us if we wanted to start some sort of fundraising, Combat Stress would be a good place to start. I'd never even heard of them before," Mr Henderson says.

Combat Stress, which is 90 years old this year, is the country's largest veterans' mental health charity. It treats ex-forces men and women who have been involved in conflicts as far back as the Second World War and have suffered psychological problems as a result, most commonly post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), a crippling condition that can result in severe trauma and repeated flashbacks, and significantly impair the sufferer's day-to-day life. Once known as shell shock, it is becoming increasingly common among Britain's armed forces veterans. Combat Stress has reported a 66 per cent increase in referrals in the past five years.

"I couldn't think of anything else to do, so I decided to set up a wee run and raise money that way," says Mr Henderson. "I wanted to raise money that I knew would go to helping these guys out."

In its first year, his "wee run" involved 30 competitors and raised 2,000. This year, 260 people took part, running a 5K race round Glasgow Green and raising more than 2,500. Next year, in March, he will hold it again, and hopes it will be the biggest and best yet.

But for Stuart's old battalion, the connection now runs deeper. Since his death, 2 Scots has adopted Combat Stress as its dedicated charity, helping to raise money and, perhaps even more importantly, adopting something of a two-way street, where serving soldiers can meet veterans suffering from PTSD, listen to their stories, and understand the issues at stake.

It is also an opportunity for the soldiers of 2 Scots – who completed a six-month tour in Afghanistan in 2008 and are due to return there next year – to relate their own combat experiences in such regions, so that when the staff at Combat Stress find themselves treating an Afghan veteran, they will better understand the environment in which their problems developed. It is a unique relationship, and one that could mark a sea-change in the way the armed forces approach mental health issues and lay down an important blueprint for the future.

"The army has always had a very male, macho culture," says Clive Fairweather, a former deputy commander of the SAS and chief fundraiser for Combat Stress in Scotland, where the charity has a large facility, Hollybush House, in Ayrshire.

"They don't want to talk about these problems and these issues. But that's beginning to change. It's a trickle that's become a swell. Civilian life has become more accepting of mental health problems and that has percolated through to the army – particularly an army that has been involved in two major conflicts in recent times."

Lieutenant Colonel Nick Borton, commanding officer of 2 Scots, agrees. "Everyone is now much clearer on what the problems are," he says. "Combat Stress are currently dealing with guys who served in the Falklands, Northern Ireland and Bosnia, but everyone is very conscious that we're fighting the most intense conflict we have done for many years, and we are aware that, downstream, there are going to be people who have difficulties as a result."

Combat Stress's place at Hollybush House treats veterans in a variety of ways, using relaxation techniques, cognitive behavioural therapy and eye movement desensitisation reprocessing, which attempts to "reprogramme" traumatic memories through intensive therapy. But perhaps its most important element is one of community: although the staff are mostly civilian, the men and women treated there are military veterans, and are often there for two weeks at a time. They provide a support network for each other that can be difficult to find in the civilian world, creating, as one veteran describes it, a feeling of "walking straight back into the barracks".

This was of particular importance when soldiers from 2 Scots visited Hollybush earlier this year. "They just sat down and were able to relate to these people, and the veterans were able to talk through their experiences without having to explain what this acronym means or that abbreviation means," says Major James Loudoun, 2 Scots officer commanding charities and a Scottish ambassador for Combat Stress.

"When somebody says 'I was bugging out towards the RV', my soldiers are able to say 'yep, I know exactly what you mean'. I think it was pretty good therapy for the soldiers to understand the help that is available and see it's not One Flew Over The Cuckoo's Nest – it's a proper facility where you can come and get help, meet people who understand, and then get on with your life."

Maj Loudoun also visited Hollybush with two colleagues to discuss with the nursing staff there the conditions men and women are facing on the front-line in Afghanistan. "We took the opportunity to say 'Look, this is what's happening here and now. You'll get soldiers talking about the living conditions and the shooting and the heat and we can tell you more about that'.

"We took along props so they understood the weight of what we were carrying, the size of the area we lived in, the harshness of the environment, the food, basically to highlight the stress that soldiers are under so that in the future, they'll be able to understand where soldiers talking about Afghanistan are coming from."

Mr Fairweather says: "It's been a completely two-way thing. They help us with funds, with practical knowledge and help, and then, coming the other way, they are now more aware of Combat Stress for their next tour of Afghanistan from the very start."

He says the importance of that must not be underestimated. "My opinion is that (2 Scots] are at the forefront of regiments taking mental health problems – be they minor or serious – in the spirit that I would love to see the rest of the army doing. Because, in the long run, aside from the practical and financial help, I feel it will lead to fewer serious mental health casualties in the future."

The relationship has been further cemented by a range of fundraising activities held by 2 Scots, such as walks, runs and even family days, in an effort to keep soldiers' families informed of the risks.

And then, of course, there is Mr Henderson's own run, in which a number of 2 Scots soldiers will take part. An inquest ruled in December 2006 that Stuart's death had been a suicide. In the months afterwards, organising the race – which is run in his memory – became a focus for Mr Henderson, something to concentrate his mind on.

"Even though Stuart was only in the army a short time, his mother and I were really proud of him," he says. "I think he'd be happy knowing that we're doing something now that means other soldiers can get the help that they need."

• To find out more about Combat Stress or to make a donation visit www.combatstress.org.uk