Steve CrannI don’t know about you but it seems just lately that the days pass by with increasing rapidity. As another anniversary of the day I was born approaches and flashes past, a milestone on the journey of life, I reflect on where I’ve come from and how I came to be where I am. I also reflect upon the question of why I’m here. Not so much why I’m here in relation to the grand scheme of things but why I’m here working in mental health. In a moment of illumination I realise that perhaps the two are actually one and the same. Way back when, in my mid-teens, I never really knew where I wanted to be or what I wanted to do. I certainly didn’t set out to work in mental health.

In my last year at school there was no discussion about further education or about having a career, simply discussion about the need to find a job. The first person to find a job amongst our circle of friends on the colourful estate I grew up on worked, of all places, in a brown sauce factory.