Saint Antony
Self proclaimed Patron Saint of mental well-being
This book is a collection of articles written for a local magazine in West London under the moniker Vocal Tone.
The book is non-preachy and often light-hearted, although it tackles many controversial subject matters that provoke much heated debate. The articles were written with the best of intentions to help people experiencing anxiety and depression at a time when stigma discourages people from seeking help or being open about their suffering. This of course has abated in popular culture, but Tony believes that in the real world, the fear of stigma still persists.
This book is not written from a medical standpoint, as Tony’s faith in the medical profession has been severely tested over the years, but from the experiences of the writer, having suffered from clinical depression and been blighted by anxiety through his career in the cut-throat business of advertising.
Although having worked all over the world and been a resident of Chicago and Dubai in the last decade, Tony gravitates back to his homeland roots of Richmond, having been born and bred in Isleworth, just downstream on the Thames and he speaks passionately about the area and the people who live within its confines.
At a time when mental wellbeing has found its way into mainstream politics and ever-expanding HR departments are being trained to deal with the impacts of workplace stress, this book offers valuable insights into how to deal with this most modern of medical afflictions.
With the advent of the internet creating online trolls and social media re-writing the rules of ‘celebrity’ and personal privacy, latter day expectations of what life has to offer have never been under such strain. Add into this body issues, gender fluidity, global warming, poverty, homelessness, #metoo, diversity in leadership, divisions in the UK caused by Brexit, race and religious intolerances and now social distancing and isolation from the spread of coronavirus and you have a toxic mix that is cultivating mental health issues of epidemic proportions.
Vocal Tone offers no solutions, but suggests coping mechanisms, opens up a different viewpoint and let’s be honest, vents his own spleen to demonstrate to his readers they’re not the only ones suffering in this topsy-turvy world we now live in.
The disparate and random episodes strangely hold together as a cohesive book that doesn’t pull its punches, but offers a simple and sometimes amusing perspective on this very complex subject matter.