By CAM LUCADOU-WELLS
FOR such a jolly larger-than-life character, former Springvale mayor Peter McCall can tell several sad tales – but there’s a point to their poignancy.
As guest speaker at Gateway Industries’ AGM last week, Mr McCall, 74, lamented that men’s increasingly common malaise was depression.
Men make up the vast majority of Australia’s official suicide rate of more than 50 a week. And it starts because “blokes don’t communicate”, he said.
Mr McCall, an ambassador for beyondblue hand-picked by his friend and the organisation’s chief executive Jeff Kennett, is an exception to that precept.
Last week, he stunned his Gateway audience with a series of anecdotes that started with him as a police constable 35 years ago.
One quiet Sunday night, he responded to a reported overdose in a rundown dwelling in Fitzroy.
Inside he found a 15-year-old “figure of a female”, a heroin addict who had fled her sexually abusive home where her mother had practically pimped her to strangers.
She had since been living on the streets, injecting herself into her eyeballs.
The girl asked Mr McCall not to let her die.
He said he wouldn’t, and put his arm around her shoulder. She died in his arms “without the opportunity to take her rightful place in society”.
“That’s why I’m here tonight,” he told last week’s audience.
“She sits right here on my shoulder. She’s my driver to work in the community.”
The ebullient raconteur said he must be a “magnet for tears” – at a similar forum last week a 55-year-old farmer who was “not a sook” came to him with tears running down his face.
The farmer, who milked 780 cows twice a day, revealed his father and two younger brothers had all died by their own hand.
“Blokes don’t communicate. Blokes are lonely. They keep to themselves,” Mr McCall said.
He believes things aren’t helped by social media and smartphones.
“Today we’re more connected but more isolated than we have ever been in our lives,” Mr McCall said.
“Our suicide, depression and anxiety rates have never been higher.
“We need to be aware of our friends and neighbours. Not sticking our nose in but sharing our humanity.”
If you or anyone you know needs help, contact Lifeline on 13 11 14 or beyondblue on 1300 224 636.
