England cricket legend Graham Thorpe stopped responding to messages months before his death, his close friend and former team-mate Alec Stewart has revealed.
Thorpe, who played 100 Tests for his country between 1993 and 2005, died after being struck by a train at Esher railway station in August, an inquest heard.
His wife Amanda previously said he had taken his own life at the age of 55 after suffering with ‘major’ depression and anxiety for several years.
Stewart attended Thorpe’s funeral in Southwark and has now spoken publicly on the loss for the first time, detailing how he was in a ‘dark, horrible place’.
‘It’s so difficult to sort of get my words right on this,’ he told The Telegraph.
England cricket legend Graham Thorpe stopped responding to messages for months before his death, his close friend and former team-mate Alec Stewart said
Thorpe (pictured with his wife Amanda and their two children) took his own life in August
Alec Stewart (right) detailed how Thorpe, his former team-mate, was in a ‘horrible place’
‘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.
‘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.’
Stewart and Thorpe struck up several memorable partnerships for both Surrey and England, including a stand of 150 against West Indies in Barbados in 1994.
Thorpe struggled with depression and anxiety and previously attempted to take his life
Thorpe had previously attempted suicide in 2022, his wife said in an interview, and spent time recovering from his injuries in intensive care in hospital.
‘Despite having a wife and two daughters whom he loved and who loved him, he did not get better,’ Amanda told The Times.
‘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.
‘For the past couple of years, Graham had been suffering from major depression and anxiety. This led him to make a serious attempt on his life in May 2022, which resulted in a prolonged stay in an intensive care unit.
‘Despite glimpses of hope and of the old Graham, he continued to suffer from depression and anxiety, which at times got very severe.
He was hospitalised in intensive care in 2022 and spent time recovering from injuries
Thorpe (pictured with Nasser Hussain in 2000) scored almost 7,000 runs for England
‘We supported him as a family and he tried many, many treatments but unfortunately none of them really seemed to work.’
Thorpe also played 82 one-day internationals for England. An esteemed batsman, he scored 6,744 Test runs, including 16 centuries, for the nation.
Ben Stokes, Joe Root and Ben Duckett were among those to pay touching tributes while Stuart Broad described Thorpe as a ‘wonderful person’.
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