JAMES MIDDLETON: The night I almost took my own life – but my beloved spaniel Ella stopped me taking the fatal leap

All the colour has leached out of my life. I exist in a black and white world empty of emotion and feeling. I am perpetually agitated.

If I go anywhere – to work, to a party, to the cinema – I feel compelled to leave. Yet once I do, I am still lost, aimless; pacing ­purposelessly. There is no respite from this constant restlessness.

It is not so much a feeling as an absence of feelings. I have no purpose or direction.

I cannot feel pleasure, excitement or anticipation.

There is a constant noise in my head like a radio that cannot be tuned; an unnerving crackle and buzz. The moment I find the ­delicate balance and the noise eases, the ­tiniest flinch of a muscle will set it off again.

I cannot escape it.

Life is no longer worth living. I feel suicidal. I contemplate ways of dying so I can get off the giddy roller-coaster that is sending me to the brink of madness.

I cannot sleep because my mind is in tumult. The insomnia is dizzying. I am utterly exhausted.

I feel misunderstood; a complete failure. I wouldn’t wish the sense of worthlessness and desperation, the isolation and loneliness, on my worst enemy. I think I’m going crazy.

Yet I know I am privileged; fortunate, too, to have a loving and close-knit family – Mum and Dad, my sisters Catherine and Pippa, their husbands William and James – but I push them all away. I do not answer their phone calls. Emails remain ignored. Invitations to visit go unheeded. I hide behind a double-locked door, unreachable.

One bleak November night in 2017 I reach my lowest ebb. It is around 2am and I cannot sleep. I’ve barely eaten for days, and when I do, the food clogs my throat and makes me retch. I pace round the flat where I live alone. I feel suffocated, desperate for air.

I want to go outside but fear meeting late-night homecomers in the street.

At the top of the stairs there is a skylight. It leads to a flat roof where the water tanks sit.

During happier times, I have levered myself up through this opening in the roof and watched the sun set over a breathtaking London skyline, or climbed out to watch fireworks over the river.

Today I want to escape from myself. So I unhook the telescopic ladder, clamber up and propel myself onto the roof. I stand and look out at ­London. But I do not see its glory.

I pace up and down, but there is no reprieve from the torment in my mind. Dark thoughts crowd in on me. What can I do to make them stop? I think about jumping from the rooftop. Who would find me? A passing taxi-driver? A neighbour?

I wonder, if I jump, could it possibly be construed as a tragic accident? That way my family, although they would grieve desperately, would be spared the added torture of ­knowing that I had ended my life by suicide.

As I pace, I look down through the skylight and see my spaniel Ella’s gentle eyes looking back up at me. Like me, she has been wakeful all night. She senses my strange, agitated state of mind.

She cannot climb the ladder – I would not want her to; it is too dangerous on the exposed rooftop and there are no safety rails– but she is standing at the foot of it imploring me with her eyes to come down.

I pace, look down again. My beloved Ella is still there. I imagine myself without her, and the chain of thought makes me pause.

What would Ella do without me? She depends on me and I on her. The feeling is entirely reciprocal.

I begin to pace again, back and forth for an hour or so, but find no comfort in the fresh air. The malaise I feel is so much worse than physical pain.

I glance down the ladder again. Ella has not moved. Her brown eyes are still staring intently at me, soulful and pleading, and as my gaze locks on hers again, my brain quietens.

In that instant I know I will not jump. What would happen to Ella if I died? How long would she wait alone in the flat for someone to find her?

I have loved her with every bit of my being since she was a tiny, sightless, newborn pup. She has been my companion, my hope, my support through my darkest days. She has loved me unconditionally, faithfully.

At night, when sleep eludes me, she is there on the bed beside me, willing me through the bleak pre-dawn hours.

Even when I have felt that the labour of living is not worth the effort, I’ve taken her for walks and fed her. She gave me purpose, a reason to be.

How could I contemplate leaving her now? What would she do without me?

Suddenly I realise that in the chill of the winter air I am ­shivering in my pyjamas. It is as if, for a second, reality has intruded.

I haul myself back from the brink, slowly climb down the ladder and stroke Ella’s silky head. She is the reason I do not take that fatal leap. She is Ella, the dog who saved my life.

This wasn’t the first time that Ella had helped me through a ­difficult time.

The wedding was barely eight weeks away when Catherine and William, on the phone together and ­bubbling with excitement, asked me brightly if I might be up to doing a reading on their big day at Westminster Abbey.

A reading? I thought they were joking. My mind raced back to school and my stumbling, ­incoherent efforts to read in front of the class. What were they ­thinking? Being dyslexic, reading is my least favourite occupation.

‘Seriously?’ I asked.

‘Seriously,’ they chorused.

Oh no! I thought.

‘No problem at all!’ I fibbed breezily. If that was what my sister and William wanted, then of course I’d do my best not to let them down.

Then they added: ‘This will be the only Bible reading in the service,’ and I didn’t know whether to be honoured or appalled.

I was sent the reading and I ­carried it with me everywhere, taking it out of my pocket to practise the lines, over which I tripped and stumbled, transposing syllables, getting my ps and bs – my nemeses – in a twist.

Then Anthony Gordon Lennox came into my life. Anthony, by chance, lived across the road from me in Old Church Street, Chelsea. He was often described as a ‘voice coach’ but that does not do him justice.

He had helped David Cameron when he was PM, and his method was to make those he was ­tutoring reveal their humanity and ­vulnerability; their authentic voice. Very kindly, he offered to help me out, too.

Anthony asked me to read the lesson out loud. I could see from the expression on his face that I had a lot of work to do. I said to him: ‘Will you read it to me? I learn better that way.’ And when he did, the whole thing suddenly made sense.

I practised reading it myself in the flat, in front of Anthony. I wrote the whole text out ­phonetically so I wouldn’t make pronunciation blunders.

Then I needed a bigger venue to rehearse in, to get used to the ecclesiastical acoustics.

Fortunately I knew the vicar of the nearby church, so one evening Anthony and I knocked on the rectory door and asked if we could borrow the building for rehearsals. He very kindly said yes.

Of course I took my adored cocker spaniel Ella along with me, and Anthony told me to present my reading to her. As she pottered around the church, my gaze ­followed her.

If I’d fixed my eyes on one point, Anthony said, I’d have seemed robotic. But Ella was keen to look around; her inquisitiveness, in turn, helped me relax.

Back at the flat, I practised again and again, declaiming from my now crumpled sheet of phonetic text. Ella sat patiently on a chair in front of me. I’d occasionally put her name into the reading so her ears would prick up.

I recorded myself doing the reading, and on long walks with Ella I’d listen to these recitals. Sometimes I’d say the words out loud as we walked.

There was only one chance to rehearse at Westminster Abbey – on the evening before the wedding. I arrived on foot because there was so much traffic. Roads were being closed and cordoned off; diversions were set in place.

Ella, of course, was with me, imbuing me with a confidence I would not have felt without her. I hesitated at the steps to the Abbey: would she be allowed into this sacred place?

Fortunately she was, and there was someone willing to sit and hold her while I ran through the timings. Anthony was there with his stopwatch.

At the great lectern I stood there, looked round, spotted Ella, smiled. I wanted to laugh, but I counted to four and the giggle subsided. Then I noticed the echo, far longer and more resonant than in the church. As I began the Abbey fell still.

At the end, as I walked back to my seat, Anthony was there smiling. ‘Well done,’ said someone from the BBC production, who was there for the rehearsal, before adding, ‘make sure you keep to that timing. And ensure you give us enough time to introduce you before you start.’

This did nothing to quell my nerves and the glare Anthony gave them spoke volumes. ‘Do not put him under any more pressure,’ his look said.

When I went to retrieve Ella, who had attracted a posse of admirers, I felt she was delighted too, not least because the responsibility for listening to the reading hadn’t rested solely with her.

But tomorrow, I reminded myself, Ella wouldn’t be with me. It would just be me, a packed Abbey and a worldwide TV audience of about two billion people.

I am as prepared as I can be. It’s Catherine’s day of course, not mine, and there are so many little details to attend to.

Ella is with me at the Goring Hotel, a stone’s throw from Buckingham Palace and the Abbey, where our whole family is staying on the night before the wedding.

I take her for an evening stroll, walking through the lobby, which is bustling with activity. Final tweaks are being made to Catherine and Pippa’s dresses late into the evening. I worry about black spaniel hairs finding their way on to those precious garments.

Ella is very good about not jumping onto beds and sofas, but she senses my jittery state of mind and, I’m sure, knows I have a momentous day ahead of me tomorrow. So as a special boost to my morale, she (illicitly) jumps onto my bed and falls asleep curled up beside me.

Next morning my biggest headache, as I dress carefully, is getting my tie straight. Looking at photos now, I see it has a kink in it, but at the time that felt ­incidental; far less important than remembering to take my crumpled phonetic copy of the reading.

Some well-meaning person on the wedding roster had offered to retype it for me on a pristine white page. ‘Oh, no!’ I almost wailed. Without that prompt I would have been lost.

It told me when to look up and down; when to soften my voice and be more emphatic, when to pause and breathe; in fact how to make the whole performance seem absolutely natural.

I handed it over, assured it would be placed on the lectern for me, that morning.

I remember walking into the Abbey – awestruck all over again by the grandeur and magnificence of it. Then, far sooner than I expected, there was my cue.

I walked up steadily to the lectern and stood, poised to begin. But where was my scruffy piece of paper? I couldn’t see it. Had it been thrown away? Panic almost overwhelmed me.

Then I turned the page of the Bible in front of me, and there it was. Someone, obviously thinking it lowered the tone, had concealed it. Relief washed over me.

I waited until the great Abbey fell silent. Ten, perhaps even 15 seconds. Then I counted slowly to four and all that could possibly go wrong flooded into my mind. Were my flies undone? Would I have a coughing fit? Would my voice squeak or wobble?

I didn’t cast a glance at Catherine and William, not wanting to exchange smiles with them in case I erupted into nervous giggles. I wanted to do them both proud.

I glanced up and saw happy faces I recognised in the congregation and the nervousness fell away. I took a deep breath… and began.

I’d left the television on in my room at the hotel to keep Ella company and I imagined her sitting there in front of it, watching the coverage, ears alert as she recognised my voice.

Then, hearing me speak the words that had become so familiar to her, I pictured her putting her paws over ears with an inward yelp of, ‘Not that old thing again!’

Then, the reading successfully over, after all the wonder of the day, the service then the celebrations, all I wanted to do was throw on a pair of old jeans and take Ella out for a walk.

She and I went back to my parents’ home at Bucklebury the day after the night before and it was work as usual the following week. It wasn’t until then that I allowed myself to think about how momentous the day had been.

It was the largest audience for a Bible reading ever. I received thousands of messages and invitations to read lessons at churches around the globe that would have given me scope for a Bible-reading world tour.

My latest business venture takes off in 2014. I’ve diversified from cakes to creating personalised marshmallows that can be sent through the mail.

The company is called Boomf! and it’s thriving. I’ve also started dating the beautiful actress and TV presenter Donna Air. From the outside, my life looks perfect.

What I don’t recognise is that during this period my mental health is declining.

There is no real logic or reason as to why this happened, but I’d started to lose confidence in myself.

I tried to mask it and took up lots of physical challenges to ­distract myself. Pippa and I cycled across America. I ran marathons. I thought I’d drive out the negative thoughts on the endorphin highs of exercise.

Even when I was surrounded by people I felt alone. And I was gripped by this awful inertia.

I didn’t want to accept invitations because I feared that I’d have to back out at the last moment. Although I was extremely fond of Donna, I kept cancelling arrangements to go out with her. I couldn’t give any logical explanation.

But I became more and more insular and Donna was ­understandably irritated by my failure to commit to a ­relationship with her.

Depression – I now know this was the condition that was ­causing my inertia – is draining. I felt perpetually exhausted, and what little reserves of energy I had I put into working.

Catherine and Pippa became more and more worried about me. They would invite me to go and see them – we’d have everything planned – then at the last moment I’d cancel. And because I could not give them a cogent reason why, they’d get perturbed.

They’d feed back their irritation to our mother, who would phone me and say: ‘Why didn’t you go?’ and I’d be touchy with her because she was challenging me.

My relationship with Donna is suffering. For a while we separate. I’ve read about depression, but I do not acknowledge I could have it. What can I possibly be depressed about?

The idea that I could have problems with my mental health does not cross my mind.

My parents are concerned. They send endless pleading texts ­asking: ‘What’s the matter? If you don’t tell us, we can’t help you.’ I sense their frustration, their exasperation. But the fact is, I cannot explain what is wrong with me either.

In the closing months of 2017, my relationship with Donna ends. It is a casualty of the catastrophic decline in my mental health.

But I am also convinced that Ella feels confirmed in her early instincts about us. Her reticence continues and she still senses – lovely though Donna is – that we aren’t quite the right match.

I am angry. With everyone and everything. The insomnia is ­dizzying. It feels as if ten different radio stations are competing for airtime in my head, the din ceaseless and exhausting.

I am grateful to Catherine and William, whose work in the field of mental health has given them valuable knowledge and ­understanding. My parents rely on them, and Pippa, to try to breach the impenetrable wall of my silence.

Sometimes they do break through. My sisters gently cajole me out of the flat now and again.

And fleetingly I feel better. But the relief is temporary. Somehow these transitory moments of ­happiness make the lows even more crushing.

I write a lot, letters to Ella ­telling her about the turmoil in my head. I feel somehow guilty, knowing how richly blessed and privileged I am, to be so beset by this awful, debilitating bleakness. But I know, too, that no amount of money or advantage inures you to it.

I also feel misunderstood; a complete failure. I think I’m going crazy.

I start to consider how I can end my life. Walking in front of a train might be quickest. Or disappearing into remote woodland and cutting my wrists.

These suicidal thoughts possess me. In a room full of people chatting, my mind will wander over the possibilities until someone looks at me and asks: ‘James, are you okay?’ at which point I make some excuse and say, ‘I have to go.’

Although I have so many people around me who love me and want to support me, I feel utterly alone. And I can’t understand why.

Late Queen was a jigsaw genius

At Sandringham Christmases, we joined in the family gathering. Beatrice and Eugenie, whom I knew from school, would be there and we’d all go to church in the morning.

One year the Queen and I sat down to do a jigsaw puzzle. It was the sort of activity I’d have enjoyed with my own grandparents, all four of whom had died in the space of three years when I was a teenager. So in a way, I felt the Queen was filling a granny-sized void in my life.

And there we were, engaged in this everyday pleasure, which was elevated to the extraordinary by the company I was in. It still feels surreal, the fact that I was there with the Queen: I look back on it with amazement.

She frequently put down five pieces to my one, deft-fingered while I was inept, scanning the board with practised eyes, not even stopping when people came to talk to her, but still ­chatting as she slotted in the pieces. I hoped she wouldn’t notice how little I contributed.

There were presents, too, modest but wrapped with care. Mine from Her Majesty was a pair of socks; I gave her a card with a photo of Ella on it and a few jars of my own honey, which I brought down to breakfast on Christmas morning.

The Queen talked to me about beekeeping and I knew she appreciated the effort it takes for a colony of bees to produce enough honey for a jar.

I’ve been a passionate advocate of these ­ingenious, industrious little creatures since I became a beekeeper nearly a decade ago, having fallen for them as a child. I now have almost half a million bees in eight hives in a meadow at Bucklebury, and I’m in awe of them.

Hives are highly organised communities presided over by a queen bee. So a jar of honey, a gift from a queen to the Queen, seemed fitting.

Pippa and I were late for Catherine’s birthday party, which in the normal run of things wouldn’t have mattered too much, but this time the Queen had kindly offered to host the teatime gathering at Sandringham.

We’d been on an late-night flight to Gatwick from France and arrived bleary-eyed and sleepless at the airport, then I’d driven us both to Bucklebury so we could pack. I was fretting about the standard of my ironing – my shirt was rumpled and creased in all the wrong places – and I could only find one cufflink.

‘Come on James, we’ve got to go now,’ urged Pippa as I filled up Ella’s water bottle for the journey.

We arrived breathless and flustered with barely time to run upstairs and change. I bounded downstairs two at a time and into the room where everyone was assembled for tea, almost running smack into Her Majesty.

She and Prince Philip had got up to leave just as I blundered in with Pippa behind me.

All the way up to Norfolk I’d been rehearsing my lines, muttering: ‘Your Majesty’ for the Queen; ‘Your Royal Highness’ for the Duke of Edinburgh. But in my blind panic I blurted: ‘I’m so sorry we’re late, Your Royal Majesty.’ I heard a snort of laughter and looked past the Queen to see everyone in the room stifling their giggles.

‘Oh, how lovely to see you, James,’ she smiled. I’d met her several times, notably at my sister’s wedding, and she was always welcoming.

‘You must be hungry. Make sure you have something to eat.’

• Adapted from Meet Ella by James Middleton (Radar, £22), to be published on September 26. © James Middleton 2024. To order a copy for £19.80 (offer valid to 28/09/24; UK P&P free on orders over £25) go to mailshop.co.uk/books or call 020 3176 2937.