MINISTER Rev Helen Roberts was offering cupcakes with a difference at the Tenbury High School fete.

Instead of the usual bright cheery colours these had grey icing. It was all part of a growing national campaign to promote awareness of mental health problems and challenging the stigma that still surrounds depression and other illnesses.

Rev Helen feels strongly about these issues as someone who herself lives with depression.

Time To Change is a national anti-stigma campaign, while The Depressed Cake Shop is a social media driven network of pop-up shops planned for the first weekend in August with one simple rule – all the cakes sold are to be g rey with profits going to mental health projects.

This simple idea has taken off with shops planned not just nationwide but internationally.

BBC3 has been showing a range of programmes that lift the lid on the lives of people who experience mental health problems.

There are also moves afoot locally to improve awareness and support around mental health – for those affected directly and their family and friends, and with one in four people affected by mental distress this is a matter for the whole community.

Councillor Phil Grove, from Tenbury, has the health and wellbeing portfolio within Malvern District Council and is joining forces with Helen to co-ordinate a new group that is still in the early days but seeks to find the best ways to meet the needs in the Tenbury community.

It wants to hear from anyone with thoughts and suggestions about ways to improve mental wellbeing and the Tenbury Wellbeing Group will be at the Tenbury Show on August 3.