‘That sadness swept over me. The thing I had feared most was happening and, if my previous experiences were anything to go by, the process was as unstoppable as a domino chain.’

In the good times, the times before the long days and longer nights when depressive illness turned stretches of my life into a slow death, I had occasionally caught a glimpse of the perfect end to my career as an England cricketer; at The Oval, pausing on my way back to the dressing-room to acknowledge the applause celebrating the Test century with which I had just secured England’s latest Ashes victory.

That was what I saw in my sunlit daydreams. That was how it was supposed to happen.

The reality? Hunched-up, sobbing, distraught, slumped in a corner of Dixon’s electrical store at Heathrow’s Terminal 3, unable to board the 9 p.m. Virgin Airways Flight VS400 to Dubai for which I had checked in alongside my Somerset CCC team-mates on the evening of Friday 14 March 2008; but which I was now in no physical, mental or earthly state to take, hanging on for the pain and terror with which I had become so familiar during the previous two years to subside, and let me breathe.

I almost made it. I got almost as far as it is possible to get without actually walking through the door onto the plane and I had wanted to so much. Until the very eve of our departure, in the weeks leading up to it, I never seriously thought that I would have a problem going on the 12-day pre-2008-season tournament also featuring Lancashire, Sussex and Essex. I was well in myself and I was cautiously optimistic about what getting through the trip might mean in terms of my hopes of a future with England, even though my last appearance for them was now 18 months behind me. England’s players, selectors, management, coaches and captains had all stated that, while they had no desire to put me under undue pressure to return, when I felt I was ready, so would they be. This was a real chance to find out if I was. The tournament was to be pretty low-key though Andrew Flintoff would be there to continue his recovery programme following his latest ankle operation back at home, with relatively little of the intense media coverage I had always found so discomforting.

All things considered I was looking forward to the test and what a successful outcome might mean, even though I knew failure would end all hope and all argument. After two aborted overseas tours with England, to India in 2006 and Australia the same winter, I knew it would be strike three – you’re out.

I had spoken to my wife Hayley, who had given birth to our second child, Millie, a sister to two-year-old Ellie, on 19 January, and, mindful that separation from family, friends and the familiar had been at the root of my problems, she had said all the right things: ‘Twelve days? You’ll be fine.’

The day before I left I talked with the Somerset coach Andy ‘Sarge’ Hurry, a former marine turned PT instructor, about what might lay in store. He had asked, ‘What can we do to make this easier for you?’ and had already arranged with the rest of the staff and players that, once I got to Dubai, I was going to be kept fully occupied. With no time to wander, my mind might just be able to stay away from the thoughts that had, on occasions, made existence seem unbearable and that way, perhaps, the illness could be kept at bay. Busy days playing, training and practising would have been followed by lengthy team planning and selection meetings and I was never, ever, to be allowed to dine on my own unless it was my choice. Not that they were going to ask me for my belt and shoelaces, just that they wanted to create a comfortable environment in which I could relax and remain calm.

I had told Andy: ‘Look, I really think I’m going to be fine …’ then added, ‘as long as nothing out-of-the-ordinary happens.’

After six weeks of disturbed sleep following Millie’s arrival, a part of me was also looking forward to the shut-eye I was going to be enjoying in Dubai.

Maybe I should have taken more notice of the slight twinge of anxiety I had felt that day, but I had known all along that this was not going to be straightforward. In any case the feeling was nothing like as intense as that warning sign which usually preceded a full-blown crisis; some people might describe it as a shiver down the spine, for me it was more like a progressive freezing, vertebra by vertebra from top to bottom.

And I wasn’t too alarmed because, in general, I had been feeling fine for a while now and the medication which had helped to stabilize me through the darkest times was, I was pretty convinced, something to turn to only in dire emergency.

True, I had hit a snag the previous summer, when I first made myself available for England’s World Twenty20 squad, then pulled out after a lengthy telephone conversation with the coach Peter Moores. While never presenting me with an ultimatum as such, he made it clear he wanted me to make myself available not just for the World Twenty20 in South Africa, a tournament I firmly believed at that stage I could manage, but also the one-day series in Sri Lanka that followed, something which, at that stage, I could not in all conscience commit to.

Nevertheless, again freed at least temporarily from having to consider the question of my future with England, I finished the 2007 domestic season with Somerset on a series of huge highs, topping Division Two of the Championship, winning promotion to Division One of the Pro 40, with my personal contribution being stacks of runs, including my career-best 284 at Northampton. And the celebration ale tasted sensational.

During the winter I had deliberately refrained from making any statements to the media or doing any significant interviews about my future plans. And I loved the anonymity of that. I had made one public appearance, as part of my benefit year, at a Question & Answer session in the Herefordshire town of Leominster, conducted by a journalist friend of mine, Peter Hayter of the Mail on Sunday, who lives locally. Brian Viner, of the Independent, another locally-based newspaper columnist wrote: ‘Trescothick talked about the emotional illness that appears to have scuppered his England career with engaging candour.’ And even I was quite surprised how much I enjoyed the experience and how easy I found it to talk openly in front of strangers, as indicated by the following exchanges:

PH: I think even now people are still somewhat confused about what happened to you and what you were suffering from, your illness and the effects of it. Can you explain what the past 18 months have been like for you, what you’ve gone through?

MT: At different stages I have had totally different feelings really. Over the last, say, now nearly a year, I would say it’s been pretty good, just being away from the environment of the England setup and the pressure that comes with playing for England and the media attention that you have to deal with. Yeah, I’m moving along very nicely. The question’s obviously always going to arise about what happens next and at this stage I’m not too sure, I want to drive it on from hereon in, but looking back to India, the first time, it was a really tough place and a tough situation to go through because I literally didn’t know what was happening. I genuinely thought I had an illness that was going to see me off and, not knowing, at that point what to do. After I came back it got worse for a while, then it got better, then it got worse again. You’re being followed by media people around your home town and they were waiting on your doorstep when you walk out the house. There were articles in papers, complete and utter rubbish, it’s just like where do you go? There was no hiding place for me and for two or three months when I came back then it was real hard work and something I never want to have to experience again because it was a real tough place to be and I didn’t really know what to do at that point, just taking advice really from people and colleagues and obviously counsellors to help get me through the situation. And it was really tough, you know. I’m such a better person for it, though. I’ve come through the other side. I’m sure I’ll never be clear of the whole process … at some point throughout my life at different stages, it may hit me again. Even now, I have the odd day when I relive memories and things and feelings that come back after a while, but I’m better equipped now to deal with situations and understand the beast that lives inside, and understand he’s going to come back and come knocking on your door again. You’ve just got to deal with that process and just keep riding the journey until eventually it dies down and you carry on living your life as normal. You know, I’m a better person, as I’ve said, and I’ve learned so much from the whole situation.

PH: In your heart of hearts, do you think you’ll play for England again?

MT: I can’t honestly answer that question. All I know is that I’d love to have another go and I’m going to give myself every opportunity to have another crack at it. I think it’s going to take a lot more hard work the longer it goes, of course. The team has changed totally. You’ve got Peter Moores in charge. The lads in the team are totally different. In my heart I still want to have aspirations to have another go. I haven’t actually got to the point where I’ve admitted to myself that I can’t do it any more. So until I get to that stage I’ll keep trying.

A couple of weeks later, Peter rang me for a brief interview for his paper concerning the trip to Dubai. It is worth revisiting my response. ‘I won’t deny I am a little nervous about the prospect,’ I told him. ‘I don’t want to pre-empt anything, but I know the signs and how to work through them. I’m feeling well at the moment and things are pretty good, so I’m 95 per cent certain that the trip will be all right. It is a big step and I’m not taking anything for granted. It will be interesting to see what happens.’

Ninety-five per cent certain?

Yet, I actually felt strong enough to offer my help to the Australian fast bowler Shaun Tait, who had recently announced he was quitting all cricket indefinitely, citing physical and emotional exhaustion, and, overall, my level of contentment could be gauged by the fact that I had only met with my personal counsellor, with whom I had been in regular contact since I returned home in crisis from England’s 2006 tour to India, on two occasions since the previous July.

First, on 27 December 2007 we had reflected on the summer I had enjoyed with Somerset, discussed my future plans and a possible return to international cricket, the impending addition to my family and my benefit season. At the end of the meeting it was left up to me to make contact if I felt I needed to, and apart from the occasional text message of reassurance that I was doing okay, I hadn’t. Closer to the time when I was due to leave for Dubai I rang him to say we must chat about this before I went and we did, at Somerset’s home ground in Taunton, where I told him: ‘It looks good. I’m looking forward to it. It’s fine.’ We arranged that I would ring him early on the day of departure, for a final check on how I was.

That morning I went over the plan one more time; first I would pack for the journey, then I would ring my counsellor. Next I would take Hayley and the girls out for lunch before they dropped me off at the ground in time for me to catch the bus along with the other lads, ready for a 3 p.m. departure to Heathrow.

Prior to my troubles, one of the aspects of touring I had enjoyed most had been packing. Ever since I can remember I had been a ‘kit bully’. As a kid, growing up in a cricket-mad household, with a playing dad, Martyn, who represented Somerset 2nd XI, and a tea-making mum, Linda, I had loved poring over the magazines advertising cricket equipment. I had loved the physical sensation of unwrapping and trying on new pads, gloves, sweaters, boots, anything to do with the game of cricket. And bats. I just loved bats. This time I had laid out my kit, meticulously, and the act of placing it in my ‘coffin’, all in the correct order, was almost meditative.

After lunch, we set off for the ground and it was there, around 2 p.m., out of a clear blue spring sky, it all started to go wrong again.

Hayley had driven to the ground with the kids in the back of the car. When the time came, I kissed them all goodbye and as the car pulled away, I was suddenly, acutely and terrifyingly aware of the shiver. Straight away, I understood. If it hadn’t meant so much to me to at least try, I might even have told the lads there and then that they had better go without me.

‘Oh, no.’ I said to myself. ‘Oh, no.’ Then, before I could close my mind to it, an image appeared of Ellie, back at home, asking Hayley ‘where’s daddy?’ and the look of sadness as she understood I wasn’t there. That sadness swept over me. The thing I had feared most was happening and, if my previous experiences were anything to go by, the process was as unstoppable as a domino chain.

I still hoped I might be able to stop it taking over completely, as it had done so many times before. I started to try and fight it and the feeling subsided as the usual cricketing banter began. ‘Maybe this time, maybe this time I’ll beat it.’

I boarded the bus and started to calm down and, as we set off, I realized something had slipped my mind, namely the prearranged morning phone call to my counsellor and that realization temporarily buoyed my spirits. I started thinking to myself that the fact I had forgotten to make the call was a great sign. I rang him on my mobile and told him: ‘I forgot to call you. We’re on the coach. On our way to Heathrow.’ I sat there afterwards, attempting to persuade myself that if I hadn’t been worried enough about the trip to have made the call to my counsellor, I must actually be okay to go. Except that, for the rest of the coach journey I was wavering between that hope and a growing sense of unease.

I don’t know whether any of the other guys could sense what was happening. James Hildreth certainly can’t have done. Somewhere around 500 yards away from and in sight of the terminal he started taking the mickey big-time. ‘Getting nervous, Bang?’, ‘Excuse me, driver, this is as far as Mr Trescothick is going,’ etc. I was used to it. I got heaps of that sort of stuff anyway from guys like Andy Caddick, my former England colleague, Steffan Jones and Jason Kerr, the two best men at my wedding to Hayley in January 2004 – normal stuff that I had been more than happy to take inside the dressing-room at Somerset for some time. Madfish, they used to call me, after Madfish Willie, a character in the gangster film Snatch. And I never minded the name-calling for a second because to me if people felt okay about taking the mick out of me, they must have reckoned I was okay enough to have it taken. Unfortunately, however, by now I was struggling badly, though they had no way of knowing as the illness had made me an expert at hiding my true feelings.

By the time we checked in for the flight at around 7.30 p.m., I was clinging on and clinging to the idea I might just be able to get on the plane and once aboard, maybe the feelings would go. Take-off time was about 90 minutes away. I had the length of a football match to try and hold myself together. We went through to the departure lounge and I made my way with Steffan and Jason to the nearest coffee bar. I ordered a bacon and egg sandwich and as I finished the last bite, time stopped for a millisecond. In that blink of the mind I was cooked and I knew it. Sensing I could go at any second, I was desperate to get up from the table and get away from the other two lads because I never liked breaking down in front of other people. I managed to make it as far as Dixon’s. ‘Oh, God.’

I rang Sarge, and asked him to come and meet me straight away, though I didn’t tell him why. He said later that he thought I wanted some clarification over what speakers I should get for my iPod or some such. When he finally arrived he could see the state I was in. This isn’t intended to earn me a badge, but this is a guy who had seen active service and he was clearly taken aback by what he saw. Later, he told me: ‘To see a grown man in this state was quite tough.’

At first he tried to talk me round. ‘Marcus,’ he said. ‘You’ve got to fight it. You’ve got to get yourself over this wall.’

I understood what he was saying. And I would have loved to have been able to say ‘Sarge, you’re right. That’s what I’ve got to do and I’m going to do it.’

The fact was I couldn’t. In between the sobs and tears, I told him: ‘Andy, I’d love to be able to but I’m not sure I can. I don’t want to get over to Dubai and f**k it up and have to come home again. That is the last thing I want to do. I’d rather walk away from it now than go over there, then have to get a flight home again, because I’ve done that twice before and it causes me so much pain.’

Andy and I walked out of Dixon’s and found a little corridor which was a bit more private. Jason had joined us but by now Andy had realized that his original approach was doomed. Now they were just listening, sympathetically but clearly conscious of the significance of the moment.

I told them: ‘I just can’t keep putting myself through this. It’s too painful. I can’t keep doing it. I don’t want to do it to myself any more. I don’t want to do it to Hayley. That’s enough.’ Someone said: ‘Okay. We’ll get your bags off. You’re going home’, and I said, ‘Yeah, sorry. That’s it.’

It’s hard to say how long it took for the symptoms of my illness to subside long enough to allow me some clear air to think about something, anything, other than how awful I was feeling. But when that moment came, so did certain truths and the most hurtful one was this: I could never again contemplate the possibility of playing cricket for my country, the love of my professional life.

I knew, finally and without a shadow of doubt, that my days as an international cricketer were over. I’d run out of road.

Transport was arranged for the trip home. It was a long journey. Whereas, after my two previous breakdowns, the overwhelming reaction to coming home had been relief, this was different. The implications of my inability to go on a gentle pre-season trip with my county were obvious and they hurt because I had so loved playing for my country. Not only did I feel dejected, but also, and, for the first time, I felt guilty because I had let down not only myself but everyone else who had tried so hard to help me get better; people at the club, my family and my counsellor, who had given so much to try and make it happen for me. I had assured them I was going to be all right and I truly believed I would be. Now I knew there was no going back.

I rang Hayley and told her what had happened and that I was coming home. I rang my parents and I rang Brian Rose, the club’s Director of Cricket, who, along with everyone at Somerset had been so incredibly supportive of me throughout my troubles. And we agreed to issue a statement the next day. Then someone at the club realized the news had to be put out immediately because Sky TV were due to meet the plane in Dubai. Imagine what kind of story would have emerged if the TV pictures had shown all the Somerset boys arriving, except me.

So Richard Gould, the club’s Chief Executive, put out the following holding statement at 10.22 p.m. that night:

‘Marcus Trescothick has withdrawn from Somerset’s pre-season tour to the United Arab Emirates.

‘The decision was taken last night (14 March) shortly before the other players boarded a plane for the 12-day trip.

‘Marcus’s absence is due to a recurrence of the stress illness which caused him to quit two England tours.’

As soon as I got home, I went straight to bed. The emotional strain of the day had left me shattered. And I didn’t feel a great deal better when I woke up the next morning because I knew what was facing me. In the meantime, another statement was issued by the club at 9.54 that morning, saying:

‘Brian Rose has assured Somerset supporters that Marcus Trescothick will be fit to play a full part in the coming county season. Brian said: “I spoke to Marcus last night and, while it is unfortunate that he has suffered a recurrence of his stress problems, I am certain he will be available to start the season for Somerset.

“I don’t see the setback as a major problem. Marcus did a tremendous job for us last season and will be a key player again this summer.

“His cricketing life is with Somerset and I am sure he will continue to enjoy playing for the club as he has done for many years”.’

It was about now that my counsellor switched on his television at home, called up Teletext and learned for the first time that I hadn’t boarded the flight. He told me later that the news had come as a complete surprise, so sure had he been from our meetings and phone calls that I would be able to make the trip.

I knew the first thing I had to do was get to the ground as soon as possible. I said to myself: ‘I’m going to go out and face people now. There’s no point p***ing about with it. I’ve got to face them at some point, let’s just do it today.’ And I walked into the club shop and bumped into an ex-colleague of mine, Mike Burns, and something lifted. I had a laugh and a joke with him, then I realized I still had my plane ticket in my pocket. ‘Burnsy,’ I said. ‘I’ve got a ticket here to go to Dubai. If you fancy a trip … the lads find themselves unexpectedly a man short.’

As far as the England situation was concerned there was only one thing left to do. Already, and not unnaturally, some of the Sunday papers, whose cricket correspondents were down in New Zealand covering the England Test tour, had speculated that my international career was now almost certainly over. I knew we had to put something out as soon as possible confirming my intention to retire immediately, but, and even though it was a slim possibility it would, I didn’t want the news to cause a distraction for anyone in the camp 11,000 miles away. Even on the day I had failed to get on the plane to Dubai, Paul Collingwood had been asked at a press conference, at the end of day one of the second Test in Wellington, for his reaction to my news; the guys certainly didn’t need to have to answer any more questions about me when they had other things on their mind, like trying to come back from 1–0 down against the Kiwis.

I met with Richard Gould and Brian Rose. We discussed the pros and cons with the club chairman Andy Nash and we all agreed the best thing would be to prepare a statement for release after the end of the third and final Test match in Napier, with a press conference at Taunton on Thursday 27 March.

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