A Speccy Man Has a Breakdown | How the book starts

A few years ago, John-Paul Flintoff told his wife he thought he was worthless and wished he was dead.

She sent him to a psychiatrist, and shortly after collecting his first pair of spectacles, he had himself admitted to hospital.

He forgot to pack a toothbrush. He did take a sketchbook and pens.

Over the following weeks – and the difficult months that followed – he drew everything: the nurses, the patients, the visitors, the food, the view from the window. Nearly 300 drawings. He also wrote, in the same deadpan tone he’d used for years as a journalist at the Financial Times and the Sunday Times.

This is that account.

It is not a recovery manual. It is not an inspirational story. It is simply what happened – told with the same attention he would give any assignment – and illustrated, on almost every page, by the man who was there.

For anyone who has wondered what it is actually like inside, and why it’s hard to come out.

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How the book starts

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The rest is more of the same – photos, drawings, and the story of what happened next.

It exists as 250 signed, numbered hardbacks, each one with an A5 art print tucked inside the back cover.

Want to see it? The book is here.