While chatting with Harley Couper about a Royal Enfield Classic 350 motorcycle he'd owned before purchasing his current Triumph Bonnerville, he told me he'd lost family and a friend to mental illness. To be more specific, suicide.

'My best mate Russel Manuel, when he was 14, my uncle Ross when I was 16, and my brother Matthew 10 years ago,” says Harley.

Harley works in the research collections section at Tauranga Library. He grew up in Hamilton, wrote educational material for a training establishment, and spent 10 years overseas, returning to NZ in 2009.

As his revelation sunk in, I couldn't help but ask how he dealt with it.

'How does anyone deal with it?” he replied.

'Shock, horror, grief.

'I was adopted. My adopted mum died when I was 21, and in my late 20s I met my birth family.

'My birth mum had three kids. They grew up in Edgecumbe and Whakatane and I grew up in Hamilton. My younger brother Matthew, who was about seven years younger than me was just starting to have some mental health problems.

'About 10 years later he suicide-d.

'I never really got to know him that well.

'I remember at his funeral thinking, ‘people here are grieving the loss of somebody and I'm grieving the relationship I could have had with this guy, which I never got to have'.”

Remembering loved ones lost to suicide is commemorated each year in Tauranga with a memorial service, held to coincide with World Suicide Prevention Day. This year it's being held at 10.30am on Sunday, September 9 at Daniel's in the Park and the theme is ‘working together to prevent suicide'. 'The service is for family and friends to come in to a space with others who ‘get it', to remember and acknowledge their loved ones who have been lost to suicide,” says Janet Baird from Grief Support Services.

'We plan to have tea light candles lit around the candle we use in our group meetings for people bereaved by suicide.

'The service will be officiated by Mike Savage, with the Mauao Community Choir singing.”

'Suicide's something that has to change in our culture,” says Harley. 'Guys are happy to break a leg or bust an Achilles, but we fail to remember that most of us are going to go through a chapter in our lives where our mental health isn't great.

Twice in Harley's life he's been called by wives of friends who have said ‘I just need you to be here with my husband. He's not great.'

'It's just what we ought to do. I reckon women do it better – they talk to each other more about what's going on. It's a healthy trajectory for New Zealand men and women to talk about their mental health and support each other.

'People need to feel like they belong to a group.

'We need to help people recognise that they're needed and valued.”

Co-ordinated by Grief Support Services with the support of Legacy Funerals and TECT, the memorial service on September 9 is open to all.