Heids Up

Neil Renton and Mark Fleming met through The Changing Room, a support group run by Scottish Action for Mental Health. They discovered a shared passion for the therapeutic power of creative writing and music. This led to them bouncing ideas off each other, initiating short stories prompted by song titles randomly selected from their phone playlists.

This exercise became cathartic, launching ideas for plots, characters, and settings, as well as inspiring them to revamp previous work. As well as stories, many containing semi-autobiographical elements, they wrote essays about how their musical tastes have benefited their wellbeing, then interviewed each other about their respective mental health journeys, transforming sometimes harrowing flashbacks into poignant memoirs.

HEIDS UP is the result: a collection of flash fiction, longer short stories, essays on musical appreciation, and descriptions of lived mental health experiences. This book will resonate with anyone who has faced issues of their own, directly or indirectly.

The Changing Room runs in partnership with senior football clubs across Scotland. Aimed at the demographic least likely to address issues - men in their 'middle years' - the programme was pioneered at Hibernian FC in Edinburgh in April 2018, and was so successful, a similar programme was rolled out at Heart of Midlothian FC six months later (and endorsed by longstanding mental health advocate, Prince William). The Changing Room now encourages adults of all ages to share stories in a confidential space.