The Usborne Book Of London

A new way of looking at depression; an interview with author Martin Usborne

By Ian Birch

This book is a brilliant photo-story of personified dog Moose and his first-person journey through the first year of his life, during which Martin (his owner) becomes out-of-work in the recession, and depressed, and it’s only when Moose is run over and Martin has to take on the role of caring for him that Martin recovers from his depression.

I think it’s clever, sweet, funny and moving – and the photography and captions are brilliant.

Martin Usborne, the owner or “animal guardian” of Moose, who’s a miniature schnauzer, has a long history of taking unusual portraits of people connected with mental health – from the Archbishop of Canterbury, who spoke out in November 2010 about cuts to rural mental health services, to a variety of famous people who’ve suffered mental health difficulties – Frank Bruno, who was sectioned and diagnosed with bipolar, Alistair Campbell, who suffered depression and is an ambassador for the Time to Change anti-stigma campaign (I blog for them), and Melvyn Bragg, who spoke openly about his battles with depression in 2006 and resigned on 20 June as president of Mind after 15 years.

Martin has also photographed Duncan Bannatyne, who  Mental Healthy editor Charlotte Fantelli has met and interviewed (see link below), who did the voiceover for Mind’s Taking Care of Business campaign recently.

I asked Martin about his background and the reasons why he had photographed so many famous people with mental health links – surely this couldn’t be a coincidence?

 “It’s partly because I’ve done work for Mind, the mental health charity, and some of the pictures have been either at their events or because I’ve done shoots for them.”

Moose is a miniature schnauzer and was one year old at the time Martin wrote the book.

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