"He just stopped responding" - Alec Stewart recalls final exchanged messages with Graham Thorpe before his death
Former England wicketkeeper-batter Alec Stewart recalled his final message exchanges with Graham Thorpe before his death and how the latter stopped responding in his final few months. Stewart and Thorpe were long-time teammates for England and Surrey in the 1990s and early 2000s.
Thorpe died at 55 on August 5 after dealing with a serious illness since 2022 and was later confirmed to have been struck by a train at a railway station in Surrey. Thorpe's family confirmed after his death that he had been dealing with depression and anxiety, resulting in him 'taking his own life'.
In a recent interview with the Telegraph, Stewart said:
"The last time I spoke to him in person was early March, because he just stopped responding. After that, you’d leave messages, whether it’s voice messages or WhatsApp messages. You’d see he’d read them, but that shows how dark a place he was in. So many people tried to help and reach out, it comes to that individual having to help himself. And that’s the sad thing about it, because as a player, we know what a fighter he was – brilliant player, brilliant person – but they say when you get in this dark place, it’s a horrible place to be."
"And this is the way I’ve tried to look at it, is that we’re all very sad and upset we’ve lost a great person, but wherever he is now, he’s got to be happier because he wasn’t happy here. And that’s how I’ve tried to sort of deal with it, in that we’ve been selfish by being upset that Thorpey is not with us, instead of thinking that he’s much happier now wherever he is looking down on us," Stewart added.
Thorpe was among England's best batters in the 1990s and finished his international career with over 9,000 runs in 182 matches across formats.
He also served as England's assistant and batting coach before being offered the Afghanistan head coaching job that he turned down in 2022.
"Despite having a wife and two daughters whom he loved and who loved him, he did not get better" - Graham Thorpe's wife
Graham Thorpe's wife Amanda admitted that her husband was dealing with mental illness for an extended period before taking his own life.
Apart from Amanda, Thorpe is survived by their two daughters, Kitty, 22, and Emma, 19.
In an interview with The Times days after Thorpe's death, Amanda said:
"Graham was renowned as someone who was very mentally strong on the field and he was in good physical health. But mental illness is a real disease and can affect anyone.Despite having a wife and two daughters whom he loved and who loved him, he did not get better. He was so unwell in recent times and he really did believe that we would be better off without him and we are devastated that he acted on that and took his own life."
Thorpe is survived by his first wife Nicky and their two children - Henry and Amelia.