THE Proclaimers have helped launch a campaign to cut Scotland's suicide rate.

A daily average of two Scots kill themselves and the initiative aims to encourage people to speak more openly about their own feelings and those of other people.

A giant collage spelling out Suicide', was unveiled by singers Charlie and Craig Reid and Public Health Minister Shona Robison at the Millennium Hotel in Glasgow's George Square at the start of Suicide Prevention Week.

Choose Life, Scotland's national strategy to reduce suicide by 20% by 2013, wants to shatter the silence around suicide.

Former nurse Shaun McNeil, 43, told how he twice considered suicide. He said: "Scottish males - and more so, west of Scotland males - are particularly bad in talking about their feelings.

"It makes it all the more important for people like me to describe their feelings, so it may help other people to own up to how they feel.

"It may also help the relatives and friends of those individuals to ask a really important question: are they feeling suicidal? It may save their lives."

On one occasion, dad-of-two Shaun was saved when a friend called an ambulance. He has now re-built his life and is boss of Advocacy Matters, which works with adults with mental health issues.

l www.chooselife.net. Breathing Space: 0800 83 85 87. Samaritans 08457 90 90 90.