A MENTAL health campaigner walking 3,000 miles around the country has told of his pride at meeting “candid” Prince Harry.

Jake Tyler, who completed the London Marathon on Sunday, has been involved in a BBC1 documentary highlighting the link between mental wellbeing and exercise.

Whilst working on Mind Over Marathon, which began last Thursday and concludes at 9pm tonight, Jake came into contact with the prince, who recently spoke out about his own battles following the death of his mother, Princess Diana.

Jake lived in Colchester in 2014 and helped to set up the popular town centre bar, Three Wise Monkeys.

Mr Tyler, 30, of Maldon, said: “It was an incredibly important and admirable interview with one of my new heroes. I had the honour of meeting Prince Harry a couple of months ago, where we discussed what life can be like for men suffering with poor mental health. I remember being really impressed at how candid he was, and admired how someone of his stature could be so OK with discussing what goes on inside his own head.”

Last June, after discovering walks in the countryside helped him deal with his mental illness, Jake began his 3,000 mile odyssey.

He said: “I got approached to do the documentary by a producer in Cardiff while I was down there for the walk. He had seen a couple of the videos I had been doing and they were looking at doing a programme on mental health and its relationship to exercise, which was the along the same premise I had when I started the walk, so I was very interested.

“The opportunity to do it was amazing. Filming has been a great process. It’s been going on for six months but we have become more like a team than a film crew. I hid how I felt from everybody for nearly 30 years, to get to know someone and have them know these things about you from minute one, it is like getting to know them from the inside out.”

Jake completed the experience by finishing off the marathon with people he says have become lifelong friends. He said: “The run went great. I finished which was the main thing and had an amazing day.”

See facebook.com/blackdogwalks.