One morning in February last year, I received an urgent call from the journalist Paul Burston, alerting me to alarming recent social media posts by a mutual friend, the poet and former model Max Wallis.
It seemed he had left his London flat in deep distress and was headed to a bridge. Our best guess was the Millennium footbridge by St Paul’s Cathedral. Then we heard that Max might have taken refuge inside the cathedral. While I scanned gaggles of tourists in the nave, he was intercepted and removed by ambulance. I was relieved to get a message later that evening that he was safe.
