Nicky Campbell’s wife feared he would take his own life during breakdown at train station before bipolar diagnosis

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Nicky Campbell’s wife feared he would take his own life before he was diagnosed with bipolar late in life.

The TV presenter, who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, recalled the devastating moment ‘the world fell on top of me’ when he was about to board a train at London’s Euston Station.

Bipolar is usually characterised by extreme mood swings, and include things such as a lack of energy or feeling sad or hopeless a lot of the time.

Nicky, 60, said it stemmed from feelings of ‘guilt’ about trying to track down his birth mother.

In a state of despair he called his wife Tina who encouraged him to go home to their children and their dog Maxwell.

She also confessed was scared he would ‘jump in front of a train’ when she found out where he was calling from.

Appearing on Thursday’s Loose Women, the Long Lost Family star said: ‘Loads of stuff was getting on top of me, I had this breakdown outside Euston Station, I was heading up to Salford.

‘I fell down and started weeping. I scrambled for my phone and I rang Tina and she knew what had happened.

‘She said, “Come home to the girls, come home to me”. She said, “Come home to Maxwell he’s gonna be waiting for you”.’

Describing the moment he was reunited with his beloved dog at home, Nicky continued: ‘He put his head and his paw on me and everything changed. Dogs have such empathy and I’ve got this connection with animals.’

Tina explained that she had suspected a breakdown was coming as he would call her several times a day whenever he saw a picture of an animal in distress.

‘I think in the run up I was fielding seven or eight phone calls a day, just a day of phone calls propping him up and telling him it was going to be alright. He was taking it all so personally.’

Tearing up, she continued: ‘When it happened I knew what was going on. He said, “I can’t go on it’s too much.” I thought he was going to jump in front of a train.

‘He hit rock bottom and from that day his life is sort of pre and post medication. And at that point we called for help, we went to see the doctors and life got better from there.’

Tina called Nicky’s diagnosis ‘life changing’, adding that their children are aware of ‘Daddy being sad’.

‘When these things are going on, you don’t realise how bad it is until you’re out the other side,’ she said.

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