When I put the two together I can imagine the loneliness of the mentally ill, I can see that one feeds the other, and it seems to be that the longer the two exist together the more difficult it is to regain the confidence and ease essential for rapport. When people lose the ability to engage people with the ease that invites ease they are well on the way to becoming an outsider. Soon, probably, they'll be shunned. I have seen this often enough and I have done nothing when a friendly word and a couple of minutes could have made a small difference.

I was excited to read in The Herald yesterday of the launch in Newcastle of a program that matches as friends volunteers and people recovering from mental illness. The purpose, of course, is to help the recovering person regain, or perhaps gain for the first time, the social skills we all need to establish personal relationships. The program is called Compeer, volunteers are aged 18 and above and undertake two days' training, program clients are referred by a health professional and diagnosed as in the recovery stage of the illness, and the two are matched according to age, gender and interests. The Newcastle co-ordinator, Natalie Pittman, says the volunteer has a social outing for an hour or so once a week with the client and, importantly, this is as a friend. It is, Compeer says, so simple yet so profoundly effective, and I don't doubt that. Making friends, I say, is like getting a job - it's so much easier when you have one already - so the volunteer's friendship is so important. You can call Natalie at 4032 3582.

Drawing the link between mental illness and loneliness saddens me. We could have, we should have, done more to help. Tell us of your experience with loneliness or mental illness or both.