WALLASEY's Shirley Ballas has spoken about her fear of heights as she embarks on a "terrifying" series of challenges to raise awareness of preventing suicide.

The Strictly Come Dancing judge said she became an ambassador for the Campaign Against Living Miserably (Calm) because she “wanted to do more” for her brother who died from suicide about 20 years ago.

Ballas told the PA news agency to help anyone that “suffers with any feeling that they want to take their own life” – and the charity – she will do a Skyathlon challenge – encompassing a zipline, a 700ft wing walk and 15,000ft skydive during August.

Speaking about her brother, Ballas said: "He was a strong, strapping chap, if he walked into a room, he was quite quiet.

"But he was just the most kind and wonderful, gentle giant. Nobody, if you’d have lined up 100 men, would have ever thought that my brother would have taken his own life.

"So he was struggling, he was miserable within himself but he never wanted to share because he never wanted to appear weak.

"I can remember when my mother wanted to take him to the hospital, and she had him in the car, and they pulled up, and he saw somebody he recognised, and he wouldn’t go in and maybe had he gone in, things would have been different.

"But he didn’t want to communicate, he didn’t want to share. It’s just what it was 20 years ago."

Wirral Globe: Shirley is raising money for suicide charity CALMShirley is raising money for suicide charity CALM (Image: PA)

Ballas said that she is “terrified” of heights, and is doing the Skyathlon challenge to “make it as exciting and as scary for the public” as possible.

“The public have got to really … get behind you, so if they think that this is an easy challenge for you, nobody really listens, but if they think you’re terrified they’ll tune in”, she said.

Ballas is a ballroom dancer, teacher and adjudicator and is known for being the head judge on BBC celebrity competition show Strictly, which is a platform she uses to further the discussion around mental health.

She said: “I have the platform with Strictly, I’m the ambassador for Calm, so if I can sense that somebody is feeling a little bit low or down, I always just go over and see how they’re feeling.

“Just ask, how’s your day going? And I’m monitoring, I can kind of tell if somebody’s having a little bit of an off day, sometimes. Not always but sometimes.

“It’s not necessary to hound people. But to check in with people (can be) quite nice.”

Hopes to raise £200,000

Ballas hopes that her Skyathlon challenge will raise about £200,000 for Calm, which runs lifesaving services, including a 24-hour helpline and webchat.

She will do the zipline on August 8, the wing walk on August 10 and the skydive on August 12.

According to Calm, 125 lives in the UK are lost to suicide every week and 75% of all of these suicides are male.

See thecalmzone.net for support and advice and justgiving.com/campaign/skyathlon for Ballas’s campaign.