The Prince of Wales was visibly moved as he heard first hand about the devastating impact of suicide, having to pause during a conversation with Rhian Mannings, whose husband took his own life.

Rhian has since set up a bereavement charity – and Prince William’s Royal Foundation is contributing £1m to develop a National Suicide Prevention Network.

The network, which will operate across the UK, will work to understand more about the root causes of suicide and to offer support for those affected.

Prince William, on World Mental Health Day, said he wanted to “build a bold, unified national response to the heartbreaking and preventable tragedy of suicide”.

In an emotional conversation, captured on camera, Rhian Mannings told the prince that her husband had taken his own life, five days after the couple had faced the death of their one-year-old son.

The prince asked her how she had coped and continued to bring up two children.

“I look back and I still don’t know how we survived it,” said Rhian.

“Unfortunately There’s still a lot of stigma around suicide, did you feel that at the time?” asked Prince William.

“I was quite surprised by it. I’d never been touched by suicide. It was something that happened on the news. No one would talk about it,” he was told by Rhian, in a conversation in her kitchen in Cardiff.

Prince William asked her what she would say to her husband.

“‘Why didn’t you speak to me?’ I ask myself that every single day. He was absolutely devastated, he did keep blaming himself,” she said.

“But I would just like to sit him down like this and say ‘Why didn’t you come to me?’ Because he’s missed out on just so much joy. And we would have been ok. I think that’s the hardest thing, we would have been ok.”

The prince seemed too upset to speak.

“Are you ok?” she asked.

“I’m sorry, it’s hard to ask you the questions,” said William.

“You’ve experienced loss yourself,” said Rhian. “Life can throw you these awful curve balls. By talking about it, by having hope, you can continue.”

After her own terrible loss, which happened in 2012, Rhian founded a charity, 2wish, to help those affected by the sudden or unexpected death of a child or young person.

That charity will be one of 20 organisations that will form part of a new National Suicide Prevention Network, being launched with £1m, over three years, from the Royal Foundation of the Prince and Princess of Wales.

The network will be chaired by Professor Ann John, an expert in the prevention of suicide and consultant in public health medicine in Wales.

The Royal Foundation says that preventing suicide is a “complex challenge” and there is no “one size fits all model of support”.

But the new network will try to understand more about the causes of suicide, to provide support that can be accessed by anyone and to encourage more collaboration between different agencies and charities.

Among the charities in the network will be the Jac Lewis Foundation in Cardiff, which Prince William visited last month.

That provides a drop-in centre, located inside Cardiff’s Principality Stadium, which can provide mental health support to the local community.

The charity’s chief executive officer, Elizabeth Thomas-Evans, Foundation, said: “From the valleys to the cities, suicide has scarred communities across Wales.”

But she hoped that people in need would now be able to walk in and get help.

Another partner is James’ Place, which offers free support to men in suicidal crisis in Liverpool, London and Newcastle.

Chief executive Ellen O’Donoghue said she wanted to “remove some of the barriers men face in accessing support at the point of crisis”.