The winner of last year’s Saffron Walden’s Got Talent, teenager guitarist and singer, Dave Vant, has launched his first single, to raise money to help young people suffering from mental illness.

Dave, 16, who also played in the town’s Fete de la Musique, a free midsummer music festival in June, has written a song called Unique, inspired by the difficulties a friend of his has experienced.

He said: “We don’t deal with mental illnesse well. People don’t understand it.”

Dave, from Ashton, a former pupil at Friends School, Saffron Walden, has just been signed as a goalkeeper for Saffron Walden Football Club.

He is now taking A levels in music and drama at Long Road Sixth Form College in Cambridge and planning to bring out an EP in the spring with another four songs he has written.

The single, recorded at Three Circles Recording Studio in Wimbish, is available on iTunes.