3 Dads Walking 2024 Day 17 - Hull to Bigby

The Lord Mayor & Lady Mayoress of Hull came to the start at 7.30am to send us off – they weren’t the only ones there. A large congregation gathered at the Victoria Pier – we were surprised to see so many there at 7.30am.

After we started we retraced our steps from the previous day as far as the Humber Bridge we were stunned to see a group of 40 to 50 people waiting for us at the Humber Wellbeing Centre, we’d been invited in for a brew but hadn’t expected so many people to be there to greet us.

After our break we crossed the Humber Bridge with over 50 people walking with us, many of them being suicide-bereaved parents and other touched by suicide. It was a very special walk with a group of very special people.

On arriving at the south side of the bridge we were greeted by another large group led by the Mayor of Barton. Moving into the town were led by a police car and our ever-growing group was followed by a fire engine – effectively we were a rolling roadblock. We were led toward the town by Adrian Ellis who lost his son George to suicide and has worked tirelessly since to stop others joining the route no one wants to join.

Barton was out in force, children for the local primary school cheered us along, we gave the high-fives, the police escort led us through the town, streets lined with locals until we got to the George Inn where we found another large group waiting for us along with a piper who piped us into the pub.

The pub was packed with supporters; we had a bite to eat and some coffee whilst being interviewed by BBC Look North and pupils from Baysgarth School. The young people were going back to school to write an article that they would share with the rest of the school – they wanted to talk about suicide prevention and learn more from us. Why is the government waiting to add suicide prevention to the school curriculum when our young people want to talk to them about it already?

On leaving the pub Adrian and his family led us to the bench that commemorated his son George. Many people came along with us along with firefighters and police officers. The whole experience of walking through Barton was very emotional indeed.

The rest of our day took us through the rolling landscape of the Lincolnshire Wolds. We never walked alone, many people walked with us, talking about the loved ones we had lost and reflecting on what we had experienced as we walked through Barton.

A very special day indeed.