3 Dads Walking in 2022

Our year began with an idea – over Christmas 2021 we received an email from a doctor in Edinburgh who pointed out that suicide wasn’t exclusively an English problem, it was national, and he suggested that next time we walked we should take in all 4 countries of the UK. This started us thinking...

In February we met Gillian Keegan MP, at that time she was Minister for Care and Mental Health. We talked to her about the suicide bereaved parents we had met on our first walk and asked her the question we had heard time after time – if suicide is the biggest killer of young people in the country, why don’t we talk to them about it in schools? Amongst other things she said that she would discuss the issue with colleagues in the Department for Education.

As the original idea to walk across the UK began to take shape we were also invited to meet civil servants from the DfE. This proved to be insightful and frustrating in equal measures – in the meeting we discussed how far the school curriculum had evolved to include mental health issues and signposting to organisations that offer help, we pointed out that suicide was the biggest killer of young people in the country but suicide prevention wasn’t a compulsory part of the curriculum. We also talked about the process of making change within government...it was clear that things weren’t going to move overnight.

By early summer the idea of walking between the parliament buildings of the UK had turned into a plan, it was still a work in progress but we were close to committing to doing it. We also began to talk about the possibility of running a petition alongside our walk, one calling to make suicide prevention a compulsory part of the school curriculum.

One thing we had struggled to include was getting to Stormont in Belfast; every time we talked about including it in the walk the distance and time became unworkable...until Tim suggested flying in, doing a short walk then flying to Edinburgh all in one day. That would work but when could we fit it in?

We had been invited to speak at the Suicide Bereavement UK Conference in Manchester on September 22nd, we began to explore how the itinerary would look if we had the 22nd as a day off from walking so we could attend the event. When would we start? When could we finish?

We quickly realised that in order to get to Greater Manchester by September 21st we would need to walk out of Edinburgh 11 days earlier. On checking the date, we found that September 10th was World Suicide Prevention Day. We had to do it.

We tried to make back end of the walk finish on Saturday 8th October in order to get the highest media coverage as we walked into Westminster...but it just didn’t fit. It meant walking too far each day. Reluctantly we redid the plan to finish on Monday October 10th, it was only then we realised that the day we finished it would be World Mental Health Day.

Looked like there was no option – we had to walk again.

The plan became a reality surprisingly quickly; people stepped forward to offer help, accommodation and logistical support. We booked flights into and out of Belfast for September 9th so we could include Stormont. We’d also decided that we would run a petition alongside the walk: even though things seemed to be moving in the right direction we thought that a petition would add to the evidence the government were calling for in their new 10-year suicide prevention strategy. Everything was good to go.

We came together at Mike’s house in Sale on September 8th. Andy was there but before Tim arrived, it was announced that Queen Elizabeth II had died...

What were we to do?

When Tim arrived, we discussed the situation and decided that we had to walk. If we didn’t it would be another year before we could pull all our support back together; in that time how many other young people would die? In the previous walk we had also received personal letters from the Duke of Cambridge encouraging us in our work, we thought that gave us support from the Royal Family to keep going.

The walk went ahead as we planned but we kept the start very low key, we showed great respect to the Queen and observed the official mourning period.

The details of the walk are for another time and place, but over the following 5 weeks we met many more suicide bereaved parents who shared their stories, loads of people offering love and support and encouragement from every quarter to keep talking about suicide prevention. In the background the petition went live, by the time we walked into Westminster it had reached about 20,000. That meant the government had to respond to the petition; we were then looking at pushing the signatures to over 100,000 so that it had to be considered for debate in parliament.

Again, the full story of the last day will be told elsewhere, but it’s worth mentioning the part that Alison Freeman and Adam Nolan from the BBC played. Alison and Adam had followed the 3 Dads Walking story from the start, they had produced all the pieces that appeared on BBC Breakfast and were with us as we finished, broadcast live on BBC One.

By the time the live broadcast finished the petition was over 40,000 and rising fast – it reached 100,000 later that evening.

Following the walk, we had a huge volume of media interest which enabled us to raise the profile of PAPYRUS Prevention of Young Suicide, raise more funds for the charity and keep signatures being added to the petition. We’ve attended a number of award ceremonies and have collected various awards - the Sam Hill Memorial Award at Kendal Mountain Festival, The Great Outdoors Magazine Campaigners of the Year Awards, JustGiving Team of the Year and, most surreal of all, the Pride of Britain Award.

We didn’t set out to win any awards. We wanted to raise some funds for PAPYRUS and highlight the countrywide nature of young suicide – we’ve obviously done that in spades. The awards show that the message we’ve been sending out is being heard. We are humbled yet very grateful to receive them

So where does that leave us?

Our petition currently stands at well over 150,000. It is the 3rd largest on the government’s petition web page, the 2 above ours have already been debated in parliament. We are waiting to hear when our petition will be debated.

We have written again to Gillian Keegan MP, she is now Secretary of State at the Department for Education, asking to meet her to ask her why suicide prevention isn’t a compulsory part of the curriculum. We are awaiting a response.

We know from the support we have received from across the country that people are hearing what we have to say. We need to talk about suicide and suicide prevention – that is the way lives can be saved in the future.

We will keep pressure on the government until suicide prevention gets added to the school curriculum.

We will keep going so that other families don’t suffer the same devastating loss as us.

Everything we do is done in memory of Beth, Emily and Sophie.

Here’s sending you best wishes to you and yours for 2023