GUEST BLOG: Andy Airey of 3DadsWalking

Andy Airey lost his daughter to suicide in 2018 and, ever since, he has been committed to raising funds for the suicide prevention charity, PAPYRUS, and awareness of suicide among young people. You might recognise Andy’s name or face from the 3 Dads Walking initiative – and he will be opening our Supporting Each Other Through Loss event in Barrow on Saturday 15 October 2022.

 Andy agreed to tell his family’s story for this blog and we’d like to thank him for his amazing support.

Mike, Andy and Tim - 3 Dads Walking with images of their daughters

Born and bred in Cumbria, I have spent much of my life living, working and playing on and around the Lake District fells. I live with my family, Fiona and Gregor, in the Eden valley. Our lives were sent on a completely unforeseen trajectory when our daughter, Sophie, took her own life.

 Throughout her life, Sophie came across as an open, happy person who was extremely sociable. She was gregarious, good fun and was always able to raise a smile. When walking into our house her “Hiya” seemed to fill the place with joy. Sophie had a wide circle of friends scattered across the UK and she brought a smile and sense of fun to everyone she met.

 In the autumn of 2018, Sophie split from her husband. As ever, our family offered her all the love and support we could. It was clear that she was feeling down about some of the decisions she had made but there was nothing in her behaviour or demeanour that suggested she was contemplating suicide.

 In December, Sophie was offered a new position at work which she seemed excited about and she had taken a lease on a lovely flat. She was due to return to Cumbria for the festive period on December 20th.

 On December 19th 2018, Sophie took her own life.

 In looking for a charity to support for Sophie’s funeral, we were introduced to PAPYRUS, the national charity dedicated to the prevention of young suicide. We realised that PAPYRUS was the perfect charity to support in our darkest time and we were determined to bring something positive out of the utter devastation of losing Sophie.

 Shortly after Sophies funeral, I ran a half marathon using Sophie’s entry and raised around £40,000. However, during his training, I realised that the cash raised was the by-product of the real output – saving lives!

 By raising awareness of suicide prevention, encouraging families to talk to each other about their deepest feelings and introducing thousands of people to the lifesaving work of PAPYRUS, it was clear that the stigma of talking about suicide had been reduced and many people reached out to HOPELINEUK for help.

Talking openly about our family’s experience of losing Sophie ensured that other families were saved from suffering the same excruciating pain, loss and grief.

Along the way of the first walk - “only” 300 miles from Cumbria to Norfolk

Since running the first half marathon, I have done two more (even though I hate them) and have also been involved with many other activities and events aimed at raising funds and, more importantly, bringing PAPYRUS to people’s awareness.

 These have included:

·         Yoga sessions

·         A community choir concert

·         A comedy night

·         Skipping

·         Hula hooping

·         Challenge walks

·         Being the voice of PAPYRUS on their BBC Radio 4 Charity of the Week Appeal

·         Making a film, “The Other Side”, about Sophie, suicide awareness and the positive mental health benefits of being outdoors. (https://tinyurl.com/AAtheotherside)

 In December 2020, our son, Gregor was at a training course at the PAPYRUS Head Office in Warrington; at that course he sat next to a suicide-bereaved dad from Manchester, Mike. During their conversation, Gregor told Mike about my exploits and Mike asked whether I’d be up for another challenge.

 Mike called me in the spring of 2021. We arranged to meet and go for a walk on the limestone country close to Kirkby Stephen. On this walk we talked about our girls, Sophie and Beth, our families, our emotions, our grief and the support we’d received from family, friends and various organisations. As we walked, Mike told me about another suicide-bereaved dad, Tim, who had been a great support to him in his most desperate times. Tim had lost his daughter Emily five days before Beth had taken her own life. Mike also introduced an idea he’d had about doing some sort of challenge walk to raise funds for PAPYRUS and, just as importantly, raise awareness of suicide prevention.

 This was the start of 3 Dads Walking....

 The three of us were soon on a Zoom call. It was clear that, as each of us had tried to claw their way back from the shattering grief of losing a child to suicide, we had focused on the thought of helping others; each of us was thinking if we could save just one other family from suffering the excruciating trauma we were going through then whatever we did would have been worthwhile.

 Before we knew it, 3 Dads Walking had taken on a life of its own. The plan was to walk from my home in Cumbria, via Mike’s home in south Manchester, finishing up after 300 miles at Tim’s home near King’s Lynn in Norfolk. BBC Breakfast latched on to our walk and were very keen broadcast our message of hope – talking saves lives. Our increased profile led to Daniel Craig donating £10,000 the day before we set off walking and suddenly the world took notice.

 Since completing the walk last October (2021), we have spoken at dozens of different events. We’ve been in conversation with the government about adding suicide-prevention to the school curriculum and we are in the process of planning another walk, visiting each seat of government in the UK during September 2022, to promote this initiative.

 Since we were unable to help our daughters escape from the downward spiral that led them to kill themselves, we are committed to do whatever we can to help other families avoid suffering the same pain that we know. Helping PAPYRUS gives us something really positive to support in the knowledge that the work they do directly saves lives.

3 Dad’s Walking and still campaigning

Building connections with others who share at least some aspects of my experience has been incredibly valuable and I appreciate that this is at the heart of everything that SBS Cumbria does.

 I was pleased to be approached by Emily about taking part in the Barrow event in October as I know suicide is a huge issue in that community. Her aim of bringing together as many organisations, agencies, charities and individuals as possible to raise the issues, learn frm each other and to make people aware of the help that’s available is vital. I am looking forward to being part of such an important event.