5 minute read
MC Magazine Autumn 2024
The ‘S’ Word
3 Dads Walking made the world look up when they trekked across the country in memory of their daughters who died by suicide.
Mike Palmer, Andy Airey and Tim Owen walked 500 miles in 25 days to raise funds and awareness. They were each awarded an MBE and are now lobbying Parliament and working with academics on a schools and families suicide prevention programme.
Mike and Andy spoke exclusively to MC Magazine at the Zero Suicide International Summit in Liverpool about how despair turned into determination – and their mission to educate children about suicide prevention.
MC: Suicides are at their highest rates for a decade. Why are we still not talking about it?
Mike: People think it’ll never touch them. I was the same, I never thought I’d lose my youngest daughter to suicide. I was blissfully ignorant even though there were signs that she wasn’t happy. If I’d had awareness through training, there’s a chance Beth would still be here.
Why did you choose to walk?
Mike: I felt I had to fight something, Tim’s the same. Andy had already started doing runs when we met - but I can’t run so we cut it down to walking! We’re not athletes but we do talk openly and that made people listen. The first walk was extraordinary. The kindness people showed was incredible.
Andy: We knew we wanted to do something positive, but we couldn’t have imagined the impact. Having a tracker meant we rarely walked alone. Haylis Smith, the Scottish delivery lead for suicide prevention, walked with us through Coldstream. By the end she was in tears saying she’d never seen anything like it.
Did putting yourselves out there make you grieve more?
Andy: Grief by suicide is exquisitely painful, but we’re the sort of family who wanted to talk openly. As we did that we realised suicide was touching people we knew who had never spoken out. On the walks we’ve met people who had kept the secret for decades.
How has it changed you?
Mike: I have a purpose now making sure my family is ok and this. There’s not a day goes by that we’re not all in contact with one another. We’re living this. It gives me a reason to get up. But we’re not a morbid parade, we’re positive and that engages people to ask questions.
Suicide is a challenging word. Does saying it ever get any easier to say?
Andy: We say it so many times we’re used to it but we’re aware of the impact on an audience. The language needs to change. We’ve told politicians, journalists – the word ‘commit’ is wrong. People die by suicide; they take their own life, but suicide isn’t a criminal offence.
What do you hope to see?
Mike: It’s so obvious to us that we need to go right upstream and invest in our children now. Schools are places of stress and anxiety. Parents are doing what we did, living in ignorance. Other countries have a budget for mental health education. Here, mental health leads in schools have two days training and suicide is not mentioned once. Liverpool John Moore's University is developing a suicide prevention programme in schools, we need that to move forward but there’s so much more to do.
What frustrates you?
Andy: We support the new draft relationships, sex and health curriculum and we’re pleased the words ‘suicide prevention’ have appeared for the first time. But it’s still not listed as compuIsory – changing it would give us permission to talk to our young people. The curriculum says direct references to suicide should not be made before Year 8 – that’s a year too late. From our conversations with suicide bereaved 11 and 12 year olds we know that we should be speaking openly and age appropriately to Year 7s about suicide prevention. We need to give them the skills to get help when they need it.
Why did you choose Papyrus?
Andy: I was introduced to Papyrus soon after Sophie died and found that suicide is the biggest killer of under 35s in the country. I couldn’t believe it. I needed to do something to help them reach more young people.
What drives you?
Andy: Getting to a point where no one goes through what we did. The day Sophie died I’d pocket dialled her. We had a silly conversation where she laughed at me for being a daft old dad. We found out later she was on her way to take her own life. If she’d had the means to say ‘Help me’ there might have been a chance.”
Find out more about Papyrus 24/7
ZSA's FREE online training courses teach you the skills and confidence to have a potentially life saving conversation with someone you’re worried about.
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