A tribute walk took place walk hoping to also raise awareness as to the support that is out there for youngsters contemplating suicide. It was all in memory of a young 16 year old lad called Max who took his own life. The walk took place in Wellington.
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00:00history of things and could have a really quite an adult conversation about. He just had a massive
00:05love for football. He was incredibly kind. His grandad's got dementia in a care home near us.
00:11He'd go two or three times a week to go and check on his grandad. So he was a,
00:15he was very selfless, hard-working. I'm kind of bigging him right up here. He had a messy bedroom.
00:23But he was a, he was a, he was a good lad, hard-working, didn't cause us any...
00:30He was, he was a good lad. He was Ben's hero. Ben looked up to him. He knew all this stuff
00:36about football and, you know, Ben loves football. He was, yeah, just a good, good boy, wasn't he?
00:42He was everything you'd expect from a child. Yeah, proud, very proud.
00:45He was growing up to be a quite a respectable young man around the area. He had his family,
00:52had his friends, everybody that ever met him always came back to us and said how wild a man
00:57he was and caring. It says something that this team have done all of this for him
01:03when he didn't actually play for them. He was just the ref. But he did a few ref games. He
01:08ran the line for them every other week and stuff. But they've, they've been so behind us. As have
01:13all the football teams locally. They've thrown a load of support round it. But he did, he was
01:18very well thought of. Very well thought of. Absolutely. And an important cause everyone's
01:24out for today as well. Yes, hugely. So we chose Papyrus because of their connection to youth
01:33and children. We were very, very early on, we were quite obviously going through a difficult,
01:40very difficult time. But we looked at different charities and Papyrus just jumped out to us as
01:46focused on young people. It was inspiring what Three Dads Walking do. They're a huge part of
01:52Papyrus. And also, the way they do their charity, it's all about education and change.
02:00They recognise that suicide in teens is just not talked about. Suicide in general is just not
02:05talked about. The word's not even used. They've set up with the monies they've raised a lot of
02:12training and classes for children. And also adults and carers and people in position of
02:20leadership for children. So schools, heads, coaches, football. And their aim is to reach
02:27out, educate people on the importance of how we can help and support that. But they also want to,
02:35which I'm very keen, we believe in after going through this process and understanding,
02:39trying to break down and understand what happened and why. It's change. And that's change
02:49in education. That's change in how the pressure we put young people under,
02:56how we look after young people when we put them through difficult things like GCSEs,
03:01when we put a lot of pressure on young kids these days. And it's not until you step back
03:05and look at it you think, wow, we really do. We need to get the fun back into their lives.
03:11It's not just all about results and winning. It's about them as a person, how to grow and deal with
03:18things. And the education side of the process, we've read up, we've talked to people about.
03:24It's very, very in line with what we feel. And that is, I said it before, the education point.
03:33It is getting the knowledge into people's minds, exposure, what it means, what to look out for
03:40when they do see it, how to support it, how to manage it and the right things to do to ultimately
03:46change people's lives, but also save lives. And that's key, key with us.
03:54No other family can go through this. If we can do something that will stop this happening to my family.
04:01Because he was, yeah, he was happy. He was happy, you know, like I say, he went to the pub a couple
04:06of days before. He was doing all the things he loved. And the photo with you was two days before?
04:12Yeah. And if you look in his eyes, there's joy and happiness in there.
04:17He adored it. He went to the Euros in the summer. So we had him there,
04:21did an amazing trip with you, didn't we? Yeah, this was, yeah, it should never have happened.