On the 23rd of June 2023, our lives tragically changed forever. Our big brother, after a long battle with his mental health, made the decision to take his own life.

It was a bright, sunny Friday and we had finished work for the week. Our mum called us to say that he hadn’t come home after visiting his children and that he sent her a worrying text message. We searched for him for hours, the police too, and finally the youngest of our siblings, Frankie, found him, in a place where we all used to play as kids. Luckily, Abbie’s boyfriend Josh was with her and tried his best to save him, but sadly it was far too late.

Chris had always been the life and soul of the party, the class clown, the person you’d go to if you needed a laugh and it was really easy to think that he was happy most of the time. The sad reality is that he had suffered with depression for most, if not all, of his adult life.

Unfortunately, Chris’ story isn’t a one-off scenario. In fact, suicide rates in the UK are increasing more and more each year, with 75% of those who die by suicide being male. Each of those people who are lost to suicide were a life with hopes, dreams and people who loved them and the truth is, society needs to do more to prevent suicide.

We don’t want another family to go through the pain and trauma that our family has suffered through since losing our brother, and so we’ve decided that we, personally, need to take action, and do our bit to make a difference.

We are going to be walking from Coventry to Portsmouth during National Suicide Prevention week in memory of our brother, to raise money for the charity CALM. CALM (or Campaign Against Living Miserably) are an organisation who exist to stand up against suicide. They run life-saving services, provoke conversations and bring people together to reject living miserably. They also offer support for those who are bereaved by suicide.