Three bereaved fathers who raised nearly £1million for a suicide prevention charity after their sponsored walk went viral have announced plans for a UK-wide challenge. Mike Palmer, Andy Airey and Tim Owen, known as 3 Dads Walking, caught the attention of Hollywood stars Daniel Craig and Nicole Kidman, among others, with their 300-mile sponsored walk between their respective homes last year, discussing mental health and raising awareness of suicide prevention.
The trio – who had all recently lost daughters to suicide – now plan to walk to the Parliaments of the UK during a month-long, 600-mile fundraising mission, which they hope will help encourage people to “quash the stigma” and get suicide awareness on the school curriculum. Mr Palmer said he was partly motivated to “do something positive” due to his own regrets over the death of his 17-year-old daughter, Beth, in March 2020.
He told the PA news agency: “I’d never talked about suicide before, I never had the conversation with Beth. Why should I? ‘Beth’ and ‘suicide’ never went in the same sentence.
