West Highland Way in a Day

Andrew Lewis is running the West Highland Way in a single day! He has spent the last 12 months training to take on the 96 mile route in under 24 hours. The big day is fast approaching, starting at 22:00 on 29th September 2022.

We’re so grateful that he’s chosen HELP as his charity - you can sponsor him on JustGiving

Andrew says…

“Jim and I served at sea together and had to deal with some challenging technical and operational issues.  I remember that we worked well together as a department leadership team, looking out for each other, particularly when the other was exhausted  Not much was ever needed to be said between us – it just seemed to happen. And we always found time to chuckle about the various situations we found ourselves in. In hindsight, I believe this partly a subconscious way of dealing with stress.

That mutual professional support is perhaps easier to achieve in the confines of a submarine. Years later Jim took his own life. Nobody realised that Jim was suffering and that he felt he had no alternative to suicide. It’s easy to beat ourselves up over not noticing - to wonder how and why. Perhaps he felt too senior, or afraid it would be perceived as weakness. We will never know.  But if asked, all of us would have understood and dropped everything to help.

This why the work of Help – Jim’s Story is so important to me. The charity is working to raise mental health awareness across the RN and its industrial partners and to end the silence and start the conversation. More importantly, to prevent another tragedy like Jim’s. “

UPDATE:

Andrew was slightly hampered by an amber weather warning, but he still managed an absolutely amazing 70.8 miles, 2953 meters climbed (that’s 3 Ben Nevises!) in 22 hours. He raised a staggering £3230 for HELP. This will be used to support our next initiatives, including developing and delivering our own interactive mental health awareness sessions, and producing an accompanying handbook. We’re also aiming to install 'Reflection Benches' at multiple defence sites. More on that to come!