White Fox Talking
Talk About Mental Health & Well-Being… Why Not? Mark ‘Charlie’ Valentine suffered life changing mental illness, before beginning a journey to recovery and wellness; the darkness of PTSD transformed by the light atop mountains and beyond. Mark is now joining forces with Seb Budniak, to make up the ‘White Fox Talking’ team. Through a series of Podcasts and Vlogs, ‘White Fox Talking’ will be bringing you a variety of guests, topics, and inspirational stories relating to improving mental well-being. Find your way back to you! Expect conversation, information, serious discussion and a healthy dose of Yorkshire humour!
White Fox Talking
E71: Walking Out of the Dark - Kelvyn James
Send White Fox Talking a Message
The healing power of nature and human connection takes centre stage as Kelvyn James returns to White Fox Talking, sharing his transformative journey from profound darkness to founding a thriving mental health charity.
Kelvyn lays bare the brutal realities that shaped him - growing up in a violent household where his earliest memory is "an exceptional act of violence" and later facing the unimaginable trauma of his mother's murder. What followed was a five-year court battle where he repeatedly faced his mother's killer, a struggle he initially kept hidden from those closest to him.
The mountains became both sanctuary and danger zone as Kelvyn sought escape through increasingly risky climbs. "I was never suicidal," he explains, "but completely believing I deserved to get hurt." These high-risk behaviours provided momentary relief but failed to address his underlying trauma. The breakthrough came when he discovered that true healing happens through connection - with nature and with others.
This realization became the foundation for Wellness Walks, a charity offering free nature walks specifically designed for people struggling with mental health. Since becoming an official charity in September 2023, they've expanded rapidly, with nearly 100 volunteers running walks across the UK. What makes these walks uniquely effective is what Kelvyn calls "therapy in 3D" - the side-by-side walking creates natural opportunities for connection without the pressure of face-to-face therapy.
His newly released book "Walking Out of the Dark" chronicles this journey, with all proceeds supporting the charity's work. Though it begins in darkness, Kelvyn promises readers there's a happy ending - not because the pain disappears, but because he found a path through it. "If somebody carries a great weight for too long, one of two things is going to happen - either you're going to get stronger or you're going to break," he reflects. "For a long time I didn't know which it would be, and by the end of the book I understand it's both."
Ready to experience the healing power of nature? Join a Wellness Walk near you, or support their work by purchasing Kelvyn's book directly from wellnesswalks.org.uk.
Hello and welcome to the White Fox Talking Podcast. I'm Mark Charlie-Valentine, remote in Wakefield, and Seb is in Germany. Hello, seb, hello.
Speaker 2:Isn't technology brilliant, Charlie?
Speaker 1:Oh, it's great, isn't it? It just all flows. It's brilliant how everything just comes together like that. You just flick a switch and everything works.
Speaker 2:My God, Just for our listeners. It took us about 20 minutes to get Charlie connected.
Speaker 1:Well, this is the thing you know. Wakefield, did you know what I was just thinking? I was just asked then whether we'd changed internet providers since last time we recorded from home base. You see, I can't remember who we're on anyway, I don't know who we're on, so I can't even slag them, but anyway, cool we're here now. So how are you, seb? I'm very well, thanks enjoying the weather.
Speaker 1:Is it good in Germany? Is it in the sunny rhubarb triangle Just as sunny? Yeah, bloody glorious. That's why I want to sit in here and do this. Cool right, shall we get underway?
Speaker 2:Let's get on with it.
Speaker 1:I'm delighted that we have got Mr Kelvin James back on. Hello Kelvin. The White Fox Talking podcast is sponsored by Energy Impact.
Speaker 3:Hey Charlie, how we doing.
Speaker 1:I'm all right, mate. You know stressing I will never be able to rib you about the internet connection in the Lake District.
Speaker 3:Again, will I Afraid not.
Speaker 1:No, afraid not. This is it. So, kelvin, you came on back on episode four when we talked about Mental Health First Aid, one of our, our, yeah, one of the the first 10 podcasts that we were supposed to be doing and then calling it a day. So I think this is going out as early 70s. This will. This one will be in a few weeks so yeah, thank you.
Speaker 1:Obviously, it's just, we're just naturals at it. Now, thank you for coming back on. This time we're going to be talking about your book, so if you could give the listeners a brief introduction about yourself, and then we'll, we'll get in and we'll get into, we'll get into the yeah, what the book's all about, and yourself okay, yeah, so I'm calvin james.
Speaker 3:I would self-describe myself as a climber. The outdoors has always been stunningly important to me, so charlie and I know each other from our background as international mountain leaders. But over the last few years which is part of what the book talks about I founded a charity and I now run an organization called wellness walks. We've got walks happening from the scottish highlands all the way down to hartfordshire, from north wales and all the way across to lincolnshire. So so that's what we do now. We train and empower communities, and the whole thing of our walks is they're totally free for anybody with low mental health, that they're specifically designed to support that community, because that's what supported me in my dark times.
Speaker 1:I'm glad you mentioned us both being international mountain leaders, because people get a bit annoyed, get a bit bored of me banging on about it, telling people that I have my range of qualifications. So can I just ask, before we start talking about getting into the book, because the book's related to wellness walks anyway, isn't it? Because I think proceeds are going into wellness walks, are they?
Speaker 3:Yep, everything from the book goes to wellness walks. I mean, I didn't know this when I wrote it, charlie, but part of what I've written in the book is how wellness walks came to be. The book started a long, long, long time before there was any concept of wellness walks at all. But yeah, you know it's. It's the tale of my recovery a little bit, in the hope that that helps other people and, in the larger picture, hopefully it raises the profile of the charity and raises some funds to support the work that we do so just talking about the charity, there is it two and a half, three years since kelvin was on two and a half years.
Speaker 1:it will be something like that, just doing a bit of mental yeah, about two and a half years, it will be something like that, just doing a bit of mental work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, about two and a half years, charlie. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So how quickly, how big is it expanding? How much is the uptake and the need for Wellness Walks?
Speaker 3:So Wellness Walks started in, I suppose in the first or second God who can remember lockdowns of COVID Like most people doing what we do, charlie, all my work disappeared. There was no furlough. I read the rules. I've always volunteered in mental health and I often take people out one-to-one just for some human connection and was blown away by it. So back then we formed a community interest company and did the training, which was the mental health courses that we came on to talk to you guys about, and literally used the spare funds from that to be able to fund taking people out and supporting those walks.
Speaker 3:And then, probably the start of 2024, we sort of realized that everything we were doing was focused around the walks. Some money that didn't sit well with me from from losing my mum. I used that to sort of fund the first volunteer training. So paid for that myself as sort of proof of concept was ridiculously well founded and the advice we got was really you should be a charity if your primary purpose is. So I paid for that myself as sort of proof of concept was ridiculously well founded and the advice we got was really you should be a charity. If your primary purpose is charitable, be a charity.
Speaker 3:So we became a charity in September of last year, 2024. So we're now six, seven months into that, I think, and we've doubled what we do in those six months. We're just about to start a cohort in in north wales, or a second cohort in north wales, and they'll take us up to 100 volunteers across the country, which I think is fairly special, to be fair, but doesn't scratch the surface of our stated aim that we want you to be able to go on a wellness walk wherever you are. So that's that's the ambition and that's the journey we're on yeah, I think it shows.
Speaker 1:Think it shows the sort of scale of the issues that the country's facing, doesn't it? There's people everywhere that need some way of addressing or improving their mental wellbeing, mental health.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and I think and we'll have a little promo for one of Charlie's latest qualifications, I think there's sort of nature therapy and the fact that people have lost their connection to nature. The book talks about it but my friendship circle talks about. You know, we all go for a walk. You know you ring up one of your mates when, when and go out and climb or paddle or whatever your thing is, and that's our reconnection and reset. But I think as a society a lot of people have lost that now they don't get that. Just time outside is going to change your brain chemistry, it's going to change your internal processes and just make you that little bit better. So, yeah, that that's the aim.
Speaker 1:You know, we want to be able to take you for a walk in london, in edinburgh, everywhere I mean personally, especially now I've done that nature therapy practitioner and a lot of the audiobooks I'm reading we need as a species, we need a base level, and that base level we're not meeting it if we're just sat in offices and sat in cars and driving to work and then the stresses that we put on ourselves anyway, the stresses that we have from society, then if we're not going out and getting sunlight and so much evidence now of just being out in nature and even this thing about being in cities where the straight lines cause subconscious stress when you being out in nature, and even this thing about being in cities where the straight lines that cause cause subconscious stress.
Speaker 2:So when you, when you're out in nature and when you're with a group and walking people, you just seem to open up and have a little chat, and that always helps as well. So that's quite beneficial. I remember when we went for a bit of a walk, charlie, you took us down to remind me peak districts beadale, skyline. That was it. Yeah, A few hours of walking and talking really helped everyone there didn't it?
Speaker 1:Well, not being a scientist, but there's this thing about bilateral movement in there that opens, so both sides of their brain can talk to each other, and then, when people aren't talking about what they're going to have to eat later on, then generally there'll be, you know just that thing about community and talking.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean the phrase we use for our beneficiaries, the people who come on the walks, but for our volunteers as well is it's therapy in 3D. It's the easiest thing in the world as a walk leader to make eye contact or not make eye contact, for people to physically pause and acknowledge something. I know a little bit of Charlie and I's backgrounds. When they offered me traditional counselling and sat me in a room with no windows, I probably didn't exhibit the best behaviours you've ever seen. When, fortunately, I met a really good therapist and we went and sat outside on a bench and we could hear some birdsong and the sun was shining, then I was able to talk to people. So I think it opens up a whole host of benefits to people and we see it work. Now, you know, we just get some really rewarding feedback from the people who come on the walks.
Speaker 1:Yeah, we're going to ask actually, what's? What's the sort of? Well, like you said, you've got some really positive feedback. But I mean, are there? Do people um, keep coming back on the walks, is it? Is it that sort of thing where you know they can get, can just sign up all the time?
Speaker 3:needs a slightly larger brain than mine, but we're trying to do some work with the University of Central Lancashire at the moment because obviously if you're always adding in new walks, you're getting new people. But people who get past the second walk we're currently on 50% of people come back. The charity is still relatively new, so we've only got a few walking groups that have lasted longer than a year, but the people who make it to a year, they're logging 30 or 40 walks with us. Wonderful things that I see. We had a cohort over in millham for a long time. That was probably our first cohort.
Speaker 3:They go walking without me now, which is great and that sounds weird. But actually not needing me is the logical end of where we should be, isn't it? They shouldn't need somebody to rock up and give them the confidence and the courage to go out. And now you know, as I've stepped back from that, we've gone from weekly to fortnightly to months late. They still go. You know they might not do the big dramatic walks, but they go out for a walk and they go out for a talk and they've become a little group of people who support each other, which is fabulous to see.
Speaker 1:To be fair, yeah, and it's, you know, one of these pillars of mental health in it, or having a baseline of mental health, is having community and the evidence that came out because of covid and the isolation of people, you know not just mental health but physical through not having interaction with other people yeah, and as a charity, we've actually changed quite a lot of our messaging around that.
Speaker 3:so we've always said mental and physical health. We now specifically say mental, physical and social health and social health. And again the book talks about that a lot. I desperately wanted me out climbing scary mountains on my own to fix me. It didn't. It burnt away a lot of noise briefly, shortly, and then you were back in the hole. What fixed me was starting to spend time in a place I loved with other people. That was the bit, and that social element of all that macho stuff about being a loner and it's nonsense. We are a tribe species and we need that social engagement to support our overall wellbeing.
Speaker 1:And that's the lovely thing with the walks that we see is people turning up and actually realising I'm not alone, or this is a thing I can get engaged with and take part with and do yeah, I think with my, with my own sort of sort of journey would be, you know, last couple years I've sort of tried to get a bit more interested in, you know, just saying that going out to the mountains and going out camping and stuff, or you know I'll go off and do a week a week by myself in winter in scotland.
Speaker 1:Then was it actually that? Was it actually the mountains that sort did sort out, or was it that I was showing some focus? Do do you know what I mean? And then looking around at all this evidence-based stuff rather than my own opinion-based stuff, which was a little bit wrong, yeah, but you know, to be fair, having the focus and moving away from the distractions and the escapism, the escape behaviours that I was displaying, yeah, exactly that If you were to ask a good psychologist or therapist to design you some interventions specifically to make people engage with each other.
Speaker 3:You're going to sit around a campfire. You're going to sit and watch the sun go down. You're going to summit a mountain or get into the cold water and get back out. They're all things that are fundamental to what we do as outdoor people, but completely alien to the vast bulk of our society nowadays. So hopefully we, we create little pathways for people and they find their own way of supporting themselves yeah, definitely right.
Speaker 1:So the book walking out of the darkness, you want to. Yeah, yeah, so this, obviously this is a personal story of your, of your. How difficult you did you find writing it and how difficult do you find talking about it.
Speaker 3:You write there on page one. Really, you've got to do that author bio thing, haven't you? And I've got a lot of badges and I've done some. I now think stupid, but you have potentially brave stuff and things that perhaps most people think are exciting. I hated school and I did a master's through lockdown.
Speaker 3:Writing the book is the toughest thing. I've done this because it's it's you, it's. I. Refuse to lie or skirt around things. Equally, I'm very honest that some of the stuff in it is very much written from my perspective, because that's how we all are. But yeah, I've put a lot of me into 204 pages. So yeah, it was tough and I think it'll be the easiest way to put it. It's, but it's also hugely rewarding.
Speaker 3:It never started with I'm going to write a book. It started. I need to write this stuff down because I think I'm losing my mind. And then I need to write this stuff down because I'm forgetting stuff, which is awful, or people are telling me things that I know I was in but I have no memory of. But slowly that started to connect the little dots for me, shared it with a few folk who said, yeah, this is something that could help other people and that's important to me. That that's, you know. Other people stepped up and helped me. The book talks about, you know, the way I lost my mum. It's a way to, I think, pay some respect to her, and it turned out that I quite like writing. But, yeah, that whole hitting, that's it published, let's, let's print a physical thing. That that took a while.
Speaker 2:Do you think writing the book was a form of therapy for you?
Speaker 3:oh, definitely, unquestionably said with, without any any shadow of a doubt, it was. There's a thing I talk about in the book which is a little weird um photography website that somebody introduced me to and for a load of people it's a photo a day challenge 365 photos. Walk away me. That became the start of the writing, because some of the pictures, if I looked at them, I knew I'd taken them.
Speaker 3:I'm not daft, but literally so much of my mind was occupied with grief, with anger, with other things, that I needed some words, and I quite quickly realised the words couldn't always be the angry words, which were the words most of my head was full of, and it made me go look for something good every day to write down. It also meant when I finally thought, oh God, I'm going to write the whole thing as a book, I could go back and oh wow, that was a year ago, because for me it was yesterday. So, yeah, it's been hugely cathartic. It's also been a thing that you start and you finish eventually. But you know, it took me 10 years one way or another. It probably took two years of hard graft to make it what it is, but it's been written over 10 years.
Speaker 1:So it is quite nice to bring that to a conclusion, if that makes sense. Was there any sort of difficulty in recalling things? I think you know writing these memories, obviously personal to you, but then you're putting them out in public domain but also you're recalling out in public domain but also you're recalling. It's a recall of going over things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm old enough not to be daft about this. Like so many people, I've written a book myself that's made myself cry lots. Most times there are bits that I still read that give me a pause in stuff, but they should. It covers some fairly harrowing stuff, but it also helped me get to the bottom of where I was struggling with. It made me go and actually get proper therapy. It's highlighted some of my behaviors to me maybe. So, yeah, it's been a hugely therapeutic for me process.
Speaker 3:But you know, you know yourself, charlie a lot of therapy is quite painful because you you've got a lot of some things and you've got to accept some things which we may not want to.
Speaker 3:You know the little sales tagline for it is. You know and I wrote this, these were probably the first words I wrote was if somebody carries a great weight for too long, one of two things is going to happen either you're going to get stronger or you're going to break. And for a long time I didn't didn't know which it would be, and by the end of the book I understand it's both. You're going to break, but hopefully you're going to find a way to put yourself back together Never the same that you were, because some of those pieces are now missing, but hopefully stronger, hopefully there's more of you and there's more resilience than there was before. But for me, I needed to get to the bottom of the abyss to be able to know what was there, address it and fix it, whereas to go in and climbing scary rock climbs on your own or soloing big mountains, that definitely stops you thinking about the bottom of the abyss, but it doesn't actually address what's down there in the dark yeah, definitely I think it's.
Speaker 1:You know, that's one of one of them distraction behaviors that I was definitely showing, although by that of obviously going out, you're sort of trying to. You're improving your physical and mental well-being but you're not addressing the issues, aren't you?
Speaker 3:yeah, there's a bit in the book that I I read at an event the other day because they specifically want me to focus on the climbing bit, and there's a bit where I take myself to frogger and climb something stupidly difficult, fully aware that I've got a good chance of falling off this thing and hurting myself fully you know, never, ever suicidal or not wishing to be here, but completely believing I deserve to get hurt. And at the end of it, probably the climb's taken me six, seven minutes. It's not the biggest cliff in the world. I've completely purged everything out of my brain and I sit at the top of the crag and I'm ready to go back to court and start the stuff again with my mum's killer, but it doesn't last.
Speaker 3:Yeah, two weeks after that I'm at another crag doing the same thing and the respite after that is a little bit less than two, and eventually I had to sit down with other people and talk and for me, that was that was what fixed it. Yeah, that all the outdoor stuff and the dangerous stuff got me through, but it was other people that fixed it and ultimately that's what I think the book is ultimately about is the power of connection with other people. Now, for me, the outdoors made that connection easier, made that connection perhaps deeper, but it was the connection with other people and the connection back to myself and my past. That's where the magic happened.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so just for the listeners, I suppose if we do talk about the book and you mentioned it, so the contents of the book you mentioned it in the episode we did before about First Aid, that you lost your mother in tragic circumstances but also you mentioned is it physical abuse as a child?
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I grew up in a violent household would be the best way to put it. Love wasn't a word you heard often in our house. My earliest memory, which I write about in the book, is an exceptional act of violence and that's literally my earliest memory. For a long time my earliest memory wasn't that. It was a memory I was coached to tell people when the social workers came round. But actually, if you scratch at that a little bit, I can't give you any words that weren't given to me.
Speaker 3:I'm pretty sure no four-year-olds really know what a turquoise police car is. I do remember getting thrown across a room into a wall. So yeah, that was kind of the way I grew up and unfortunately I think that was also sadly my mother's life, you know, and that becomes normalised. So it certainly became normalised to me that that was how things got settled. So yeah, it wasn't a great upbringing, but the work is.
Speaker 3:You know, it's easy to just look back and see the dark. There were little shining lights in it, you know I I think I've got a fairly good understanding of how the scouts organization works now as an outdoor leader. I didn't go to scouts, I went to some nice guys who took us out to the woods and just got us out of troublesome homes. I genuinely thought you just got given a badge every couple of weeks for turning up. We didn't do any of that stuff. So there were people who looked after us, took me climbing, taught me what I now understand is resilience, how to be responsible for myself, pick myself up, how to survive, and I think that's what got me through my childhood and then came back much, much later in life when we lost mum in the way that we did.
Speaker 3:So yeah, it is a book that starts in a very dark place. I am doing no spoilers when I say this, because it's the first page of the book. I'm not a fan of other people's rules, so I tell you right at the start I'm going to tell you the ending. There's a happy ending to this book. It starts in a dark, dark place, but there is a happy ending to it so what do you say when you set off on the book?
Speaker 1:Is it meant to be sort of autobiography, or a self-help book or an advice book?
Speaker 3:I had a fabulous editor who I was introduced to right at the end and he's been wonderful and my sort of joke was I genuinely thought I was going to write one of the greatest of mountaineering literature. He's going to finish with me striding out onto a summit. I mean, just come up some ridiculously difficult thing. And clearly I've written a self-help book about the power of love and resilience and Simon, my lovely editor, said there's just quite a strong chance. You've written both, which I thought was fantastic. And again, you know, enough people have read it now and the reviews are starting to come in. And enough people have read it now and the reviews are starting to come in.
Speaker 3:And I'm not daft, it covers a lot of topics that touch people. Yeah, I really genuinely hope you've got no listeners that lose their mom in the way that we did strongly suspect. You have got some listeners who grew up the way I did and, yeah, I started to realize about halfway through that actually it probably could help some other people and that's that's the aim for it. Really, you know, it's I quite early on. If I can light just one candle for one other person, then the dark is just a little bit less, but also a large part of the book was realizing how many people lit candles for me that I didn't possibly see at the time Because you don't. You know you head down looking at your feet trying to survive. But actually a lot of people helped me get where I am, and that's a large part of what the book's about. If it can encourage people to head out and walk and have a talk or sit down and tell the nearest and dearest, then then it's whatever it does in sales, it's a win, isn't it so?
Speaker 1:oh yeah, definitely yeah. And again, if the money's, you know, if you're, you're not wanting to be what's her name? Jk Rowland. Eh, it's, uh, you're, uh, you're putting the money in back into wellness walks, it's it's some level.
Speaker 3:It's the same as the inheritance from my mum that set Wellness Walks up. It's not money that should be mine. It should be supporting other people. The book was written to support other people. So if reading it helps somebody, great. If the fact the book generates income that can help somebody, that's just the same goal done a different way. And I big believe it's super easy to sit here and moan that this stuff should be funded by the government and the nhs. It isn't so we've got to do it and that does require income and money and stuff. So if this is another little part of that puzzle, great. But I know a lot of people have read it and said yeah, yeah it helps.
Speaker 1:Would I be okay to give you a label of like wounded healer? Do you know what that? Yeah, if you, if you accept that you know? I mean because you know we've got all this. In fact, I was talking to someone from a couple of people adventure mind, some very clever people talking about psychology and neurology and all this neuroscience. I'm like, well, I'm, I'm a bit out, I'm a bit out of my depth in this conversation, and the two guys both turned around and went well, you've actually lived it, we study it. So there's so much that people can learn from people like yourselves, kelvin.
Speaker 3:Yeah, we should have prepped for this a bit better and I could have been more literary and told you who the quote's from. But there's a famous quote that if you want to help people out of the darkness, you've got to have walked in the darkness first and again. The value of lived experience, if you understand how to share that experience with people, I think is huge. I remember doing my master's and they were really strong on. You couldn't plagiarize your own work. You couldn't submit essays you'd done in the past. I hated school so there were no essays from the past. I didn't really understand academia either. So I need you to answer these questions for me to the professor.
Speaker 3:So you've said we can't plagiarize our own work, but this little experiment you've given us for you know, one of the options to choose for your thesis. That's what I do for a living. You know can. Can I write that up or is that, you know? Does that cross a line? This wonderful academic lady who's written half a dozen books looked me dead in the eye over zoom. I said I'd be wonderful to see this done in the real world.
Speaker 3:Yeah, actually, I think there's a. There's not enough value of people who've done it, you know, I know you're starting on that journey with adventure mind, but these are things that we all know and when you dig deep enough, there starts to be proof for it. You know the amount of feedback we get. Just the look on people's faces, the fact that that group in Millam are going walking on their own, the fact there's a weekly walking group in Puella in Wales now that go out and support each other and talk about stuff it's kind of the proof's there. So I think people like myself and yourself and anybody who's made that journey, we're never bound to do anything, but I think if you've got the strength to do it, you should share that with people and tell them there is a way that this can improve. You know, this might not be a roadmap for everybody, but if it worked for me statistically humans aren't that different it probably will work for some other people yeah, I think recently I'd got up.
Speaker 1:I uh, it was 25th anniversary of the incident where, when I gained my ptc and I did a speech at a fundraising meal Now, I wasn't aware at the time that there were nearly 1,000 people going to be there, but the reception was amazing. I mean, I was stunned because I didn't expect a bloody standing ovation. But I'm thinking 10, 15 years ago, maybe 20 years ago, that might not have happened. It might have been like who's this weirdo talking about mental health. You know what I mean. So I think times have definitely changed and this is sort of the reason that you know myself and Seb and Brad, when we started the podcast, you know, and talking about experience, like you're talking about basically myself, I think I'd be very selfish to keep any knowledge of a pathway to wellbeing to myself, you know, because I have lost people. I've lost people who have taken their own lives, and you just think, well, could I have made that difference?
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly that. And yeah, we'll tell people regularly that you know everybody will focus on the walk. If I said to somebody who's struggling usually, you know, would you like a free walk with a trustee of the samaritans, with somebody who's you know, I've got some counseling badges, he's a really good. Look, god, no, no, no. Do you want a free walk with a mountain guide? Yeah, sounds brilliant. It's the same person and we're going to do the same thing and I've seen that over time.
Speaker 3:I've got clients who are definitely, definitely, definitely competent to be out there on their own, but actually what they really want is somebody to talk to.
Speaker 3:I write about it in the book. So for me, climbing is my thing and taking people out into the wild places, but that level of connection, you know, 150 foot apart, with somebody else's life in their hands, I thought I was somebody. You know, I spent a long time thinking I'd let my mum down, that I should have stopped that happening, and to have people trust me with their life again was jaw-dropping, if I'm honest. It was. It connected me back to my sense of who I am. You know, people look at us because we've got the badge and we've got to be the person from the room, so we've got to be super strong. So if we can talk about our vulnerabilities and our falls and the fact that you can pick yourself up and continue, it makes it a lot easier for other people too. And every form of therapy even if it's just picking up the phone to the doctor because you've got flu it all has to start with you acknowledging there's a problem.
Speaker 2:Yeah, do you find yourself going back into that darkness sometimes? And if you're there, do you feel like you have a different perspective on things now and it's easier to I don't know what the right word is here to process it yeah, a little bit.
Speaker 3:Yeah, charlie knows me quite well. I had quite a bad health scare last year I'm absolutely totally fine and that coincided with losing somebody to suicide. And I had quite a bad health scare last year I'm absolutely totally fine and that coincided with losing somebody to suicide. And I'm losing a really good friend just from my life and that was awful because suddenly I I was back in the dark having thought like but that actually that's just life and and it did it gives you the resilience it's.
Speaker 3:It is a little bit like I use climbing as a metaphor in the book quite a lot, but if you've climbed a certain grade, you kind of know you can climb that grade again if that makes sense. And if you've gotten out of the dark once, you kind of know you can. And yeah, that helped. But I don't think there's a cure to it. Everybody's little graph of life is bumpy but it's learning to mitigate the lows and maximize the highs a little bit. And yeah, almost a year ago, last March, I didn't not tell people about being ill. I didn't tell people I went for a walk and I wasn't. I wasn't. They've got some test results wrong. You might stress the stuff, but actually I'd already got a framework of people around me because I knew the. You know the way through this is honesty and talking to people. Yeah, a lot of that talking took place in the mountains, because that's my happy place and that's my tribe, but it could have happened sat next to a lake or in a boat walking around a park in London.
Speaker 1:I'll be honest, kelvin, I've not read the book as yet and I'm thinking, I am actually thinking of making an effort to read it and I think you'll understand that. I appreciate that. Yeah, unless you do an audio book, and I'll just take the easy way out. Yeah, and I think that's if I just explain that, it's because I've re-examined my own.
Speaker 1:I was going into a dark place and Seb knows this dark place just with technology, as we've seen tonight actually, and it would cost him a laptop, some phones, you know I mean, but you know after after what? 25 years, and then going back and then you know you say having to reface these things, but then they, I think it's just one of them. Basically, I'm not, I don't try and fight it anymore. You know I mean I'd be fighting, fighting these flashbacks caused by writing. Well, I'll just carry on with the way that, the way that I am really, and work around it. You know, rather than just falling into this one direction of of one pathway, you know we can take a few different. If we use that, you know, metaphoric mountains, again, there's different, with different ways around stuff. I think there are different paths to follow.
Speaker 3:Yeah, when was the book released? The book was released on what I was about to say, what should have been. What is my mother's birthday? Oh right, wow, whichever way you tried to make me, you were getting a sickie and I was going climbing. I don't work. My mum's birthday now, yeah, yeah, initially I would go out and do some stupid stuff. I'd perhaps fib to my partner about where I was for the day, and now I just make a really concerted effort to spend the day with people I love and hopefully I'll do anything we love. I think we were. So yeah, it came out april 9th, so it's been out two weeks. It's doing really well, which is nice on some level. You know, I'm not gonna lie, that is nice. But equally, it's the feedback coming back. The reviews are just starting to come in and they're all yeah nice. So yeah, it's. I get it would be tough for you, charlie, but I'd be honored if you read it yeah, yeah, definitely.
Speaker 1:Well, I mean, 200 pages shouldn't be too much of a task for me, I don't think. And the back, and it's something that'd be interesting, and of course it's, of course it's you. So I'm really good, I'm really glad that it's getting you, you know, good feedback. That must have been, that must have been quite nervous, a nervy time when you give it to people first time, or yeah, I mean, it is.
Speaker 3:I mean and it's a weird thing. So I don't want to trigger you with tech, but because we self-publish, you know some of it's for sale on amazon. They've been a nightmare. So I still don't know who's bought. I know I know 100 odd people have bought it on amazon. You know who I do, who they are.
Speaker 3:Doesn't appear to be a method to say thank you, but what we wanted was people to come to the website. So it's drawing people to the website seeing what we do. But you know it contributes more money to the charity that way around. And there's a point you know. You know a few people you know are going to buy it. That's, that's the reality, isn't it? You know there's going to be people, but there's now a list of names that I have no idea who they are and it's that little organic and that you know that was what my editor always told me to do was make it have long legs. Not, you know, you want a big, long base that keeps raising the profile of charity, not a big spectacular day, because then you've got to do something else next year. But seeing the, the names and people I don't know start to give feedback is wonderful because you know I, yeah you have an assumption that the people you love and they were closest to you will say nice things, whatever.
Speaker 3:Equally I'm not really, but the people closest to you reading it's been the hardest thing. To be fair, you know, my brother obviously lived through the same stuff as I did and he doesn't want me sharing this. His wife read it first to check that he could, yeah, which, yeah, I totally get. To be fair, I've had close friends bring me up to apologize. There is, there is 120 billion percent. I didn't do math at university, but there's a very high percentage of you don't need to apologize because I hid stuff. That's the way it works. I was the guy with a glass of scotch in his hand at the front of the room giving the speech and I made sure people weren't with me on the bad days. So that's been hard. But equally, yeah, the strangers getting in touch, that's been very special. To be fair, yeah, that's what it was written for, I would guess.
Speaker 1:Cool, I suppose I'm just going back there to what you said about your brother. I suppose it was that in case there was any triggers how he was going to react to it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you know a lot of it is about my internal processes. You know I hid some stuff. So my mum was murdered I think we've covered that in horrendous circumstances and that trial happened fairly quick and then we just had to resolve the estate and I'm the oldest son and I thought I'd let her down and all that sort of stuff and I ended up in a thing called Trensory Court. Just should have been super simple. Every lawyer told me it's just super simple. It'll get split Five years of having to go to court and have my mother's murderer question me and stuff and to court and have my mother's murderer question me and stuff. And I hid that from my family. I tried to bury it a little bit. So that's triggering because you're seeing a different aspect of you know. So, the little bit they perhaps worry that they didn't support me enough, but that's not the case. You know, if somebody doesn't tell you they need help we're back to.
Speaker 3:It's got to start with the person saying and I made a very conscious choice to hide some of that stuff. Conscious choice to hide some of that stuff. You know it's you'll. You'll smile at this, charlie, but you know I've went through the book on quite a late edit and took the names of mountains and climbs out because it's just boasting. But also the few friends I've got that do know the difference between e5 6a and e4 6b are gonna be you know. They know that that's not healthy behavior. I know it's not healthy behavior, but we're, we're past that so. So that's the purpose of the book to say you might go through this stuff. Hopefully it's not that bad, but there is a path out at the other end.
Speaker 1:It is fascinating just thinking about them, behaviours that we're showing and I did mention this the other week to obviously lots of people affected by the incident that I was involved in and this thing of we were showing normal reactions to abnormal circumstances, you know what I mean and something like people may not understand what an E46B is Like fucking hell.
Speaker 1:There's a high risk of dropping off, isn't there and hurting yourself. But these behaviors when you've been through trauma and there's a lot of evidence from people that have been served you know you're serving in the forces and they've been in them high stress situations then they go out and do dangerous sports yeah, yeah.
Speaker 3:I never shy away about being honest about who I am. I had quite a misspent youth, shall we say. I dropped out of university to go to Hacienda. Oh, nice one, that's where I put in it. We had Dave Beer on another week but risk is just another form of drug you know.
Speaker 3:So I didn't just start climbing stupidly hard stuff. Yeah, it was long walks on my own that became grade three scrambles. That became fuck it, I'm gonna do that climb. That became that climb is too easy. You needed more to empty your mind and get to that next place and I was all murder behaviours. I was never suicidal, I was just very comfortable with the idea I deserved to hurt.
Speaker 3:But eventually I got enough space and support to think this isn't healthy behaviour. I need to sit down and talk to people, and that was a lot harder than the tough climbs, if I'm honest. You know sitting down and saying oh you know, there's this thing about me in my past that you might need to know I didn't. If I did meet any of you that shied away from that, they were insignificant enough that I don't remember, and what I mostly remember was people like you, charlie, that picked me up, gave me a hug, told me that's not who I am. You know lots of our mutual friends from the mountains who still trusted me to hold that rope, like you know, when I thought they'd think I was the worst person in the world and not trustworthy, and I let people down, and not a one of them did that. So yeah, it's as you say, an unhealthy. Unhealthy behavior is hidden with a smiling face yeah, yeah, I remember.
Speaker 1:On the mental health first aid that I did with yourself, you mentioned that society would looks upon mental health probably 20 years behind the way that it looks at racism. Do you think that's changed now?
Speaker 3:so we when we were taught the course as instructors, so I was in the first cohort of people to run that course. There was an exercise that we did, or we were taught to do, where people were asked to write down as many negative names for mental health as they could and then as many positive names for that half, and you're always going to have more in the negative column. And I've thought about that over the years and we've not done that for a fair few years now, or certainly not in my courses because how comfy would you be if I asked you to write down as many homophobic names as you could come? I actually write those in blue ink on a bit of paper, or racist names, and yet, even teaching that course, we thought it was okay to do that, and it's it's not, is it clearly so? Yeah, I think there's been a sea change in it, but it hasn't been matched by the help that should come behind it. I find it astounding that we know we have a mental health crisis in this country, but we have no mental health plan to address that crisis. That's absolutely ridiculous. Suicide statistics are increasing for the first time in decades and we don't have a plan to change that. So I think it's easy to moan about that lack of a plan, or you can try and do your little tiny bit of good that changes the world, and that's Wellness Walks.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wellness Walks is not me, wellness Walks is our volunteers and our instructors and our trainers, and they're all people who've stepped up and said, yeah, I want to support my community.
Speaker 3:And that's the overriding theme of the book is that there's more good than bad. But we're taught to, all the time we talk, to focus on on the bad, and sometimes life takes a turn where the bad is the only thing that we can see for a long time. But you know it's. It's another one of those true truisms I've tried to avoid because they're not my words. But you know, even on the darkest, stormiest night, the stars are still there. It's just we've got to remember that and that's that's the intention for the book. That's and that's what wellness walk sort of proves. Yeah, every time we run one of our training programs, we have a waiting list of people. There are loads of people who want to get out and help and support and quite often but more often than not by a long way they're people who've been lost in the dark for a little while as well so yeah, I must must admit I do really enjoy leading some wellbeing stuff.
Speaker 1:I would come outside community the other week and just even showing people that don't often leave the city you know how much water you can get out of a bit of spangler moss they're like, wow, this is amazing. So if anyone wanted to buy the book, where should we head to? Not Amazon? Well, if they're in the UK.
Speaker 3:It would be wonderful if they went to wellnesswalksorguk Big blue banner across the top They'll get a signed copy because it'll come from me there's a huge box of books here ready to go out and if they're, because obviously you're an international superstar. Now, charlie, if they're overseas sadly, sadly they're going to either pay they can pay us for international postage, but it's real mail, so it's expensive or they can use the Amazon Empire and get it from Amazon as well. But yeah, the charity does make more money if they come to us, so that's our preferred option.
Speaker 2:Well, I hope the book sales will stay at a good level and support your charity because it helps others.
Speaker 3:Yeah thank you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, thanks for all you're doing, kelvin, and I think you know people going out getting that, getting the book won't. Yeah, brilliant, because it's helping the, it's helping the charity and it's probably helping, you know, helping the souls out there yeah, I suspect there'll be a lot of people buying it for other people when they've read it yeah, and also this thing there's that knock-on effect, isn't there that people get it, people read it and then think right, maybe I can pass something on this thing about good humanity and community.
Speaker 3:Yeah, exactly that. That's the hope. Thank you for having me. As ever, I look forward to being guest number 200. I'll think of something fun to do.
Speaker 1:Well, do you know what, mate, I mean for the amount of work you do, and you know for what we want to do by spreading information about improving mental well-being. There's every chance you'll be on again, won't?
Speaker 3:there? Yeah, well, that would be lovely, and so your listeners know we are still trying to persuade Charlie to join our instructional team. Good people teaching people makes more good people.
Speaker 1:I think there's every chance of that. I Good people. Teaching people makes more good people. I think there's every chance of that. I mean, yeah, and if you do come on a third time, we might even give you another cup. You've had one, you don't get a second one for doing this, but we'll have to get in it. A pint glass. A pint glass, Right? Well, we'll see. I'd have to see about that. Is that the right message we're sending?
Speaker 3:Well, we went to a pub in Cumbria the other day and it was £7.95 a pint and I'm pretty sure that was a glass. Wow, yeah, wow. I want fancy glasses.
Speaker 1:Wow, £7.95,. No, I don't fancy that. Cool Right, thanks for joining us again, kelvin. It's been a pleasure fella. Yeah, thanks, thanks, kelvin. Take care, take care. And if you'd like to support us and help us keep the podcast going, then you can go to Buy Us A Coffee or you can click that on our website, whitefoxtalkingcom, and look for the little cup. Thank you.
