On September 11th to 15th we'll be doing a 79 mile walk across the Chiltern Hills - and the more the merrier. 

Who are we? Paul Chambers, the co-founder of PoetsIN; and ex army veteran Gregory Husbands (and Stanley the dog). In addition, we will have the wonderful Lorraine and Jasmine Collier. Plus anyone who cares to join us - for as little as much as you can do - it's up to you.

You are all welcome.

The number 79 is the amount of men in England who took their lives each week towards the end of 2022, with women taking it up to around 100 a week. The walk is during Suicide Awareness Week.

Paul and Greg, have both managed dark times in the past and have lost too many friends to suicide. Now we both actively speak openly about our battles with depression and anxiety.

We aim to raise awareness (and funds) around this too-high number of suicides (the men AND the women!) plus the work The Creative Mental Health Charity PoetsIN do for those that feel they have nowhere to turn. In addition, Help for Heroes, who help veterans will be involved as well both on donations and exposure (details tbc).

We’ll be broadcasting from the walk, as well as actively sharing (and doing) our mental health tools each day; plus chatting LOTS.

We'd love people to join in, physically or virtually and invite you to make your own plans for food, toilets, stops and such. 

THE ROUTE:

Day 1 11th September

Start - Pegsdon Hills, Hitchin 9:00am

Finish - Church of St Nicholas, Harpenden

Moderate 16.6 miles

Day 2 12th September

Start – The Old Cock Inn, Church of St Nicholas, Harpenden 9:00am

Finish – Boxmoor Lodge, Box Lane, Hemel Hempstead

High/moderate 17.4 miles

Day 3 13th September

Start - Boxmoor Lodge, Box Lane, Hemel Hempstead 9:00am

Finish – Tring Memorial Gardens

Low 13.3 miles

Day 4 14th September

Start - Tring Memorial Gardens 9:00am

Finish – Redwings Lodge, Hockliffe, Dunstable

High 18.9 miles 😖

Day 5 15th September

Start – Redwings Lodge, Hockliffe, Dunstable 9:00am

Finish - Pegsdon Hills HURRAH!

Low 12.8 miles 🤘

We all need to talk so much more about how we feel to normalise openess and reduce these numbers. People can join us for a day, half a day, a mile or whatever; but the more people joining in and talking about it the better.

Join us, talk to us, write about us, walk an hour, a day or the whole 5 days with us. Use the hashtag #The79 with any post.