A blog from the battling suicide tour by Ryan Child
Today we met Jenny in Lidl car park. Jenny very bravely shared with us a photo of her daughter, Tamsin Rose, who took her own life a couple of years ago. You can’t look at the photo and not think that Tamsin Rose had everything to live for – she was beautiful, she had a …
Day 3 – 5asideCHESS Battling Suicide Bus Tour 2021 Read More »
Day 1 of the Battling Suicide Bus South West tour started with some powerful encounters with the people of Watchet in Somerset. Thank you for being brave enough and curious enough to come over to talk and share your stories. From homelessness to lack of purpose and activities for youngsters, miss-spent public money, demonisation of …
The first school on our 5asideCHESS tour was Kamwala Primary. It has a large chess club with over 50 students but when I asked the teacher in charge how many boards they had she surprised me by answering none. They had being using pieces and boards from different games and making their own chess sets! …
My journey to change the game of life using 5asideCHESS – Kamwala Primary Read More »
5asideCHESS at Independence Day by Alex Waldron Zambia got it’s independence from Britain only 55 years ago, so as a British person at their celebrations I felt like a bit of an unwanted outsider. However undeterred, I got out one of the 5asideCHESS sets and suddenly some of the children started to watch me set …
My journey to change the game of life using 5asideCHESS Read More »
Improving the mental health of haulage drivers is one of the most pressing and yet widely ignored issues in Britain today. The United Kingdom relies on no other group of workers as much to provide us with the lives we want. They deliver 98 percent of all food and agricultural products in the UK, according …
As the Military Tattoo fireworks crashed up into the sky, Tracy threw the last chair out of the window. She hadn’t taken the diagnoses well. And, while Edinburgh cheered and flashed colour, she sat drunk and crying. Her landlord kicked her out. “That was the last straw,” she said, still boozy in the morning. “I …
The fog had blanketed Edinburgh’s tightly knitted old buildings. They leaned in just a bit more than usual, looked a bit more gothic and disappeared if you looked up. People in suits filed wearily but neatly around the tourists, all lost google-mapping themselves the wrong way down stairs. A few comedians were already sulking into …
The Battling Suicide Bus was crowded. A group of students from Manchester University were playing 5asideChess. Alain, a computer engineer from Holland, had just left to buy a few coffees. This was his third day dropping by for a game. Lucy played her music along the cobbled street, sullen and unmoved as usual. Walking past …
Leonardo Di Caprio at 4am. That was Sean. Sunkenly hansom like the sun behind a cloud. “I was earning pretty good money doing drug trails,” he said. “Somewhere in America?” “You mean somewhere in the Americas?” “Ah, sorry, you’re Canadian.” It was lunch time in Edinburgh, the Spanish waiters smiled at the tourists and poured …
It’s funny how some people have a sixth sense for food. Whenever dinner’s ready they knock on the door. Even on the Battling Suicide Tour. Emily came with Cake. Sean appeared out of nowhere. Tracy was already out of The Grassmarket, with her beer, diagnosis and confusion. “Looks like carrot cake,” Sean said. “It’s vegan,” …
