Tonight’s post was going to be about the brilliant night I had last night with some mates and how I ended up sharing a lovely man’s bed (Not with him Mum, don’t worry), but something more important came up.

My mate Dan posted this.  And rather than just redirecting you there I wanted to post it here, because I really really want you to read it.  I hope that’s ok.

Dan’s post is called Ryan.  You’ll understand why…

I’ve recently changed my walking route in order to compensate for the increasingly dark mornings. It’s far safer to face early-bird commuter traffic with street lights and pavements rather than dark and narrow country lanes.

My new walking route takes me past a very significant house in our village. It was the house that saw a tragedy that left our community stunned and despondent. And passing it never fails to remind me of the reason why I’m risking nervous breakdown in organizing our upcoming charity walk.

In September of 2007, Four year old Ryan was spending the weekend with his father, Christopher.

His 14 year old sister, Donna, arrived to collect Ryan and return him to their mum, Valerie. When Donna tried to leave the house however she found the door was locked.

Christopher told Donna that he was going to kill her and Ryan, and then he stabbed her over 13 times, causing multiple injuries to her face, chest, abdomen, arm, and thigh. Miraculously Donna managed to unlock the door and escape to the street where she was found by a passer-by. Unfortunately Ryan was left in the house with his father, who murdered him.

It later emerged that Christopher killed his son and attempted to kill Donna in order to “punish” Valerie for leaving him and starting another relationship.

There aren’t words profane and foul enough to convey how much of a bastard Christopher is. The death sentence is too good for him. I hope every day of his long, long prison sentence is utter torment both physically, emotionally and psychologically. And it’s a shame that I don’t believe in a hell, because I’d dearly like to see him rot in it.

But no matter what happens to Christopher; the trauma and despair experienced by Donna, Valerie, and the rest of their family will remain for ever.

The Joseph Salmon Trust helped raise enough money to send Ryan’s family, including a recovered Donna, on a holiday. This may sound trivial in light of such tragedy. But it wasn’t. Time away from their home, from their situation gave them the space to come together as a family rebuild their lives, strengthen their bonds, and grieve. Maybe they also learned the essential lesson that, while your heart will never be light again, it’s OK to still find pleasure in life.

The family must have valued the Trusts support, because two years later they themselves raised over double what they had received in order help the charity to support others going through child bereavement.

The Joseph Salmon Trust may be a small charity. But it’s impact on the lives of people it helps is enormous. As you know, it was set up by my friends Neil and Racheal Salmon after the death of their three year old son Joseph, and there is no possible way I could be any more proud of them.

The Trust supports parents who have lost a child by providing financial assistance to those who need it most. This may be to help with funeral costs or to allow the self employed a break from work while they come to terms with their loss.

Grieving families have enough to deal with without worries about where they will find the money to say goodbye to their child or pay the next electricity bill. Nothing we can do can make their situation better, but we can do something to stop it getting worse.

In just under 10 months time I and the following wonderful people will be walking the entire 84 mile length of Hadrian’s Wall Footpath in just six days in aid of the Joseph Salmon Trust:

• Dan, from All That Comes With It
• Oli Walker, who came on the original Dales Walk
• Cathrine, from Some Vague Utopia
• Richard, fiance of Cathrine
• David Graham, a veteran of both the Dales Walk and the Cumbria Way
• Craig Kelly, a veteran of both the Dales Walk and the Cumbria Way
• James Muscroft (Mushy), who came on the original Dales Walk
• Rich Brook, a veteran of both the Dales Walk and the Cumbria Way
• Clair, from Moon In The Gutter
• Michael Clarke, from Green Tea Ice Cream
• Jo, from Jo Beaufoix
• Nic, Jo’s friend
• Erin, from Fierce Beagle
• Noah, Erin’s husband
• Idaho Dad, from A Family Runs Through It
• Rajiv, Idaho Dad’s friend
• JJ Daddy-O, from JJ Daddy-O
• Archie Malcolm, my father-in-law
• Arjan, from Dutchnid
• Martin, from Xbox4NappyRash
• Josie, from Life in Biscuit
• David, Josie’s husband
• Rich Bassinder, a veteran of both the Dales Walk and the Cumbria Way
• Ian, from Single Parent Dad
• Emma, Ian’s sister
• Helen, a friend of my wife Kerry
• Tony, Helen’s husband
• ImPerceptible, from ImPerceptibility
• Steve, ImPerceptible’s husband
• Whit, from Honea Express
• Tricia, Whit’s wife
• NYC Watchdog, from A Pile of dog Bones
• Poppy, from Poppy Cedes
• Ed, from Zoe’s Dad
• Maura, Ed’s wife

In addition my brother Sam from Rabbit Confused with Raisins will be leading a splinter group of around 20 walkers in the opposite direction (meeting up with us in the middle), and Gary, from Jerry Chicken and a bunch of his friends will be tackling the route by bicycle.

Beds have been booked, routes have been planned, and deposits have been paid. We’re going to do this thing if it kills us. Which lets face it, it probably will.

We’re hoping to raise a lot of money, in fact I’ve set a rather optimistic secret target of about £20,000, which would roughly be an entire years worth of funding raising for the charity. And as the Trust has no paid employees and all administration costs are paid for by corporate donations, every single penny we raise will go directly to the people who need it most.

Twenty thousand pounds. That’s a high number. But we can do it, I know we can.

If you would like to sponsor us you can do so here. You can do it now if you like, in fact that would be great. But the primary purpose of this post isn’t fundraising (although trust me, you’ll get plenty of that stuff nearer the time). I just wanted to keep the Hadrian’s Walk in your consciousness as I haven’t mentioned it for a while.

You can keep up to date on the progress of the training, planning, and organization for the walk on our very own Hadrian’s Walk Blog. Please add us to your feedreader if you haven’t already done so.

Thanks for reading.

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All the information in this post is available in the public domain from newspaper articles. The Joseph Salmon Trust obviously keeps all information about families it helps strictly confidential.