South North Adventures. Let's Support Youth Mental Health

Hi my name Kevin Dutton, a writer and professor of psychology and I help people to maximise their potential in elite sport, military, and business. I am also passionate about helping young people develop their psychological strengths and build what they need to be resilient in the uncertain world in which we live. One thing I have learned is the importance of listening to children themselves. To show you what I mean, here’s a story about a brave little girl I met a few years ago. GB rower John Collins and I took on the challenge of running to every single station on the London underground in one go. It wasn’t easy. We slept rough all the time we were out there as we were raising money for London’s homeless, we topped it off by running the London Marathon on our final day.

During the early stages of our run - which we called the Metro Marathon Challenge - I bumped into Clare, a 10-year-old girl, at a fundraising stop on our journey.

“What’s the hardest thing about doing what you’re doing?” Clare asked.

It was a great question. That morning, John and I had made the fatal mistake of looking at the entire map of the London underground. It was overwhelming. You have no idea how vast it looks when you’ve got to run every single station!

“London,” I said. “That’s the hardest thing. It’s just so big!”

Claire thought about this for a moment. As it turned out, she was recovering from leukaemia and was going through chemo.

“Cancer is a bit like London,” she said. “At the beginning, when you start chemo, it seems so big. When I first started going to the hospital, it was so horrible I didn’t want to go back. But she told me that Bruno (her teddy bear, and best friend, who was sitting beside her) said: ‘Let’s just go back one more time and then after that we can stop.’

“So we did. And again I didn’t want to go back. But Bruno said: ‘Let’s just go back one more time and then after that we can stop.’

“So we did. And now I’m nearly finished. I’ve only got three more sessions to go.”

Clare’s words were still spinning around my head when we got back out on the road. I told John what she’d said, and that night, as we sheltered in a shop doorway with a flask of tea, we folded the map over so that we could only see the stations we were covering the next day. Clare’s (or rather, Bruno’s!) advice on how to get through chemo - one session, one day at a time - was just what we needed to hear. At exactly the right moment. The way you run the entirety of the London Underground is one station at a time.

As I well knew from psychology, but had forgotten in the heat of the moment, you break big challenges down into manageable pieces.

I’ve never forgotten Clare. Or what she said that day. In fact, so instrumental was she in helping us successfully complete the Metro Marathon Challenge that when I finished I wanted to do another challenge just for her. Well, maybe not for her. But for other children like her. Children who were dealing with their own big problems, facing their own challenges, fighting their own uphill battles. And who, like Clare, were doing so with dignity, resilience, and wisdom.

The TRUE South North of Great Britain

When the idea of the inaugural true south-north traverse of the British Isles first came to me, then, it was a no brainer. The challenge was likely going to be national news and had the potential to raise a lot of awareness, and much-needed funds, for any cause that it was associated with.

What cause could be better than celebrating the strength and positivity of our nation’s young people and shining the spotlight on children’s mental health.

So, what is the TRUE south-north adventure. Let me explain.

Land’s End to John o’ Groats, has long symbolised “the full length” of Britain, with everyone from endurance athletes to intrepid fundraisers traversing its path to conquer the “top to toe” of Britain.

There’s just one problem… it isn’t!

Because all along, a longer, higher, tougher “peak” has lurked within our midst - hidden from view beneath the thick, dense cloud of conventional thought. The unconquered “south-north” face of the British Isles. The TRUE SOUTH-NORTH of Great Britain.

Unconquered that is, until now.

I’ve managed to persuade two friends, former GB rower Stephen Feeney and the “Warrior Monk” and SAS legend, Krishna Thapa to join me as part of our South North Adventure Team.

Our 1500-mile mission is an historic first.

We aim to be the first to successfully complete the “ascent” from Les Minquiers (the TRUE southernmost point of Britain: a group of small islands 15 km south of Jersey) to Out Stack (a lump of black, pre-Cambrian rock jutting defiantly out of the waves of the North Sea 2 miles closer to the Arctic than the furthest tip of Shetland – the TRUE north of Britain.) We will be rowing and cycling the entire length of the true south north of Great Britain this summer.

Why? To Celebrate Our Young People’s Strength and Resilience

While we are on our journey, we will be stopping off to spend time with young people who have triumphed over adversity. We want to learn from them as I learned from Clare. We are on a mission to embrace resilience, to celebrate the psychological strengths of our young people, and along the way to learn what our young people can teach us about mental health and overcoming challenges.

We’ll be joined at several points along our journey by some of Britain’s best known and most loved celebrities - iconic figures from the worlds of sport, music, fashion, politics, gastronomy, literature, and the military - and we’ll be dropping in on some truly inspiring projects.

We aim to raise funds for various charities that support CHILDREN’S MENTAL HEALTH & RESILIENCE across the country. The funds will be used to cover our costs and then will be distributed to several different charities to support resilience in young people and fund research into how young people can best overcome adversity. Please help us as much as you can.

This is the story of three men in a boat and a tandem-rickshaw…and then another boat! Of an iconic, world first challenge…on home soil.

Please give as much as you can to support our mammoth challenge and come along and join us at different points along the way to help raise funds for young people’s mental health.

You can follow our progress on our webpage: southnorthadventures.com and on Instagram @southnorthadventures.