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THE PEAK OF FRIENDSHIP – CHALLENGE RAISES £ 20K IN MEMORY OF CROSBY MAN
Best friends since the age of four , Crosby Barber Craig Wilding and Rob McCarthy went through a lot together . School , jobs , relationships , and kids . So when Rob sadly died last September at the age of just 38 , Craig felt they had to do something to mark the impact Rob had had on all their lives .
He rallied a group of friends , family , colleagues and clients , with some coming from as far away as Dubai , to take on the Three Peaks Challenge raising nearly £ 20,000 in Rob ’ s name for Sean ’ s Place ; a Sefton based charity which provides free , therapeutic and social support for men struggling with anxiety , depression and isolation .
Craig told Mersey Life how the idea came about …
Rob was one of my best friends . There were five of us who all met in reception class in primary school 35 years ago , and we ’ ve been friends ever since . It felt important to us to do something to honour him .
Rob didn ’ t want a funeral service , so we held a memorial for him a few weeks after he died , and it was there that we got talking about doing something in his memory and perhaps raising some money for a good cause . One that we thought might be close to Rob ’ s heart .
One of the lads loves walking and hiking and the conversation turned to the Three Peaks Challenge , where you climb Ben Nevis , Scafell Peak and Snowdon within a 24-hour period .
I ’ m not sure if it was the drink talking , but it sounded like a great idea !
Where did you start ? We thought raising money for a mental health charity would be a good choice as that was something that Rob had battled with over the last few years , and I did some research and found Sean ’ s Place .
It ’ s a local charity dedicated to supporting and raising awareness of men ' s mental health in Sefton founded by Sean ’ s sister Debbie and we wanted somewhere that would be directly supporting people in the community , so we went to meet Debbie with a view to raising £ 10,000 for them .
That sounds like a big target ! How did you plan it ? I was confident we ’ d reach the £ 10K target but to be able to hand over double the amount we originally planned to Sean ’ s Place , which should happen in a couple of months , is absolutely amazing and I ’ d like to thank everyone who has made that possible .
I mean it started with a What ’ s App group and then it just snowballed ! We had close friends who had known Rob from primary school and high school , then some of my clients wanted to get involved then a lot of people brought someone along and soon we had 22 people willing to climb the three peaks .
Talk us through the 24 hours ? It sounds tough ! I booked a couple of minibuses and a hostel at the base of Ben Nevis and we were off .
We arrived at 7am ready to hit the paths , all 22 of us of mixed abilities . In order to complete everything within the 24-time slot , we had to have Ben Nevis done in five hours .
Some of the lads managed it in three and a half hours and others took the five . Even so , if you google it , the average time to do Ben Nevis is seven and a half hours so we did pretty well . That was the only one we couldn ’ t practice as it was too far away from us .
We had done a practice run at Scafell Pike which was next - after 6 hours back on the minibus to the Lakes - and we managed to do this one faster than on the trial run - we were running on nervous energy I think !
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