it was a logical progression to, where do we take this next? we'd done our homes. we needed to take it to london. so, ijust always saw us walking into westminster. well, if it's to do with maps, i might as well they laugh the plan took shape. the three dads would walk 600 miles between all four uk parliaments to try to get suicide prevention made a compulsory part of the school curriculum. on their first walk, they'd caught the eye of celebrities, like daniel craig and nicole kidman, who each donated £10,000 to the cause. nicole kidman saying she'd been moved after seeing their story on tv. the evening before their dad set out on this latest challenge, they sat down to messages

from their friends, family and a few famous faces. hello, tim, mike and andy. it's george ezra here, just with a little message to say congratulations on everything you're doing, raising awareness. yeah, thank you for what you're doing. andy, mike, tim. just incredible what you achieved last time around, and what you're about to do now is just truly, truly heroic. i'm sending you love and my best wishes. shout loudly. i know you'll be heard. all my very best. good luck. flippin' heck. that was brilliant. absolutely brilliant. oh, wow. imean... oh, wow. 0h, amazing. i leaked again. i leaked straight away. i've got to say, it's very easy, for me, to be very flippant and say it's obvious cos he's envious about our bodies and the way

we conduct ourselves! 0ur chiselled profiles. yeah, all that. that's it. they laugh to see him, you know, wishing us good luck and telling us to shout loudly, it was like, wow, 0k. that's another person just pushing us in the right direction, just constantly giving us support. it's lovely to have that support not from just... well, famous people, it's great, but also from the members of the public that we've met. yeah. and the people they've met along the way have in many cases become theirfriends. we lost our son, jamie. two years ago. pete, last year, was broken. 0h, he was shattered. absolutely shattered just into a million pieces. and this year, when we met him, he bounced along, didn't he? came and met us, told us about all the running he'd been doing. he's got things in the future that he's looking forward to,

and he's doing them for a reason, you know. and it's, erm... yeah. just that hope, isn't it? yeah. just that hope. i recently lost my daughter to suicide, and ijust - need to understand why. well, with martin, when we met him last year, you know, was it three weeks after he'd lost his daughter? yeah. and he came to talk to us, really, to find out how... how you stay alive, really. this year, the dads stayed with martin on their way through lancashire. we're in a club no—one wants to be in. but, you know, you meet these people, and you realise you have great respect for them, cos you don't know how they even get out of bed in the morning with the grief they carry — but they do, and they want to make a difference. # my dad's walking on... # having walked through northern ireland to stormont, they then started out from edinburgh to wales. there were many surprises along the way. as they passed through andy's home county of cumbria, there was an emotional moment when the folk band, the young'uns,

sang a song they'd penned in the dads�* honour. # my dad's world was torn in two # no words can hold the pain he knew- # but there was one thing he could do- # so my dad's walking on...# and a stay with manchester's mayor saw more high profile names offer their support. well, this will keep you going tomorrow. yeah, this is good. this is awesome. i think what they're doing isjust tremendously important. it's a conversation the nation needs to have. and actually putting it into the curriculum and encouraging a conversation with younger people isjust where we've got to go with this. it's bizarre, isn't it? you're staying in someone's house, as in andy burnham's house, and you come down for tea, not expecting anything but a curry that andy was preparing in the kitchen, and then sam allardyce walks in, and then robbie fowler walks in. there was a lot of bravado, certainly in football. - probably now people are starting

to talk about it a little bit more. i do you find it quite a sort of reflection of the level of attention that you have managed to get for this? you've opened some doors there, haven't you? well, it shows where the.... it doesn't discriminate. thank you, that's the way of putting it, it doesn't discriminate. so many people have helped us along the way. just because you're famous doesn't mean you don't need to reach out, you know? well, i think it's down to sheer determination on the effect. that they want to have, . because, you know, in all fairness, they don't look the fittest, do they? - laughter they strode across the border and into wales. the all too familiar stories of loss kept coming, as parents turned out to walk

and talk with the dads. suicide is a scary word for parents out there. | but, you know, losing your child i to suicide and realising that you've got to live the rest of your life without them is a million - times scarier than that. rhydian was well, he was just a funny, lovable, loving boy. i he was rugby mad. he just got lost. he just didn't know where - he was going, or what he had to look forward to and... ..on 4th november 2020, he committed suicide. - crowds accompanied the dads to the welsh senedd in cardiff, where the deputy minister for mental health gave them her backing. there's always more that we can do and i'm really committed to looking at using all the avenues we've got to make sure that we can have those safe, appropriate conversations about mental health and suicide in our schools.

i've seen her determination and what she's trying to do, which is absolutely in sync with what we're trying to do. it fills us with great hope. the challenges have never deterred the dads from their mission. 0w! bloody nettles! who brought us in here? this is a special video because andy recced this footpath, apparently, and is a total muppet! let it rain. we'll go through it. we've got, you know, we feel good. some of us have got waterproof - trousers, others haven't, have they? some people may have broken theirs. they're broken. they've broken them. naming no names! no. having covered 460 miles, with another week of walking still to go, the dads crossed back into england and headed towards the capital.

people in the hotel, and they come from across the country, we've never met them before, to walk with us on that final morning. and these are total strangers. they were excited about walking with us. when you learnt why they were walking, you know, cos they'd lost a son, they'd lost a daughter. and it was pitch—black and it was cold. so to have, just to have that support was absolutely incredible. and then when we set off to walk down the mall, it was like pied piper style stuff, wasn't it? as we came around the corner, it was like the big train of people following us along the road. they'd set up a petition calling on the government to debate their calls to make suicide prevention a compulsory subject in schools. and, as their walk ended, the number of signatures shot up. look at these guys — this is life in abundance.

this is what everybody wants to see — good news these days in these tough times. and just in the couple of minutes that we've been on air, _ it's gone up 5,000 signatures... then, by the end of that day, they'd reached the 100,000 needed. it felt like things were moving. but here we are, what, a couple of months later filming this, and it's not moved yet. so we've got to keep pushing. we need action and i do believe that the government really have to act, not just talk about it. we can keep walking - and we could keep talking, but it's the power makers, i it's the politicians that need to make a difference now. we can always walk for longer than they're in power, so... . laughter now you tell us! the government says... meanwhile, the dads have kept on pushing their message,

meanwhile, the dads have kept on pushing their message, staying in the news agenda with their campaigning winning them a pride of britain award — again, getting noticed by those in the public eye. i've seen you guys on tv. you're incredible, you make me cry when i watch you. _ we made a lot of people cry! they are incredible. and to get everybody talking about this with young people and all the people who've joined you on the walk, who've told you their stories, i think it's a lot bigger than we'd recognised. there may not be any more plans to walk at the moment, but the dads remain committed to making ministers take notice. the bereavement by suicide is such a... it's a kind of exquisite pain, it's horrible, it'sjust... ..it is excruciatingly painful. so when you, when it first happens, you do wonder how you're going to survive.

you know, i've got a sophie—sized hole in my life which can never be filled, it can't be. but by doing something that helps other people, you become more protected from that gaping void. what do you think your girls would be making of what has happened over the past couple of years? i don't think em would have believed it. i don't think she would have thought she deserved to be on the national stage. but if she can make a difference — and she was always a very caring person, she was a massively caring person, hated injustice in the world — and i think she would have been really proud of where we're going to with it and if she can make a difference in other people's lives, that's a good thing. i never believed that beth - really wanted to take her own life. you know, i think if she was looking down, she'd say, "you know, dad, i "don't let others do what i did."

and if you've been affected by any of the issues raised in this film, then you can contact the bbc action line. the details are on the screen now. hello there. very few of us avoided the rain today. it swept northwards and eastwards across just about all

parts of the country. where that weather system lingers in northern scotland, it will continue to bring some snow over high ground. there'll be further showers moving through overnight on a strong wind. it will be particularly blustery for western and southern coasts, but partly because of the strength of the wind, it's not going to be particularly cold — 4—7 degrees. tomorrow, then, will be a blustery day. there will be some decent dry weather, some fine conditions to get out and about if you can avoid the showers. and there will be quite a few of those, particularly through the afternoon across scotland and northern england, some of those wintry over high ground. those are the wind gusts we can expect. the strongest winds will always be around the coast. and it's going to be a little chillier than it was today. still, though, between 5—10 degrees. we'll see another band of heavy rain sweeping northeastwards on friday. for new year's eve, there'll be some rain in the south, turning a little chilly further north.

this is bbc news. welcome to viewers in the uk and around the world. our main headlines. china is accused of a lack of transparency about the true scale of their covid problem. italy becomes the first european country to impose restrictions on people travelling from china. the us is considering a similar move. it sparks an angry response from beijing. translation: the argument. you mentioned is a biased smear campaign and political manipulation with a hidden agenda, which does not stand up to scrutiny or facts and runs counter to the truth. as people flee kherson, ukraine says russia has carried out more than 30 rocket attacks in the past 2a hours alone. pope francis asks people to pray for his predecessor, benedict the 16th, who he says is very ill. the vatican says benedict's condition has worsened

in recent hours.