On a drive to raise mental health awareness
- By Dani Crawshaw
- 2 weeks ago
- Hunstanton
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Road trip in a 100-year-old Talbot car. Pair drive almost 3 thousand miles around the coastline of Britain to raise money for charity, one of their stops is Hunstanton
"It can be a little bit bumpy at times," Harry tells me, "I have to hang on the seat with one hand and hang on to the corner of the windscreen - don't hang on to the door because that comes open, I learnt that very quickly!"
Harry Sear and Paul Harold have spent most of April on a road trip in a 100 year old reclaimed Talbot car, called Lavinia, to raise money for Reclaim Life.
The charity, based in Leighton Buzzard in Bedfordshire, helps those in mental and emotional distress.
Harry, Lavinia and Paul
"We train people to become life coaches," continues Harry, "Then we give people 5 free sessions of life coaching, which is able to turn people's lives around.
"There is no other town in the country doing this, so we wanted to go out and explain to other communities, try to get them to set up a group to help people with mental distress."
And this week they've been in Hunstanton, parked up on The Green.
In total the pair will be travelling almost 3 thousand miles, Harry smiles and says, "Paul is doing all the driving, he does all the mechanics, and I do all the sitting - so it's a good partnership!"
The pair tell me it has a very distinctive klaxon hooter, which I ask to hear, "It gets people out of the way," jokes Paul.
"It's great, people smile, people overtake us," he continues, "They don't seem too bothered we're holding them up, they give us a little hoot - smiles per miles as we would say.
"Reclaim Life helps people with mental health issues, to which I suffer myself, depression. I've always found Lavinia has helped me, I sit in the workshop with her - she has this calming effect for me."
The charity's been up and running for 15 years, and Harry says it's helped thousands of people.
"We literally reclaim lives, which is why we are called Reclaim Life, and once you've seen that you can't help but carry on - keep the charity going."
