A West Sussex firefighter is climbing Snowdon every month for a year to raise funds for us – with her firefighter dad and brother joining her for the majority of the climbs too, after they each received our support.
Hannah Mays, who works wholetime and on-call, has so far managed every month this year, while her Station Manager dad, Jon, and Crew Manager brother, Nathan, have joined her for almost all of the climbs too.
They say firefighting can run in the family and it certainly does for the Mays… Hannah has been a firefighter for two years, her dad, Jon, has served 33 years, her mum, Amanda, 17 years, her brother Nathan has been in the service for seven years, their cousin, Jeff, is at 27 years, along with their grandfather, Roger, who’s now retired and uncle, Darren, who was in for over 20 years.
The whole family have therefore always known about the charity and the support we offer – so knew where to turn when they each needed a helping hand with their health and wellbeing.
“My dad and I had a Rest a Recharge break after lockdown at Harcombe House, which was amazing,” says Hannah. “This was before I became a firefighter, I was working in the service delivery centre in one of my dad’s teams, dealing with pay and crewing issues along with arranging wellbeing visits to vulnerable members of the public in the West Sussex area during lockdown – one of the busiest possible times – and we began feeling really stressed with the workload.
“We both needed a break and the week at Harcombe House was perfect, just some time away from the stresses we had been experiencing.”
After seeing how much of a difference fundraising makes, Hannah organised a skydive in aid of us last year, before setting her sights on Snowdon.
Hannah was introduced to mountains at an early age, when her dad completed the Three Peaks Challenge in aid of us numerous times, with her mum as part of the support team.
“I absolutely love Snowdon and the feeling it gives me when reaching the summit, so it made sense to use this opportunity and share some of the experience,” she adds. “We are about halfway through now and we have had all weathers – sometimes you get views sometimes you don’t.
Hannah and her brother, Nathan
“Dad has done it every month apart from January when he was on duty but kept constant contact with me throughout the entire climb, he will hopefully join me for the rest of the climbs and my brother on some more occasions as well when he is not on duty.”
Hannah has also recently been diagnosed with endometriosis and says: “After 10 years of living in a lot of pain which had an enormous impact on my mental health, I wanted to set myself a physical and mental challenge that would also have wellbeing benefits, it means so much to attempt this challenge with my family and share my experience with them.”
To support their challenge, click here:
