All in the name of arthur - Guest Blog
When I heard the story of Alasdair Hill in the lead-up to the National Hill Climb, all I wanted to do was find out more. I had a brief idea of the story of why Al was at Nationals and supporting the causes he does. But 2 weeks on, I asked Al if he was open to talking about the story and to allow me to do this guest blog.
After jotting down a few questions I popped him an email, and the response not only broke my heart to read but also brought a tear to my eye. I was going to take parts of his response and put them into the blog, but I can’t try to recreate the story so I am going to insert his answers. It is a long blog, but it is a must-read and has some important messages to take on board at the end, with information on how you can support and share.
Arthur William Hill is now a name I will never forget, and it is a story that will stay with me forever.
So here we go, this is the story of the Hill family.
Tell me about you?
What’s to tell really, I’m just your average Sunday rider. A Father of four boys, a husband and a huge cycling fan trying to juggle life and get out on the road whenever I can around work and family commitments. I’m a Chelsea fan for my sins, but always have been. That was always hard graft growing up in Newcastle in the 90’s as a Chelsea fan whilst all around me were Geordies.
These days I live in County Durham and work for a construction company providing Social Value and putting back into the community. I love my family, I love my job and I am fortunate enough to have a very supportive employer.
I try my best, don’t always get it right, but that’s life. I give it my best shot I suppose and just hope that I make a better life for my kids and leave the world in a better place than I inherited it.
How did you get into cycling?
I’ve cycled ever since being a kid. Going out with my Stepdad & Uncle on the Northumberland roads I just caught the bug from a young age. Watching the Tour de France and the Miguel Indurain era of cycling followed by the Marco Pantani era along with Armstrong and Ulrich. Say what you want about that era of cycling, but as a kid and not being fully aware of the later released details, it was such an amazing time to grow up watching each year.
Going out with my stepdad and uncle and being out on the road, having the freedom that cycling brings and being able to explore on two wheels was such an addiction. Unfortunately, as I hit my teenage years, I found other forms of entertainment and cycling took a back seat for a number of years until Lockdown hit. Using the Cycle to Work Scheme I ordered myself a new Road Bike and started to get back out with my uncle. Both that bit older, that bit heavier and that bit less fit than we used to be, we started cycling once a week again around Northumberland and now my home county of Durham. Since then cycling has become a big part of my life again, an escape from the day to day troubles that life throws at you and an opportunity to be free and with your own thoughts and a time to process.
Tell me about Arthur?
In 2022 my wife, Katie and I were expecting our third child and our third boy. We were all excited to meet the new addition to the Hill household and Freddie (aged 6) and Isaac (aged 4) were super excited to be a big, big brother & a big brother. We attended all our appointments with the hospital and everything appeared to be on course for a spring birth. We really struggled to find another boys name that went with Hill. We had always liked traditional names like William, Harry, Henry, but none of these ever worked well with the surname Hill. We also had to take into account that our other two boys also both have middle names so we were actually looking at our 5th & 6th boys names, not easy I can tell you.
My wife was at 39.6 weeks when she started to go into labour so we got the boys packed into the car and headed to the hospital where we would meet my parents and do a handover before going into welcome our new addition to the Hill household.
After various checks we moved into the birthing suite of the local hospital. As the contractions became stronger we were only a matter of hours away form meeting our new baby boy.
Suddenly, during what would be the final contraction, my wife suffered a placental abruption in the birthing pool and in that very moment we lost our baby boy. Katie was taken out the pool and rushed up to theatre where the medical team preformed an emergency C-Section. In the whirlwind I was whisked away by the team and moved to a room by myself to wait it out, not knowing what was going on. Sometime later the medical team came into the room and when the surgeons, midwives and other medical professionals all came in in one go, I knew something wasn’t right. At first, I didn’t think for a second it would be our little boy but knew something wasn’t right. As Gareth, the neonatal consultant sat down next to me, he explained what had happened. Katie had lost 38% of her blood volume, but miraculously they had managed to save her, but in 16 minutes it took to get Katie under the knife in theatre, they couldn’t save our baby boy and his lifeline had been cut in that split second back in the pool.
My first question to the medical team was could I see him and could I have my baby boy with me. Within minutes, the amazing midwife Titi came back with this beautiful, 9lbs 3oz baby boy still fresh and warm all wrapped up in blankets as beautiful as anything I had ever seen before. I just wanted to give my life to him in that very moment.
Left alone for some time with our beautiful boy whilst the medical team attended to Katie and brought her round from the general anesthetic I just held him tight and didn’t let him go. We had discussed names and as soon as I saw him, the name Arthur William Hill was given to him.
Although this time was amongst the worst time for any parent, it was also the only time in this life I would get to spend alone with my baby boy. I held him and kissed him and talked to him, telling him how sorry I was and I wish it could be me instead of him. It was a strange time as in that moment, it was just me and Arthur, the rest of the world was carrying on but in that room time stood till and it was just me and him. A time I will always hold on to as a special time.
Next came the second hardest thing I have ever had to do, walk down the corridor, into the operating theatre and somehow tell my wife that we had lost our beautiful baby boy. Still coming round from the anesthetic, this must have been the most surreal experience for her, seeing me standing there with Arthur in my arms, but being told he wasn’t alive. The next few minutes, hours, days and weeks would be a living hell. No parent should ever have to lose a child at any age, it just isn’t the natural way of things.
Over the next few weeks we would go and visit him every day, plan his funeral and somehow navigate through the minefield that is baby loss. Nothing prepares you for it. There is no manual, but if I can give one piece of advice it is trust your own instincts. Don’t let society’s views on death stop you from doing what you need to do. We didn’t think we could bring him home at first, but we did and it was the best thing we could have done. We couldn’t dream of introducing Arthur to his brothers, but eventually we did & we now only wish we had done it sooner. There are lots of steps along the way and you just have to do what is right for you and for your family, to hell with what anyone else says or thinks. Family first!
Life after Arthur has been a rollercoaster. Your best friends that you have known your whole life disappear but those you never imagined step up to the plate and give you amazing support. Your network becomes very small and you reevaluate what is important in life. For us, that is remembering Arthur, keeping his memory alive and helping his brothers understand and have a safe place to express how they are feeling.
There are still times 18 months on that catch you out. A piece of music, a comment or even daft little things like today when you have your first mince pie of the year and your wife says make a wish and I respond, “the only wish I could ever want is one I can never have.”
Losing Arthur will never leave us and he will always be right by our side. There will never be a day we don’t think of him and there will always be times it just catches you off guard. This is life now, and we have to try and accept it.
Tell me about your journey for Arthur?
Since losing Arthur I threw myself back into cycling and decided to try and channel that pain into something positive. My eventual goal is to complete an Everesting in which I aim to raise money for charity in Arthur’s name. However, this is some time off I think, but in the meantime, I want to try and achieve some smaller goals along the way. As Arthur will never have the opportunity to explore life, I now feel that I need to make the most of it and take his name forward with me.
I carry around with me little name tags with Arthur’s name on them. You know, like the ones you had as a kid in the back of your school jumpers. I leave these in special places I visit and write them down so that in future, if the boys ever want to, they can visit and remember Arthur. Funnily enough, this was a suggestion I took from 80’s Kids TV presenter Timmy Mallet, who did this in memory of his brother, whilst on his cycling journey around the coast of Britain.
Hopefully, if I can help in some small way of improving other peoples lives in Arthur’s name then I hope that I have kept his name alive and whilst his name is still being spoken, he is in someway still here and alive in us.
Some people may go quite, loose touch with activity, what makes you want to not hide away?
Having Freddie and Isaac at home always meant we couldn’t just hide away from life. We had to face it head on and not let what had happened beat us. It would be too easy to let the grief consume us and give up, but having two little boys at home, this wasn’t an option. We had to be strong for them and strong for each other. There is no other choice. People would often say how brave we were or what an inspiration we were. That’s not true at all. You do what you have to do to survive, there is no other way.
Cycling became my escape, my safe place. Whilst lifelong friends would turn away or cross the street, cycling was always there and the roads never disappointed.
What’s the ambition from keeping the wheels turning in Arthur’s name?
The ambition is always to keep moving forward. Never give up, no matter how hard life can be or what it throws at you. Nothing can be that bad again so now it is about embracing life and keeping Arthur’s name alive in any way we can.
What’s events have you done?
In the past, on the bike I have only ever done local Sportives here in the North East. This year though I noticed that the National Hill Climb Championships were coming to the Lake District. Having lived in the lakes for five years after leaving Uni and meeting my wife there who is from Staveley, it felt like doing an event on home soil. I just had to enter, which in hindsight was fairly ambitious for a Sunday rider.
What’s next? What’s the future?
If I have learnt anything in the past 18 months it is that you never know what is around the corner. You have to embrace life and make the most of it. Earlier this year we welcomed our fourth baby boy to the Hill household and Rory has certainly brought joy back into our lives and, along with our three other boys, has given us something positive to focus on in life. The older boys are absolutely besotted with him and until he came along, I don’t think we ever fully understood how much losing Arthur had actually affected them too. They have been amazing through all of this and shown us the light at the end of a very dark tunnel.
How did you find nationals?
The Nationals, well there is an experience I won’t forget in a hurry!!! I’m not too sure I fully expected what I was faced with, but you know what, I loved every second of it and I would have done it again in a heartbeat.
I originally entered back in June when entries first opened after watching a GCN video on YouTube. I was looking for a challenge and this looked like something that would test me, but at the same time was achievable. Little did I know what was in store.
I put in the training on and off the bike. In the gym 3-4 times a week, dropping 9.5kg’s in 4 months but as the Nationals came around, I started to lose motivation and dropped off, possibly peaking too soon. Come the day I was geared up though. Seeing all the other competitors though, man I was in a different category to these athletes. Still weighing in at 98kg on the day I was by far the biggest rider of the bunch, but I was ready to go and give it a go.
As I set up on the start line this was what I was here for, this is what I had trained for. The counter timed me down… 5,4,3,2,1 and off I went. The first ramp was okay and I felt good and then as I went round the first bend I was faced with a brick wall. Wow, this was gonna be tough!
All the way up the Struggle was like nothing else I had ever put myself through. I made whimpering noises to myself I had never heard before. There were spectators along the way which helped keep you pushing through the pain barriers and if it hadn’t been for them, I would have been gone on the first section.
I knew at the top Katie, Freddie, Isaac and Rory would be waiting and I had Arthur on my shoulder. That was all the motivation I needed to just keep grinding those gears, one stroke after another. It was Hell, but I was determined to get up it & as I approached the top, the crowds were unreal. Hitting the final section when you have nothing left to give was emotional, hard graft but exhilarating at the same time. Unless you were there, are into cycling or know the climb itself, I think it is really hard to express what this climb is like.
As well as cycling in Arthur’s name, I was also doing this to raise money for a local Children’s Hospice in the North East called Zoe’s Place. Zoe’s Place support young children under the age of 5 years old with life limiting conditions or on end of life care. They also have an apartment within the hospice that is self contained and has bedrooms, lounge and kitchen. The most important part of this though is that it also has a cold room where families can spend much needed, valuable time with their children that they have just passed away where they can be with their siblings and grieve together and have the only time in this world with their beautiful babies.
We didn’t know abut Zoe’s Place when we lost Arthur, but if we had, we could have taken him there and spent as much time as a family as we could before the funeral. Although we visited Arthur every day, Freddie and Isaac only had a few hours with their baby brother. Having had Zoe’s Place would have given them so much more time. It was for this reason I am trying to raise as much money as I can to help support other families and also raise awareness that this provision is there, should families need it.
Shameless plug here, but if anyone would like to support Zoe’s Place, and my efforts in the Nationals, please see link below 😉
How can people help raise awareness?
Talk, Talk, Talk & Talk some more. There are so many support groups out there whether its for men’s mental health, suicide prevention, baby loss or any other challenge you may be facing. You are not alone and there is always someone to talk to.
For me, I had Katie, that’s all I needed. For Katie, there is a charity called Sands that support people facing baby loss and they have been a huge part of her journey with her finding help in a local support group organized by them.
Don’t ever suffer in silence. If you do, that is how life will beat you down. You need to get it out of your system and as blokes, we aren’t great at talking, but trust me it really does help.
In the very early days I felt that I had to hold it together for Katie, for the boys and stay strong, but I’m no good to them if I’m either not here or mentally I’m not in the right place. There is always someone to talk to and sometimes a stranger who has been where you are now is the best person to speak to.
There is always light at the end of the tunnel, however dark the days are now, if you stick at it, and don’t let it beat you down, you will come out the other side. There will be times things creep up on you, but these become fewer and further between.
To everyone out there, whether you have lost a baby or child yourself or not, we need to start talking more openly about baby loss and giving those that have suffered the space to talk about and remember their child without fear of judgement. 1 in 4 of us will suffer with baby loss and there still seems to be a taboo around talking about it. The more we talk about these issues, the more we normalise it and give people the space to grieve openly.
How can people be in touch if they go through something similar or would just like someone to talk to?
There are lots of different support groups, organisations and professionals out there that can support you in your darkest hour. We have had wonderful support from charities including, Sands child bereavement UK, Tommys and 4louis. Sometimes you find solace in the strangest of places, for me it is a Sands Charity memory garden in our local park, getting out on the bike and on the open road, taking the dog for a walk or going to the seaside. We all have different ways of processing our feelings and dealing with our own demons in life, but always know that you are never alone! I’d absolutely recommend being open about what you’re going through because the biggest support for us has actually turned out to be friends that we never knew had also lost babies themselves.
Final words, anything you want to say or share?
In life, the only limitations are ones you put on yourself. Go out into the world and embrace it because you never know what is around the corner. Tell those close to you how much you love them, don’t ever go to bed, off to work or school on an argument because you never know when it will be the last time you see someone will be.
Live life to the fullest and do what makes you happy. You only get one shot so make it count!
Above all, be kind to yourself!
To Arthur, until we meet again, go on into the forever and I’ll meet you there ♥
