Welcome to the latest in an irregular series of bonus episodes of the Looking Sideways Action Sports podcast.
No fuss, no fanfare, just a non-traditional episode banged out every now and again when this opportunity comes up.
This episode you’re about to listen to is the full live chat with Schoph, Andrew Cotton, Helena Long, Marcus Chapman from Tour de Test Valley and Simon Gunning, CEO of CALM, which I hosted at the Vans store in London at the beginning of September 2023.
This was an event organised by my old pal Marcus to raise funds for CALM in memory of our much-loved and much-missed friend Nelson Pratt, who took his own life back in 2012.
This year, Marcus and the family decided to take year off organising the Tour de Test Valley proper, so this event was a way of celebrating Nelly, bringing a load of his friends together, and of course continuing to raise awareness of this important issue. I personally lost another close friend to suicide this year, something which has made me more determined than ever to speak about this issue.
It was a lovely evening. Bittersweet, as usual, but another fitting tribute to Nelly, and a great impromptu gathering of his tribe. I’m really grateful to Helena, Schoph and Cotty for trusting me to ask them some pretty sensitive questions.
Anyway, I’m releasing it as a bonus episode - these are usually paywalled and exclusively for paid subscribers, but give the topic here I thought I’d get it out there for everybody to hear.
Ride on Nelly. We miss you brother X
Bonus Episode: Looking Sideways x Vans x CALM panel discussion with Schoph, Andrew Cotton and Helena Long