Luke Ambler is the founder of the men’s suicide prevention charity ANDYSMANCLUB. They offer free-to-attend, peer-to-peer support groups across the United Kingdom and online, with the aim of ending the stigma surrounding men’s mental health.
For PathFinders, we spoke to Luke about the family tragedy that spurred him into action to set up Andy’s Man Club. From an idea borne out of grief, the club now has over 120 free support groups across the country, serving almost 3,000 men a week through 900+ volunteers.
Has mental health always been important to you?
My own personal journey with mental health started way before ANDYSMANCLUB. It started when my eight years old. Without going into a sob story, my parents separated, quite a normal thing to do for a lot of people. But my way of dealing with it was comfort eating and I put on a lot of weight and got big, had a bit of a hard time at school for it. I found rugby which was my crutch, a place where I could go and express myself.
Being a big kid in rugby helps. Mom ends up having a car crash which led to some brain damage, and she developed a mental illness, non-epileptic attack disorder which basically means mum will drop, she’ll fall, you name it, she’s done it.
They moved my mum to where she lives now in a little disabled bungalow., because otherwise she could fall down the stairs and die.
And a result of her illness she developed quite poor mental health, so she developed anxiety where she won’t leave her house for four years at one point just won’t leave on leave for the fear of people judging her having these falls, because it was so stigmatised then, even more so than it is now. That was difficult and the bouts of depression out of that. It was hard to manage and learn and understand it. As a young man, I probably didn’t understand or maybe didn’t believe it.
How did you come to found ANDYSMANCLUB?
On 5th April 2016, my brother-in-law, my partner’s little brother, died by suicide and it came completely out of the blue. Just to give you a backstory, we were out on the Sunday laughing and joking, talking about buying a house. He’d just got promoted at work or they were looking at a promotion at work, everything was going well in his life from what he’d had in the past, he’d completely changed his life around.
On the Sunday morning, he gets up to play football and then he goes to the Palladium with my missus, his daughter and the kids.
And then that night I meet him as I usually would, all of us around my mother in laws for Sunday dinner and then next morning he gets up, goes to work and then doesn’t come home that night. Next morning my mother-in-law gets a knock on the door by a policeman, to say that they’d found her son dead. I’m about to go to a rugby camp with my little boy Alfie, who was so tight with his uncle Andy.
My phone rang, it was my mother-in-law. I said hello and she just said, our Andrew’s dead. And I said, I’m on my way. I dropped Alfie off and shot up to the house. And I remember like it was yesterday, the atmosphere you could have cut with a knife.
Later I had to tell Alfie that his uncle Andy had gone up to heaven, and to hear the scream let out by a six-year-old boy will live with me forever. It absolutely crippled me and was the catalyst for this movement. No family should have to go through what this family’s going through.
Watch the video above to hear the full exclusive interview.
ANDYSMANCLUB has over 120 free support groups nationwide, running every Monday from 7PM except bank holidays. In these groups, men can open up about the storms affecting their lives in a safe, judgement-free and non-clinical environment. Our clubs are designed to be free of pressure, there is no obligation for men to speak, they can simply listen if they wish. Click here to learn more.
Hussain Zadran is an Aeronautical Engineering student at the University of Salford.
For PathFinders, we speak to Hussain about his inspiring story, overcoming his delayed start to education and working hard to forge a successful career in engineering. We spoke to him at Silverstone Circuit during the IMechE Formula Student championship, where he was helping the Salford Racing team build their custom racing car for the event.
“I never went to school, I couldn’t afford it. The people who had money, they could afford it. Sometimes we didn’t even have a house, no food, no light. Coming from a very, very poor background. I came to this country about Year 7ish. It was very difficult. But that motivated me to go out and study because I just knew that was the way out for me, to be able to go out and show the world. I needed to fight my war through speaking and be able to defend myself with speech.
I started studying hard every single day. I was studying, learning English. I passed my GCSE’s, messed up on science a little bit, but it was fine. It didn’t make a major impact.
I got into Kingston College. I started studying level three manufacturing engineering. It was an extended diploma, which was equivalent to three A levels, and I got the equivalent to three A*s. Every single day, seven days a week, I was studying more than 10 hours a day.
I was offered places for university. What I was offered to study at Loughborough for. For me it was a bit too far away. Salford was very convenient for me, and I’ve got family there as well.
My hope is that I stay doing this sort of thing [volunteering for Salford Racing] on the side looking for placements just to make sure I get my experience and knowledge built up. I believe anything is possible there. Things in life have taught me that if I can come from such a poor, war-torn country to the UK, now I’m studying engineering, then anything is possible.”
I want to finish my degree with a Master’s looking to possibly go and get my B license, which is the aircraft technician, and then my C license. To be B licensed is a couple of years and I think C is well over ten years. Then you can become a chartered engineer.
That’s just plan A. Plan B would be go into the Navy, go in as an officer, come out and then you can do anything you like. So that’s sort of the plan I go for. Engineering-wise, I believe I want to stay in the industry as a technician, working physically, possibly for about five, eight years.”
Watch the video above to hear the full exclusive interview.
The Morson STEM Foundation aims to support people from all backgrounds explore and pursue pathways into engineering-related careers. With the immense demand for STEM skills un the UK, Morson Group is investing in education and aspiration, working hard to change lives and ensure a sustainable future for the industry. Find out more about the Morson STEM Foundation here.
Students from the University of Salford enjoyed a challenging, demanding and bittersweet weekend at the home of UK racing, Silverstone, in July while taking part in the IMechE Formula Student competition with their custom-designed racing car.
Europe’s most established educational engineering competition, Formula Student, sees university teams from all over the world produce a prototype for a single-seat race car, which is put through its paces on the Silverstone Circuit to discern a winner. This year, more than 130 teams entered for the competition, which was celebrating its 25th year.
Watch the story of their weekend below:
The Salford Racing team, comprising students from a variety of disciplines, had planned, designed, and built its car from the University’s Maker Space, a state-of-the-art facility funded by the Morson Group, which has also invested £10K to sponsor the car, and provided additional industry training. While allowing for the practical, real-world development of skills and techniques that are invaluable for students of all disciplines, the Salford Racing project exists separately from team members’ curriculums, with the project being completed out-of-hours on a voluntary basis.
The Maker Space is part of the Morson Group’s Changemakers programme, which builds on the company’s extensive efforts – in partnership with the University of Salford, Into University and other stakeholders – to help young people, particularly those from disadvantaged, underrepresented or marginalised backgrounds, to develop the confidence and technical skills to build a career in STEM.
Ollie Parsons, an aeronautical engineering graduate who took on the role of Team Principal for the end of the 2021 season through 2022, talks about the important skills required to make the project work:
“This is a team which is expected to perform as working professionals, to create a car in their own time alongside their studies and do it off their own back. One thing I learned was that you’ve got to motivate people so showing the reward at the end which is Silverstone and the whole design experience. A big thing for me was understanding people, different ways of working.
There was a lot of change between 2021 and 2022. Operating principles within the team and morale boosting, and I hope since then the team have built on that and been able to plan for contingency and making sure that if there’s anything dropping out people coming up to exams getting stressed that they can forecast that and make sure resource is covered.
Morson were particularly useful in allowing students to go on critical courses like welding, fabrication, supporting us in buying beter parts. It makes a massive difference, and the student experience is improved because of it. It gives you that additional edge on other graduates. Aside from the monetary contribution, having the professional workspaces with engineers’ advice, it’s invaluable.”
The 2023 event at Silverstone
The Salford Racing 2023 team arrived at Silverstone on the Thursday of the event and was immediately up against it, with the engineers identifying an issue which required a complete disassembly and rebuild of the engine. As the team were against the clock to make it to scrutineering the following day, along with the rest of the tests the teams must go through ahead of Sunday’s running, several of the group opted to stay up all night.
Hussain Zadran, aeronautical engineering student who designed the side panelling, utilising the water jet facilities at the Morson Maker Space, describes the situation and his reasons for joining the Salford Racing team:
“We had to rebuild it several times but we finally realised that it was something to do with the bearing inside, so we had to strip it up, take the bearing out and then rebuild.
The thing that attracted me to the project started all the way back when I came to the country. Originally from Afghanistan, at 13 I had to learn English from scratch and I’ve always been a person that wants to develop their skills further. I’m foundation year at the moment and I thought I’d join and there’s a lot more to learn.”
The team managed to complete the build on Friday afternoon, making it to scrutineering. Several issues were identified on the car, including lock wires on the throttle cable and clutch, which needed to be fixed before the team could make it through to the following stages. Following passing scrutineering and the tilt test, the team fell short at the noise test. Unfortunately, the engine issues that the team had had on the Thursday and Friday had meant that the car hadn’t been started, and the team was unable to do so at the noise test due to a battery issue. Frustratingly for the team, this meant they ran out of time to complete the tests and that they were unable to take part in the running events on the Sunday despite having a car that the stewards agreed was ready to go.
Nonetheless, it was a weekend of hard work, lessons and inspiration for the team as they look ahead towards making improvements for the 2024 event.
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Boxing trainer Joe Gallagher is an instantly recognisable face in the corner of the ring. A veteran of some 60 amateur fights himself, the young prospect turned his attention to training in the early 1990s, and has since gone on to become incredibly successful, training the likes of the Smith Brothers, Anthony Crolla, Scott Quigg, Natasha Jonas and more to world title successes, many while benefitting from sponsorship from Morson along their journeys.
With Joe’s current stable of fighters now moving back from Bolton to where it all began for Joe, Phil Martin’s Champs Camp in Moss Side, Manchester, we caught up with Joe to reflect on his career journey. He talks openly to PathFinders about his parents’ influence on him, the years of struggling to balance his amateur training with his day job and the strain that it put on him, the golden years of his stable and much more.
What was your earliest memory of boxing?
I think like everyone’s when they were growing up then in that era was watching Muhammad Ali, with my dad. He was huge boxing fan. And Ali because he was so popular, world heavyweight champion and everything, as a child just sat there watching. Then all the other fighters like John Conteh from the UK at the time, he was world champion.
At the time I must have been around eight or nine. I was going mixed martial arts and karate. And then I got to around age ten I was, I was third grade, you know, the brown one more before you go into a black belt and which was in the playground. And someone mentioned that there’d been a boxing gym opening up but wasn’t sure for them. So I told my dad I’d go to the boxing gym.
So I went down and the person whose gym it was that was open was Jimmy Egan. So that’s more known now as Jimmy Egan’s Boxing Gym and wasn’t sure, but then it was known it was in short form and I went there and I stuck with it and I said, the rest is history.
Is it fair to say that your dad and Jimmy Egan were the two biggest influences and biggest role models in your life growing up?
And mum. Yeah, she no, she worked very hard and it wasn’t much money in the house. My dad was always working hard out on the roads and was holding down two or three jobs down at the time. I was the oldest of five and four sisters.
I did want to turn professional at one point, as every fighter does. But my dad was worried that there was no money in it. So, he said, you’re going to come out on the road to me and that’s it going to need to get a proper job. You’re only going to make money if you’re like Muhammad Ali, the equivalent of that generation. So those were the type of conversations or just for right, okay, then. And that was that’s why I didn’t turn professional, and I went into coaching then.
Watch the video above to hear the full exclusive interview.
Now retired and working to train the next generation of fighters, including his brother Will, Joe Gallagher-trained world champion boxer Anthony Crolla speaks openly to PathFinders about his incredible career, both in and out of the ring, and what his hopes are for the future. Click here to hear his story
“I was bullied for being smart when I was a kid and people took the mickey and I hid it. And I tried not to come across as clever. And if I had anything to tell 14-year-old me, I wish I could slap her in the face honestly, and go, stop it! Stop being shy. Don’t be ashamed of being smart because it’s your greatest asset.”
Freyja Ingham is Asset Care Team Manager at Morson Projects. Without much encouragement from her teachers to consider pursuing a career in STEM, Freyja spent much of her early teenage life working in a local café, unsure of what to do. PathFinders speaks to her about her journey into engineering:
Talk to us about your early life and career
I started work when I was 13 in a local café, and I sort of stayed put there and while I was doing my GCSE’s and my A-levels. I was working part time the whole time and I just, I didn’t really know what to do with my life.
I was waiting on tables, pot wash and then I moved up to working in the ice cream parlour. I got my own till and I got to till up at the end of the day. And I love tilling up because I like to know that my till was right. And then I did front of house, and I really loved talking to people.
I liked to be able to have a good chat with customers. And then I went on to wait on in like an actual restaurant side and I worked behind the bar there as well.
When did you consider the possibility of a career in STEM?
I did STEM at GCSE kind of age and you know we went to the Big Bang Fair in Manchester and it was it was really good fun.But I guess I never kind of considered it as a career path because my teachers never really pushed that and they were like, “oh go to uni”
There was six of us. And there was three girls and three boys. So it wasn’t particularly biased to one gender or anything. I’ve always enjoyed like my maths and my physics and mathematical kind of subjects. I like the challenge of it. I like the fact there’s a right and wrong answer as well. The teachers pushed university and not so much vocational. I love that vocational kind of, you’re doing your job, learning on the job type of thing.
So I was, I was carrying on waitressing and I wasn’t into that sort of full time. I had spinal surgery and I spent a year recovering from that. And it was while I was off kind of deciding what do I do with my life that I thought I should probably consider, maybe engineering because there was a lot of it locally on my doorstep. I live right between BAE Systems and Sellafield. So it kind of is there in your face.
Talk to us about your early steps in engineering
I applied for a few positions, and I was really lucky to get offered a job with Morson and a complete traineeship. I had no kind of background experience and they said that they’d train me up in the roles and take me around all the departments and see where I fit best and what I enjoyed the most.
I shadowed all the engineers I was working with. I shadowed them and while I was doing my HNC that Morson were funding for me. I went round and I learned all about like how computerised maintenance systems, we went through reliability-centred maintenance and spares and obsolescence.
I went through technical documentation and then I came to the asset care department and I never left and I love it.
Do you have a career hero?
I wouldn’t say I have one particular. I think it’s a lot of the people that I’ve met along the way and they’ve all supported me in different kind of aspects. A lot of what I know is what people have shown me and taught me along the way. Whether that’s like just being how to be perceived in the office and the way that you speak to people and handle relations and stuff, and then the pure engineering knowledge that some people have shared with me.
But I think honestly, I genuinely would say it, it’s the people that I’ve been able to work with along the way that are like my kind of heroes, my inspiration, because I just want to be as good as they are to me.
How do you find working with Morson Projects?
Probably about seven of the eight and a half years I’ve worked for Morson I’ve been on asset care now and I absolutely love it. I’ve just become asset care team manager. I love the work I like the variation of being able to spend some of your week in the office and others is on site, on plant and it’s really gratifying when you go out and you see something that you looked at three years ago, you actually see that they’ve done something based on your recommendations and your findings and know it is valued input and that you do find things that they missed.
How would you like to change the industry for the better?
I’m excited to fly the flag for more women, which is always really cliché, but there’s not that many. I think there’s three of us in our office, four, small numbers. So, I’d like to fly the flag for women and I’d like to say I enjoy seeing the actual value of my work and seeing things be implemented that I spotted. And I’ve seen a make a difference. I work on the Sellafield site and being part of the story of that being decommissioned and making a difference to that, given the fact it’s on my doorstep as well, it’s really it’s really nice to see that. And I’d like to make a difference to that whole story. However small. It’s a difference. And I’d also really like to give back the same level of care that people showed to me when I was new and I was training, and I’d be that person for them because it was a massive thing to me when they did that for me to be that person
What would you tell your 14-year-old self if you could?
I had anything to tell, like a 14-year-old me it would be, I wish I could slap in the face honestly and go, stop it, stop being bloody shy!
I was bullied for being smart when I was a kid and people took the mickey and I hid it and I tried not to come across as clever. Don’t be ashamed of being smart because it’s your greatest asset. Why are you ashamed of it? Because I’m not me.
I know I’m so competitive when it comes like college or degree or anything. I’m like, I want top marks, I want to beat everyone and I’m starting my HNC and because I hadn’t done the bridging course and one of the tutors on the first day I started this turned around and said you’re going to fail because I’ve not seen you you’ve not done the bridging course and you’ve not done the ONC. I had like you know I’ve the UCAS points to get onto the course and I was like I’m going to prove you wrong.
And I got a distinction in every single one of his lessons and I was like, it was kind of like my own little way of going… Hah. Told you!
Chloe Hughes is an aviation Stress Engineer at Morson Projects. Having a long-standing enthusiasm for aviation nurtured by a love of sci-fi, Chloe has trodden an unconventional path to lead her to working in aerospace. For PathFinders, we spoke to her about her journey and the lessons she’s learned along the way.Watch her story here
