Well, we've been coming out to Aberdaron for,
well, Lindsay and I have been for 20 years.
It's just a place where we come to get away from everything.
It's an escape.
This is the first time we've been out since my surgery.
It's been...
It's been quite emotional to come for the first time.
I know before, even my depression and my breakdown,
it was a period with work when it was really busy,
and we weren't coming out here.
Driving out either by the coast road, or even through the mountains,
it just unfolds in front of you.
When you see it for the first time, it just, it does, it takes your breath away.
But certainly, coming out now,
the skies seem bigger,
grass is greener,
the mountains are taller.
Everything is just...
more vibrant.
I first started to notice depression,
for me, it was just a slow burn.
Work was becoming more stressful
but instead of putting family and home first,
, I was focusing more on work and working harder at that.
Just a perpetuating spiral of guilt.
[Lindsay] That was the first real sign, that the children were being snapped at.
It was as though he was just opting out.
And I'm left there with the children, with work, with everything else, and I'm thinking,
"I don't get to opt out. Why the hell should you?"
It really does pull you apart.
[Chris] The next thing I know, I wake up one morning ... I just couldn't go to work.
. I said to Lindsay, I said, "I just can't, I can't do it."
" I really, I physically cannot do it."
Then he finally said, "I just don't know what else to do.
I just don't know how to deal with it."
And that's when she said, "You need to call the doctors.
You need to speak to someone and just get some help."
[Lindsay] He went, and that's when the doctor said, "How do you feel?" Then he fell apart.
He came home from the doctor's, still sobbing.
I remember the first session with the therapist was to talk about past events.
You know, "Tell me about your life. Tell me what your childhood was like."
You start unpicking all the pieces,
Then, with her help,
start realizing some of the kind of driving factors behind the mental illness.
The first time I remember my mom being sick,
when my dad sat me down in my bedroom and told me that she was ill
and that she had up to two years to live.
Which is tough to hear when you're 11.
I was told it was cancer.
but no one really talked about what that was.
It was just a thing.
I think the toughest thing was when my dad told me,
he said I wasn't allowed to tell my brother.
So I had this devastating news,
and kind of bottled it up and keep it a secret.
I remember it being so difficult.
Even when we were having to go to the hospital and seeing her,
I didn't really understand.
And my biggest regret is not using that time that I had.
She died pretty much on my brother's birthday
so I remember having to sit at his birthday party with all his friends and our relatives all around
and there's party balloons and stuff.
and I've got this big secret.
I remember kind of following the coffin to the grave side.
When the service ended
I was there in my school uniform,
and everyone else went after the wake
and I had to walk to school on my own.
I finished the rest of my day as if nothing had happened.
When I look back on that as I was starting my first jobs,
I kind of think, well that kind of made me in some ways, that experience.
It's something that's formed who I am now.
If I'd taken a step back and kind of looked at who I was,
I probably wouldn't have recognized me.
The lowest points I had, I was thinking I didn't want to be around.
Lindsay would be better off without me.
Those kinds of things, they were quite frightening.
Despite being surrounded by people,
you still feel alone.
One of the things I always had in the back of my mind,
I was 40, I had two kids,
Izzy was the same age I was.
I was the same age my mum was.
There were so many parallels.
I think that's probably one of the things that stopped me getting even lower
is that I didn't want Izzy and Ben
to kind of have to go through not having a dad, or only having one parent.
They were kind of a big factor in helping me to recover and get better.
Part of the help I got to get through my depression and anxiety
I was on a course of antidepressants.
But, some of the side effects is they kind of made me go to the loo more regularly.
I'd been away for a weekend, and I'd noticed a bit of blood and I thought,
"This is a side effect of the antidepressants."
I remember going into the doctors and kind of telling them this
and they're saying, "Okay, let's just check you out."
I apologized. I said, "I'm really sorry about this."
She went, "Don't worry. Don't worry. I do this all the time."
It's kind of a minute, if that.
But she said, "I can feel something there, which I'm not happy about,
and I think I need to send you for a colonoscopy,"
which the alarm bells start ringing there.
[Lindsay] The initial colonoscopy Chris had,
he told me that if it was bad news, a doctor would be coming to speak to him.
[Chris] I was told I had cancer in not just my bowel,
but also my prostate and my bladder,
and that it was kind of in surrounding tissue.
That that would all have to come out.
[Lindsay] I can't remember what else the doctor said.
As we were walking out the hospital afterwards Chris put his arm on my shoulder and said,
"We'll get through this. We'll get through this."
[Chris] When the word cancer is first used,
my first thought was
that thing I'd always been thinking about,
and the thing that I was always frightened of,
suddenly it's happening.
Lindsay and I just decided pretty much there and then
then that we would be open and honest with the kids.
I didn't want to repeat what I'd gone through in the past,
having to keep secrets.
[Lindsay] So we sat them down, and we didn't use the "cancer" word at first
and we didn't use "radiotherapy".
We mentioned tumor, and Izzy's big blue eyes just got wider,
and she cottoned on straight away.
I think I asked just was he going to be okay.
Then we explained that they were going to try their best to make daddy better.
[Isabelle] I knew he would be okay,
but I just wanted to be sure.
[Lindsay] Heartbreakingly, when we were out in Aberdaron,
I overheard Izzy say to Chris,
"Lots of people I know who have cancer die, daddy. Are you going to die?"
He said, "I'm going to try not to."
It was massive surgery. It was the biggest operation they said they did.
It was 11 and a half hours in surgery.
I was almost convinced I wasn't going to leave the hospital.
I think the toughest thing for Lindsay at that time
was one night she went to bed in her clothes
because it might be that she might get a phone call.
That was difficult to hear that she'd gone through that.
[Lindsay] When I first took them into the hospital, he looked horrendous.
His face was swollen from all the anesthetic and everything.
He had these two bags attached, that were filling up with horrible colored fluids.
I said, "I just need you to not react.
Make daddy realize that he's still daddy."
Ben said, "Of course he is. He'll always be my dad."
[Chris] When I got my cancer diagnosis,
I'd just come through what I thought was my biggest challenge with the depression,
and I'd learned so much about myself going through that.
Had I not gone through it, and learnt all that,
I don't know how I would've coped with what I was about to face.
Being able to be open, and talk, and share with friends, and family,
and Lindsay about everything I was going through
made it even easier to cope with and get through.
When I got my cancer diagnosis,
and I'd gone through the radio, and I'd gone through the chemo
I said to Lindsay, "I want to get a bike."
All this time I'd wanted a bike, and she was pretty good.
She said, "Yeah, go ahead. Get one."
When I first got my bike, I went to my local trial dealership.
I saw a DGR t-shirt.
The woman, as I was handing over the money to pay for it, she said,
"Oh, are you doing a ride this year?"
I went, "No, it's in London. I can't do that. It's too far for me to go."
She said, "No, no, no. It's a local ride. It's all over the place."
So as soon as I got home, I kind of looked it up and found that there was one in Liverpool.
Then I started digging in through the website,
and looking at what DGR did, and what it represented,
and its kind of founding purpose to support men's mental health and prostate cancer.
I'm thinking, "Tick there, tick there, this is for me."
It just seems too amazing to kind of come along at this time.
It was so much fun.
It was just everyone around you.
The sound...
Just the sound there through the tunnel.
Just everyone blasting away on these massive bikes
I was grinning like a Cheshire cat, just going through the Mersey Tunnel
It was just a phenomenal experience.
It was only a few days before my surgery,
so that's why it meant so much.
I'd hope that when I do this year's ride,
if anyone is going through that themselves, and they recognize me,
they can come and speak to me
and I'll sit down with them, and have a coffee and a chat.
I'm always open.
I'll give them the help when they need.
I think it'll be the first stepping stone for someone.
Talking is that first engagement to making a recovery.
Once you start that,
you're on your way.
Lindsay and I, I look back on kind of when we first started going out,
and got engaged, and got married, and kind of the couple that we are now,
and they just seem like different people.
We did say obviously we wouldn't wish to relive all that we've been through,
but we now really know
how each other feels, how each other thinks.
I can't imagine life without her.
I think that makes us better people for it
I think everything that's happened to me has
made me a better person
made me...
a better dad, made me a better husband,
made me a better friend.
I'm almost grateful...
for everything that's happened.
Because of that, because it's made me
more resilient.
More open.
Happier.
Stronger.
So I've got a lot to look forward to.