Burned

Many of us know that our kids come first, of course they do. But not all of us.

In some darkest moments and for some less fortunate kids – like Paul Sinton-Hewitt who had been growing up with struggling parents – putting the kids first can be more difficult than asking a cow to recite a poem.

Paul Sinton-Hewitt, the founder of parkrun and being awarded a CBE by Queen Elizabeth II, wasn't so sure his parents had done a damn good job to raise him. At age five, he was sent to boarding school and experienced terrible bullying. Oh, that was a toughie for a kid to go through those adverse childhood experiences like parental separation, multiple school moves, and traumatic bullying. 

Imagine a junior school kid wearing a scarf near Johannesburg. To a nine-year-old, that's ridiculous. Deep down, Paul Sinton-Hewitt knew the humiliation, but he had no choice after being strangled by a looped cord around his neck. The boys kicked the chair away, and let the noose pulling tight under his full weight. He could hardly breathe for ten seconds and ended up with a bloody wound cut deeply into his neck from ear to ear. 

Having grown up with nobody to listen to his worries or step in to sort things out, Paul Sinton-Hewitt had become a closed book. Over time, he became devastated with faulty coping mechanisms. When he became a father, he didn't know any nursery rhymes because nobody had sung them to him as a child. As a result of his upbringing and the heartache, his marriage hit the rocks and he felt torn. 

Paul Sinton-Hewitt got caught in a cycle of repeatedly getting burned, until his finding of connection and purpose in starting a weekly time trial run in his local park. Little did he know that from just thirteen runners on a Saturday, parkrun – a name he coined and with capital letter dropped – would grow into a 10-million-strong community across five continents. 

From a grassroots community into a social movement.