Champion Your Story: A New Start, A New Family, A New Me

3 hours ago
6 min read

I have read a few of these and somehow feel a fraud writing one about me, firstly (and despite what my fellow tablers might say) I don’t like talking about myself and I struggle to do that whole self reflection thing. But I guess that is the case for most of us.

I hadn’t realised just how low my confidence and self‑esteem had fallen until Table quietly built me back up. I don’t think anyone there even realised they were doing it - they just handed me a Spond account, let me loose in the WhatsApp groups, and somehow created a monster. But through Table I’ve rebuilt myself, let go of the last toxicity in my life, and finally started to grow and get better.

This isn't a story I have shared, not even with my own friends in table -so I guess I will find out how many of them read this!

In the Beginning....

For 14 years I was in a really toxic relationship. Controlling, coercive control, beaten and bruised. Bank accounts drained, debts piled up, taking second jobs to pay their debts. Even worse this wasn't a sexual relationship or a partner, this was a so called ‘best friend’. I was warned, at the start, by people who had been my friends for a long time that he was not a good person, that he was using me, but I didn’t see it, and one by one the majority of my wider friendship group disappeared.

Each time a friend drifted away, his hold over me tightened. If I saw one of the few people I still had left, or even dared to stay out after work, I’d be hit with a barrage of messages and calls telling me what a terrible friend I was until I gave in and left. And leaving usually meant days of punishment afterwards, sometimes verbal abuse, sometimes physical.

I’m not making excuses, but it’s clear my ‘friend’ was dealing with serious mental health issues, made worse by Covid. That period brought its own challenges for me too, a sick and elderly dad and step‑mum who needed ‘rescuing’ from Crete, new pressures on my finances, and huge demands on my time. This also meant I had people living in my house, seeing the behaviour first-hand, which made everything even harder to manage.

There's more detail I could go into from here, the loans and credit cards taken out in my name, the broken bones, the abuse beyond anything you can (hopefully) imagine. But I got out. Helped ironically by his Mum, who started to see the behaviour, and decisions he made, that helped me to see it.

A New Start

Timing aligned perfectly for me as I was also at a stage where I had to move house and an opportunity therefore existed for a Geographical distance to be created. My step mum had deteriorated considerably and was now in a care home. She was desperate to come 'home', but my rented house was not suitable. It was for me, and not for two other adults with additional physical and care needs. So (and despite assurances to family I wouldn’t move 200 miles, and would be much nearer to home), I moved to Wales.

It was the best decision I ever made.

Firstly, it got my step mum home for the last months of her life, but it also finally got me out of a toxic spiral. The problem was I was broken emotionally and in some ways physically, I knew no one (I was known in my village as ‘The English Guy) and had lost trust in my judgement or ability to make friends.

And thats where table comes in!

I started noticing adverts for the Pontypridd & Rhondda Roundtable. Not just one or two, but daily, multiple times a day posts, about coming and meeting people.

I’m a shy person, and it took about a month of seeing those posts before I finally gave in and made contact. I went along to a SIM racing event organised by the Area, and at the end we’d agreed to go for some food. I think everyone assumed that, because I was ‘local’, I knew where I was going, but having only lived in the area for a few months, I didn’t have a clue. So I headed home instead, thinking, ‘Well, that was worth a shout, but I won’t bother going back.

But I'd been added to the Whatsapp, and there was someone who wanted to go to the next event (the AGM) but couldn't get there. I would have to drive past his house to get there, and so agreed to pick him up. He had seemed alright at the SIM racing, was new like me, and seemed not sold on the whole thing (like me). Enter Stephen. Now our Table Chairman, and someone I have been the (very willing) chauffeur for ever since.

It also when I met the rest of the table: Mark (chairman), Tom (past chairman), and Sean (another new member alongside myself and Stephen). We are all now great friends, along with others we have picked up along the way.

They give me a reason to go out at least twice a month. There’s support whenever you need it, often in nothing more than an unspoken look or smile, and always in the nonsense messages about cables or our beloved monthly pub quizzes.

I don't think that we are like other tables, I don't think that we as a group are like other typical tablers - drinking club we are not! We are a fundraising table with a "pub-quiz problem", but for me that's what works so well. It was the right table at the right time in the right place.

But there’s a reason this Table found me when I needed it most, and a reason why each of us is here. Round Table becomes what its members make it, and that’s why it feels so deeply personal. It reflects us, our lives, our communities, and the support we give one another.

Immediately I was made treasurer and I'm trying to have the longest ever period as vice chairman in history (much to the Stephens annoyance). I’ve grown in confidence, not just in how loud and opinionated I can be in meetings, but in myself overall.

It has given me a sense of purpose outside of work that had been lost - a place where I belong which has then led to more opportunities both inside and outside of table, personally and professionally.

Last year I was nominated for tabler of the year, but much more importantly to me, the table was nominated (and won) table of the year. That's because of the support we give each other, the tens of thousands of pounds we raise for charity, and the growth in tabler numbers that this has caused. Now 8 normal blokes (mainly English), in the Welsh valleys, meeting up and supporting each other and their communities.

Round Table has taken me to places like Abergavenny and Hastings this year for their music festivals, meeting more tablers and making even more friends along the way. I have (somehow) become Area Chairman and am enjoying bringing back step by step an area which had essentially folded.

There’s no way I could have done any of this without Stephen, Tom, Sean (especially five‑pint Sean), Brady, Sion, Lloyd, Andrew, Gavin and Cai - my wonderful Round Table family who are always there when I need them.

And Next?....

Together we will continue to grow, and make table even better for even more people. That's why I am hoping that together as a UK&I community, we can now try and be part of a World Record attempt!

Another charity I have some interest in is the DT38 Foundation, formed in memory of a West Ham footballer Dylan Tombides who died as a very young man due to testicular cancer. The only thing we men talk about less than our mental health, is our physical health, especially our balls!

DT38 is changing that, with education, awareness and getting out to tell us all what to look out for. Next year they are looking to put on the longest game of football EVER! With teams taking part in 38 minute sessions (38 was Dylan's number at West Ham and one of only 2 shirts to have been retired by the club).

For this to work it needs over 700 teams! (or less if people fancy doing more than 38 minutes). But we have a lot of tables and surely we can do a lot of this, have some fun and make some money for a really good cause that directly supports men here and in Australia.