Mark tilted his head, trying to maintain eye contact with Kevin, but he looked away and out of the large bay window.

‘I had a son,’ Kevin said after a few moments had passed. There was a weary look on his face now, as if the memory had changed him somehow. ‘Andrew. He was a good lad. Always did well at school, played rugby and cricket. Was near the top of each class he was in, until he was around fourteen. Then things changed with him. He wasn’t the same boy. It suddenly didn’t matter to him about his future, or anything of that sort. We tried everything to get him out of it, but nothing worked. He just shut down.’

‘He was being bullied,’ Mark said quietly, beginning to understand what Kevin was telling him now.

Kevin nodded silently. ‘We didn’t know until it was too late. A group of boys he’d once been friends with turned against him. I imagine at first he didn’t understand what was happening; he was a little naïve, I suppose. That’s the thing; it doesn’t matter what you have at home. The money, the luxuries… Then, it just becomes about differences. Perhaps today he would have been given some kind of diagnosis, but we just put it down to a little eccentricity. Thing is, at that age, anything outside of the norm is a target. That’s what he became.’

‘What happened to Andrew?’

Kevin hesitated and when he finally spoke, it was as if every word was painful to say out loud. ‘He died two days before his sixteenth birthday. His mother found him in his bedroom. It was too late. He left a note.’

Mark wondered how long ago this had happened. It probably didn’t matter; the wound would always be open. ‘So, you created The Huddle as a reaction to what happened to your son.’

‘Yes. Not just that one. I’ve been involved in a number of different organisations that have tried to combat and help within that arena. I’ve been incredibly lucky over the years and have the means to do so. What else am I meant to do with my money? Andrew was our only child and by the time he was gone, it was too late to have any more. He died fourteen years ago this year, but no matter what we do, it only seems to get worse. When social media became the new way of victimising people, I got involved with The Huddle, hoping we could at least have a force for good available online. There are countless others trying to do the same thing, but it only seems to be getting worse.’

‘If someone was to get in touch with The Huddle now, what would happen?’

Kevin shrugged his shoulders. ‘Once I became aware that the face-to-face sessions weren’t really helping anyone, I withdrew my financial support and supported other places.’