Hello from Vienna :)

Happy New Year!!!

Walking here was perhaps the strangest walk so far. It began pretty bizarrely and went steadily downhill from there. (Well, up hill in fact…)

To bid farewell to Prague, the Road to Change team were invited to the British Embassy for a wee cup o tea with Ambassador, Jan Thompson. If you’ve never been inside an Embassy, imagine a beautiful historic building that has been converted into a maximum security prison. Just to walk from one office to another you have to go through a series of air locks, where the door behind you must be firmly closed before you can open the one in front. I have no idea how the Ambassador and her staff manage to get a decent game of Hide & Seek…Deputy Ambassador Tim Voase asked if I had to leave right away or if I had 30 minutes spare. Intrigued, I lied, saying that I was in no rush, then he handed me a script. I had ten minutes to learn four pages of facts about my character, a disgruntled Embassy Employee, before I was interviewed by a manager. It was actually the manger’s ‘exam’. Tim (his boss) watched and made notes on how my fictional boss handled my grievance. I used to do these corporate acting jobs all the time, training doctors or lawyers. Usually pays about £100 an hour so its easy money for a professional actor in the gaps between TV and Theatre jobs. (I didn’t suggest the Embassy make a donation to Road to Change, their support had already been priceless)

As the Ambassador was busy, Tim joined me for a few kilometres. Ex-military, he’s well known in Prague for his Charity endeavours, recently running 200km in 3 days as a local fundraiser. That didn’t end well, though. In extreme endurance activities, when your body runs out of fuel it begins to literally eat itself. Half way there, his thighs began to waste away and his kidneys failed. I walk a long way for a long time but the demands on my body aren’t too unlike what we were originally designed for, back when we were huntergatherers. After 10km, I said goodbye to Tim and promised that if I ever start peeing blood, I’ll think of him…

Later that day, I reached Stig and Amanda in Yvonne, to discover Mandy’s cold had gone from bad to worse. It would be over a week till I’d reach Vienna and a damp leaky van is no place to sleep when feeling so ill. I made a call to my old friend, Sinead. She and I worked together ten years ago in Edinburgh’s ‘deepest kept secret’, a tourist attraction called ‘Mary King’s Close’ (forgotten 17th century streets beneath Edinburgh’s Royal Mile) Sinead now lives in a lovely apartment in Vienna and works for the UN as a peacekeeper in outer space. Literally. She immediately offered her spare room to Mandybobs, who left on a train the next day. Stig and I would now make our way slowly towards Vienna while Mandy could recover in a warm dry flat with wifi, and once she was feeling better she was able to set up Road to Change events and meetings in advance of my arrival. Win win. I don’t know why we hadn’t thought of it before :)

The press in Czech Republic had been wonderful. Even after leaving Prague another national newspaper called for an interview then a car pulled up and their photographer jumped out. The first aim of the Road to Change is raising awareness and I witness the difference in the rural areas after we’ve managed to reach more media in the city. Walking through a tiny Czech town, a wee crowd rushed at me for a photo then someone ran and got the Mayor. Minutes later I was having more photos taken with him in front of their wee town hall and speaking to local press. I was then invited into the local pub for some regional schnapps. No matter what country I’m walking through, people’s kind hospitality always centres around some local alcohol and it would be very rude to refuse it. I often find myself staring at yet another shot of something and thinking ‘Hey, I’m doing it for the kids…’

With over 100km left to go, the weather suddenly turned weird. Have you read Stephen King’s ‘The Mist’? Perhaps I had just climbed so many hills I had actually found myself in the clouds…It was so thick I could only see a few meters in front of me. I could barely see the road so I figured cars could barely see me. I didn’t know I was near a village until I was standing in it. They appeared and vanished like Brigadoon. The intangible wall of nothing surrounded me for six days, like walking in an extremely boring room that moved with me. The scenery all around was beautiful, I imagine, but I walked through the hills for a week and never saw them. Quite surreal, being out on the open road and feeling so claustrophobic. I was reduced to half my usual pace, only managing 20km a day in the limited daylight. Luckily, I plan for such hold ups so I still arrived in Vienna on schedule :)

Snow was falling but thankfully Sinead offered to let the whole team stay at her home. Her kind partner Dylan was in the middle of exam season so we didn’t see him much but we were so grateful to have such a beautiful place to stay for a whole week, right in the middle of the city. Mandybobs was feeling better and she had been busing herself all week setting up meetings and press calls so I got straight to work.

The first appointment, of course, was meeting the British Ambassador to Austria. Press and TV turned up to catch us walking together around Vienna’s famous central fountain. (which was turn off as it was snowing…) and Dr Rainer Konig-Hollerwoger, the director of a national organisation focused on tackling Child Sexual Abuse in Austria. I was really pleased to hear a short podcast from the Ambassador herself, speaking about Road to Change and her encounter with me but when I heard my own voice I realised how fast I was talking. We recorded it while standing out in the snow and as ever I was in my kilt…

When I saw the news articles published later, I noticed they were changing what I said. ‘Kindesmissbrauch’ is German for ‘Child abuse’. I’m here to talk about child SEXUAL abuse. If we can’t even say the words, how can we begin to stop it happening…

It’s been a wonderful week for fundraising. First, Sinead took the team to her work (the UN) and when I began to explain the Road to Change to her colleagues they immediately got out their wallets and handed me cash. So kind and unexpected but I think I’ve upset diplomatic relations between Scotland and Kenya :( I’ve lost so much weight my kilt is hanging off me and a Kenyan Delegate seemed offended that my ‘cavity’ was showing (my arss was hanging out…oopth…) Next, we were invited to Vienna’s Pipe and Drum Burns Night, both by the British Embassy and by Sandra Brown VBE, founder of the Moira Anderson Foundation, who had flown in specially to support Road to Change. Sandra and I were given ten minutes to address the audience and a Road to Change collection bucket filled up by the end of the night. After the short Road to Change presentation, I was approached by a lovely couple called James and Gill. Gill is from Scotland and knows some friends of mine from High School and James is Irish but works at The Highlander, Vienna’s Scottish pub. They invited me to bring my guitar down to the pub the following night to sing and raise even more money. James explained that he had been quite struck by the talk, remarking how stunned he felt when I said, in front of a whole room of strangers, that I had been sexually abused. I suppose it can be alarming but I imagine it was the same thirty years ago, if a woman had stood up in front of a crowd and admitted she has breast cancer. Today we can talk about that. We have football players wearing pink to support them. Hopefully it wont take three more decade before victims of sexual violence can talk about it without alarming the whole room.

Sadly, despite our best efforts, no Austrian Government Ministers or MPs would speak with me but there are other ways to effect change. I continued to network with organisations. ‘Happy kids’, specialised in healing and preventing child sexual abuse and their excellent service is currently full to capacity. We also dropped into the offices of Ecpat, and collected an English translation of the Austrian ‘Statute of limitations’. No point getting into detail, it just needs abolished…Final stop was at FRA (Fundamental Rights Agency) An EU research body who collect the latest info on every aspect of social, economical and environmental change across the EU. They gave me piles of new publications on LGBT rights and victims of crime but the most recent one specifically on children’s rights will be completed soon. There research is also available on line, I’ll post links when the children study is published.

So, a busy and productive week for awareness, networking and fundraising but not a great week for policy change. Thankfully, I have a plan B…Till then, next stop Bratislava…

Thanks for reading :)

Matty x

Road to Change on

Austrian TV

Austrian British Embassy Podcast

Austrian Press