In memory of John: finding his tribe

Earlier this year, Refugees Rock received a gift that stopped us in our tracks - a donation made in memory of John, a young climber from Liverpool whose life was cut short far too soon, but who spent it exactly where he was meant to be: on the wall, with his tribe.

John's family, Ian, Lily and Aidan, chose to give £1000 from John's child trust fund to Refugees Rock in his memory. It's an extraordinary act of generosity, and one that reflects exactly who John was. The gift will go towards the everyday, practical things that make it possible for people seeking asylum to get to a climbing wall in the first place and keep coming back - funding bus fares to sessions. We are incredibly grateful for this support.

We didn't know John ourselves, but we didn't need to meet him to understand who he was. His friend and coach, Ben Fitz, who ran the Advanced Bouldering Class and the teen social sessions at The Climbing Hangar in Liverpool, where John was a regular, wrote a reflection on John's life so beautiful that it felt right to share a little of it here, with his family's blessing.

Ben remembers the fist bump that started it all, and the weekend that turned into every weekend, and then multiple times a week, until John, in Ben's words, "became part of the furniture." He remembers a teenager who was "quick-witted," who made a coach 20 years his senior laugh, and who was the ringleader of a Thursday-night "tribe" that, as Ben puts it, ran amok about the centre "like it was theirs (because, in all sincerity, it was theirs)."

That tribe had its own in-jokes, including a fully formed parody band called ‘Food Fighters’, with every song title a food pun. Ben writes that whenever someone new turned up wanting to join, John "welcomed them without hesitation, with his playful, friendly spirit."

The moment that has stayed with Ben most, though, is one he didn't even witness directly. One evening after the teen social ended, John and his friends stayed on to climb, working a yellow route - one of the harder grades at the centre. From behind the front desk, Ben heard a huge cheer arise. John had sent his first yellow. When Ben found him afterwards, John's face wasn't beaming - it was, Ben writes, "almost neutral," the look of someone "trying to process" being cheered on by friends, regulars and strangers alike, all delighted simply to see him succeed.

"It meant you had truly found your tribe," Ben writes.

That spirit held even through illness. Ben recalls John returning to the wall after surgery, never complaining, never slowing down for long, and always asking to join the competition squad despite being told to take it easy. "Nobody and nothing is going to stop us from climbing, mate," Ben remembers telling him, because he knew, in his heart, that he'd have done the same.

It's that idea of climbing as a way to find your people, your tribe, your family, no matter what else is going on in your life, that connects John's story so directly to the work Refugees Rock exists to do. We climb with people seeking asylum for many of the same reasons John kept coming back to the wall: because it's where you're allowed to try hard, fail, cheer for someone's send as loudly as your own, let go of your troubles for a moment, and most importantly... belong.

In John's memory, that's exactly what his donation will help us keep doing: welcoming people in, cheering them on, and helping them find their tribe.

It wasn't only climbing John felt strongly about. He cared about human rights, and about people seeking asylum being treated with the dignity and welcome they deserve. In John's own words, "it doesn't matter how somebody enters the country; they are still human".

Thank you, John. We'll try to do you proud.

With thanks to Ben Fitz for his words, and to John's family for generously allowing us to share them.