Mental Health
Have the tough conversations
Member Georgia Helme delves into the trials and tribulations of looking after your mental health while farming
M
y great, great, greatgrandfather was a dairy farmer with a difference; he milked his herd in the middle of London on Euston Station. He had been uprooted from Wales, his surrounding family, and his Welsh speaking community as the British Army wanted to convert the land into a firing range, and so he was pushed to start a new business in what was a foreign country to him. He set up a town dairy on Hampstead Road, which was a success by all accounts. However, the dark clouds of depression enveloped him after repeated outbreaks of Foot and Mouth Disease swept through his herd. He lost his livestock, livelihood, and he took his own life. I can only imagine the turmoil that he went through without a support network of neighbours and a modern-day welfare system. Incredibly, his stoical wife brought up their four young children and took on the business. Mental health struggles aren’t a new phenomenon for farmers, but for generations those dark clouds that are
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prone to creep in at our most vulnerable moments have been talked about in hushed tones, or not spoken of at all. This tragedy had been shrouded in secrecy for 130 years. Today, farmers are going through tumultuous change and are looking towards having to make radical adjustments themselves. We now have brilliant professional support systems and safety nets in place that our forefathers didn’t have and that my ancestor was so lacking. Yet, a recent survey by RABI found that more than a third of farmers could be struggling with depression. Fear in discussing mental wellbeing is an added pressure that doesn’t have to exist in our modern society. In more recent times, my family have also experienced some trials and tribulations. Back in the 1990s, my parents decided to diversify. I myself have branched out into an urban industry, recently graduating with a media and journalism degree and now working in current affairs, but I’m always drawn back to my rural roots. While analysing the portrayal of rural
affairs and rural areas in factual television for my dissertation project, I found that our idyllic countryside is often rose-tinted by the media and people don’t take rural issues as seriously as they should. Here, I look at some of the the evolving stresses and strains in rural communities that others may struggle to understand.
Climate change
Oh God, the weather. If we need rain, the clouds shut up shop. A frost to kill off disease? It’s the mildest new year on record. A bit of sunshine? We get relentless downpours. Global warming doesn’t mean that we can top up the t-shirt tan, but that our
January 2022
13/01/2022 11:21:10
