“You Wouldn’t Have Seen It Coming”: Lincolnshire Farm Worker Urges Others to Talk
With wellbeing at a four-year low, Tom Ware joins Yellow Wellies’ Mind Your Head campaign to encourage farmers to talk
Out on the fields, silence can be loud.
For agricultural worker Tom Ware, that silence often comes during long days alone in a cab, working at the mercy of weather and markets.
"The thoughts have time to manifest in your mind, and dark thoughts have time to take over," he shared.
Tom works across the East Midlands, and continents, but the story is the same wherever he goes: farming can be lonely. And too often, that loneliness is turning deadly.
"I don't want to put a number on it now, but having lost quite a few friends to suicide and one even more recently at Christmas, it hits home more than ever.
"It's always the people that you never thought would."
Tom is backing Yellow Wellies’ Mind Your Head campaign as new research shows farmers’ mental wellbeing has fallen to its lowest level in four years. The agricultural charity is urging people to open up.
“Just start a conversation. You don’t have to say you’re not okay. Just say, ‘Hey mate, how are you doing?’ That conversation can go a long way," said Tom.
“People now more than ever are looking out for each other. No one’s going to say ‘grow up’. They’ll say, ‘Alright mate - let’s sit down and have a chat.’”
In Lincolnshire and beyond, the Lincolnshire Rural Support Network (LRSN) offers vital help for farmers, families and rural workers facing stress, crisis or mental health challenges.
They operate community health huts from Melton Mowbray to Brigg, where farmers can drop in for a check-up and a chat.
"A lot of people will have their blood pressure done because that's safe and "normal"," said LRSN Nurse Heather Dawes.
"It might take a few visits before people say I'm not sleeping very well, I've not problems with this, I don't understand what's going wrong."
And as Yellow Wellies and the Lincolnshire Rural Support Network continue taking support directly into rural communities, the message to farmers is simple: help is closer than you think - and one conversation really can change everything.
The LRSN run confidential helpline from 8 am–8 pm every day of the year on 0800 138 1710.