Newcastle pub meet up to tackle loneliness
A community-led campaign inviting people to sit together at pub tables across the UK are in Newcastle for the first time this evening (19th Feb).
They say it aims to combat loneliness by creating a low pressure space where real human connection can happen.
Dean Perryman, founder of Empty Chairs, tells us he came up with the idea after losing his best mate Rob to suicide in November last year.
He said: "Someone will just go to a local venue near them, so it's normally a pub or a coffee shop, and they'll book a table, they'll be wearing something orange, and if anyone sees them in there, they can just sit down. It's an open invite to anyone who would like some company.
"I didn't know what to do with the emotions of the grief and the guilt that go with losing someone who was that close to me through that means. And I was like, what am I good at? And I was like, well, I'm okay at chatting and I like a pint. So maybe if I just go to the pub and kind of tell the internet that I'm going to be there, maybe someone will show up if they need a conversation.
"Day one of doing this was the first thing I ever put online. From about the third day, people started showing up, and it just snowballed to where we are now.
"It's just such a simple idea and I think at the start it really started from a place of like trying to connect with people who needed somewhere to go to talk and it's now become a lovely combination of things.
"A lot of people will come the first time and it's very much just like a pint or a coffee and making new friends. You come and you chat and you kind of feel out the vibe. And then people that come a second or third time, if they had something that they really wanted to get off their chest, they then know it's a safe space to do that."