Rebekah Housden: Beer-related therapy (in moderation) can help

Running a local bar two nights of the week, I am lucky enough to get all the latest gossip, drama and scandal.

I also get to see people going through the various challenges of life, and I have seen changes in people’s mental health before their closest friends.

With the hours of darkness lengthening, shadows can creep into anyone’s lives – and farmers are no exception.

See also: Rebekah Housden – tup transformation brings lesson in change

About the author

Rebekah Housden

Rebekah Housden is based at Roadhead in Cumbria, and has worked on a farm with 600 ewes for 11 years. She also shares a smallholding of 90 ewes. She is a first-responder, a parish clerk, runs a community bar and caters for rural weddings. 

Read more articles by Rebekah Housden

One evening a team of agricultural contractors descend on the bar. They are weary from this year’s challenges (and they have seen more than most).

These are not lads by any means – they are the boss’s right-hand men, the senior drivers, the old reliables.

Marking the end of a drawn-out silage season by meeting for a few beers, a lot of the faces are long with brows that have remained creased since spring, their eyes tired and dull, with problems weighing on their shoulders.

The banter soon becomes merry with laughter, the pints are flowing. It is as if the sun is rising and darkness seems a distant memory.

I have to remind myself this is the same group of exhausted men who have been pushing against the elements for the past six months.

Outside, a few sets of headlights arrive. Spouses, offspring or friends, talked into taxi service.

Usually as it gets past midnight I am clock-watching and visualising home, but not tonight.

I find myself hoping they don’t get an earful on their return journey. Everyone deserves a chance to relax now and then and forget the troubles they face.

While excessive drinking is never advisable, there is no denying that this ancient art of gathering for beer-related therapy is more appealing to these guys than a sofa session.

There’s no doubting the men who leave laughing and joking are in a better place than the men who arrived. Their worries have lifted and faded for the time being.

I’ve heard it said that these tough years come round, but we always get through. It is inevitable that darker days are ahead, but the only way through it is together.