2025 01 Spring with bleed - Flipbook - Page 72
Our very own Trudy was part of a phone -in
discussion about the stresses on the farming
community recently. This is a transcript of her
conversation with Tina Daheley on Radio 29s Jeremy
Vine show.
Tina : Trudy Herniman is in North Devon. And Trudy, I'm sorry to
hear you lost your mum when you were 23. Can you tell us a bit
more about her life and what happened?
Trudy : Yes, this happened 26 years ago. Mum was a farmer9s wife. She
helped out on the farm. She wasn't born into it, and I suppose the thing
was isolation. She'd moved onto this family farm and suddenly she had
other people who were her responsibility. And I think she found it very
difocult to manage. She'd also lost my sister to cot death. So that's now
I'm older I think these are all things that contributed. But yeah, the
farming way of life! Dad still works all hours and I think when you don't
come from that… I work as an insurance advisor, so I go out and see
people on the farm and sit around the kitchen table and I'm asking them
questions about their business, their family, how things are going, how
prootable things are, and they all provoke quite strong
feelings and quite interesting conversations.
Tina : You lost your mum to suicide and we're hearing
other stories of people who've ended up in a very
dark place. You spend a lot of your time talking to
farmers about their families and businesses. What do
you think's happening? Is it harder now, do you
think, to be a farmer?
Trudy : I think things are quite isolating. People are on
their own. I go to market and some of the people that go
to market are maybe the older generation. When they sit
around and have a cup of tea they talk about prices, they don't talk
about their feelings. If you walk in and you go, `how are you?9 They just
go, `yeah, I'm one9. But if you take somebody to one side and go, `how
are you really9 they're more likely to open up. What you tend to see
somebody who's got a bit of a declining interest. They maybe look a bit
dishevelled or unshaven, and that might be just because they're busy
lambing or harvesting, but it might be that actually they're not taking
pride in their appearance and that's almost a trigger. And then as one of
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