Prince William raises awareness for farmers' mental health

Royal Family Channel

Prince William has met the next generation of young farmers, including Kaleb Cooper and Charlie Ireland, stars of hit series Clarkson's Farm. Cooper jokingly greeted William with "great hair", as they stood on the grounds of a 250-acre nature reserve. The Prince of Wales took the opportunity to give some mental wellbeing advice for the young farmers, saying, "have a toolbox that is your mental toolbox, and in it you need to have certain tools in there to deal with certain problems that come along in life. And if you don't have that tool, then go and find somebody who will help you". It has been revealed that William will appear on an episode of Clarkson's Farm. Report by Brooksl. Like us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/itn and follow us on Twitter at http://twitter.com/itn

Transcript

00:30Hello, good to see you. How are you? Very well, thank you. The last time we saw each

00:56other was in Birmingham, wasn't it? It was, it was. You mentioned the Aubergine

00:59Emoji, it was your favourite. Yes, it was. Thank you for reminding me about that.

01:03But it's nice to be able to be in nature, especially with an agri-cultural interest in farming, so

01:08got to meet some amazing people today. Yeah, brilliant. Are you still doing radio as well?

01:11Yes, yes. Excellent, it's been a good one. It's nice to have a bit of both, balance a bit.

01:15Get outside, see the fresh air. So, it's good to have you along today. Thank you,

01:19lovely to see you again. Appreciate it. How are you? Nice to see you. We saw each other

01:22very recently. Very recently, yeah. It's a bit dry today. Well, nice to have you along,

01:26really good to see you. Very good, thank you. Very nice to see you. You were speaking about

01:30sort of management and planning? Six sessions, trying to get the conversation with Dad and Mum,

01:34with my parents. Yep. So, rather than sort of saying, what am I? These two don't do that much

01:39introduction, it's good. Very nice to meet you. Lovely to meet you. Nice to meet you too.

01:43Nice to meet you. Very nice to meet you. You said that very well. Thank you. Good grey hair.

01:50Yeah, 6.30. Looks quite smart. Thank you.

01:52You've got a shirt on, haven't you? Yep.

01:58I'm a tyrant after today, I'll go into the work.

02:05And also, I was just saying to the others about having that first conversation,

02:09particularly with succession planning, it's quite important to break the taboo of having a

02:12conversation because it builds up and it's quite worried. If you don't know what's going to happen

02:15in the future, everyone gets very worried about that. So, you can at least start those conversations

02:18gently, then everyone just feels, okay, we can work towards it and understand it.

02:23Yeah. It's a strain on the mental health as well, isn't it? That's a big thing. I think a lot more

02:28people are talking about it these days, though. A hundred percent. A lot more people are picking

02:32up the phone, just ringing the neighbour and just speaking to the neighbour. Or me, I mean,

02:35my phone goes. I know, you've probably become a bit of a counsellor now. Both of you are.

02:39250 calls a day, I think, I get, roughly. Just don't break them, don't realise it.

02:44Or run out of seed, for example. But no, it's good. I think a lot more people are talking about

02:49it, which is a good thing. There's lots of charities, isn't there? Lots of charities.

02:54What do you think we can do to help with rural isolation and loneliness and things like that?

02:57Because obviously, you live and work.

02:59Putting together a charity and, you know, last year we had 4,000 members of the farming

03:06community in Herefordshire access one part of the service. And for His Royal Highness to

03:12come on board is just, it's incredible. I can't describe the feeling of, you know,

03:20the British agriculture is under stress, beyond stress.

03:24But I do think we're heading the right way and I'm excited by that journey and that progress.

03:31I set out to talk about mental health. I never realised quite what I stumbled into

03:38and realised that once you scratch away at the surface,

03:41the nation's mental health was very fragile and almost unspoken about. And I think over the years,

03:48we've done better at talking about that. There are, like I say, still hard to reach parts of society.

03:52There's an idea between beautiful and when we have, you know,

03:55people come to our shepherd's huts to, oh, you're so lucky.

03:58If you want to imagine how many tools you guys have on the farm,

04:09have a toolbox that is your mental toolbox. And in it, you need to have certain tools in there

04:13to deal with certain problems that come along in life. And if you don't have that tool,

04:17then go and find somebody who will help you because people like Sam and Emily can do that.

04:22They can provide you with that extra tool that we don't have, because not everyone is to have

04:26every tool. We just don't. There are lots of reasons why we don't. That's because of the

04:29experience, because of the never chance to do it, the timing, training, whatever it might be,

04:34we've not had that moment or that chance to have it. But if you don't have that tool,

04:39don't be afraid to go and ask somebody for a bit of help to ask what that tool is.

04:43There are plenty of ways to get that tool. And for me, particularly breaking, you know,

04:48we talked about the work-life balance, breaking that cycle where you can, which I know in the

04:53farming world is almost impossible, bearing in mind you live, breathe, sleep, you know,

04:56everything around you is there. But try and find a way to come away from that. Otherwise,

05:01you find yourself talking about the same things that bother you on a day-to-day basis.

05:04And it stays within the family and goes round and round in circles. And it goes very walk of life.

05:09We always need to come away from that and have time out, go do some things that are fun,

05:13go and have a laugh, go do something completely different. So the mind has a chance to rest and

05:17go and think about other things. I worry how much we're on our phones and data, you know,

05:23most of us in here will sit here and say, we looked at our phones, the first thing you do

05:26when you wake up in the morning, last thing you do go at night, you check your phones.

05:29We've got to get out of that habit because mentally that is not good for all of us.

05:32It's your brain is not resting, your brain is processing so much information that it's never

05:37evolved fast enough to do. And at some point in the future, there'll be people's brains who

05:41will have adapted amazingly evolutionary, but not in the short space of time where it's healthy.

05:47And I think we've got to be really careful that the practices we teach our children,

05:50the practices we're going to do ourselves, the way we live, we've just got to make sure we

05:56take that time out for ourselves to calm down, have a clear think.

05:59But we're learning from them, we're trying to prove ourselves to them.

06:03So it's then very difficult to give yourself breathing space and time off.

06:07Put your phone down, ring your neighbour, ring your friend, just have a general chat.

06:12Every tractor's got Bluetooth nowadays, hasn't it? Or it's actually a passenger seat.

06:15Just invite them in and come and sit with you.

06:18Unless you've got a John Deere and then the Bluetooth comes in and if you've got the volume in

06:22hard.

06:23You know, and having that commercial relationship with you guys. So that's why

06:26We Are Farming Minds has nothing to do necessarily with deductions,

06:29where it's kind of, we support it and look after it, but they're independent charities

06:33kind of managing it. So you guys feel you're talking to somebody who's not.

06:36The introduction system for that, because I think that's quite an important point.

06:40Yeah, we are. And I'll be clear, we're there to really help signpost.

06:45Yeah, it does help unless he's very friendly.

06:48I know. But just having the ability to just clock when someone isn't their normal self,

06:54that's the key. And yeah, I've experienced that a few times.

07:07Hello, your Royal Highness, Will Ketto. Nice to see you too.

07:11Yeah, nice to see you.

07:13Yes, yes. Yeah, yeah. That's my sister.

07:18I guess it's probably more of a generational thing in that they're at the end of their story.

07:25They're at the end.

07:43It's 2010. I can't go down that far.

07:49Right, ready? On the count of three. One, two, three.

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