Joe Barker published a video on TikTok in the aftermath of his 21st birthday, talking about wellbeing, and how he has struggled in recent years with his mental health and the pressures of family illness and managing the farm.

The online response was huge - and he's become a champion for wellbeing, regularly posting videos with tips, advice and honest chat.

He's @JoeBarkerfromYorkshire on social channels (even though he now farms in Lanarkshire), and posts on YouTube as Real Talk Rural.

In this episode, recorded at the Farmstrong Scotland stand at the Royal Highland Show, Joe's chatting with producer Dave Howard.

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Important note: there is brief discussion of suicide in this episode.

If you’re concerned about yourself or someone else, it's important that you talk to someone.

Contact your doctor, RSABI’s 24-hour helpline: 0808 123 4555, Breathing Space: 0800 838 587, or Samaritans (24-hours): 116 123.

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Explore Foundations of Mental Strength

Read more about Farmstrong's Foundations of Mental Health programme: https://www.farmstrongscotland.org.uk/news-events/farmstrong-scotland-launches-new-mental-strength-programme-in-response-to-survey-findings Contact us to find out more or book a session: [email protected]

Hello, Joe.

Hi, how are you doing?

I'm Dave from Farmstone.

Nice to meet you.

Hello.

This is Sarah Stephen with Blether together from Farmstrong, Scotland.

This time we're coming to you from the most important event in the agricultural calendar, the Royal Highland Show.

How's it going?

It's stressful, this showing business, right?

Oh, no, it's not stressful.

Well, getting here is probably the biggest stress, getting everything prepped.

But when you get here, you just steady away, just try and enjoy it.

That's what we're here for, isn't it?

We start out in the sheep lines at the Royal Highland show with a young competitor.

Here to help tee up this episode is producer Dave.

Hi, Sarah.

Tell us a bit about Joe.

Oh, it was great to meet Joe.

So he's originally from Yorkshire, he's been farming in Lanarkshire for a number of years now and he's become something of a well being champion after first sharing a social media video.

It was his 21st birthday and he made quite an emotional speech about his mental health and the kind of things that he'd been through.

And the morning after, when he was clearing up, he published this video about the pressures he was facing and the things he was dealing with.

I did a speech at the party and it was really, really well backed by everybody.

After I'd finished my speech about men's mental health and definitely especially farmers.

The post that he made went basically viral and he has become as well as a young farmer, a and a young carer, a champion for mental health and he's, you know, he's getting all sorts of traction and really cutting through with that kind of younger population of farmers.

Now, Joe's dad has been poorly with back and heart problems since Joe was 15, so he's had a lot of extra responsibility from a young age and he's faced a few other difficulties and obstacles along the way that have all kind of stacked up to have an impact on his mental health.

But the key thing, Sarah, the really inspiring thing, is that Joe's had brilliant support.

He's done great work to get out of those difficulties and he's really living life to the full.

He's enjoying his farming, he's playing five a side football with the young farmers and he says he really wants to help others in the farming community and I think probably further afield as well, the impact he's having to get and stay well mentally.

Oh, he sounds like a lovely, brave young man.

And we, we say often on this podcast, don't we how important it is when people do share and they open up.

It just helps so many others.

Well, thanks so much, Dave.

We're looking forward to listening to that episode and let's get on with it.

Here's Joe Barker.

Alright, so after the excitement of showing in the ring here at the Highland Show, Joe's come to join us outside the Farmstrong marquee for a bit of a blather.

Joe, how are you doing?

Yeah, doing great, thank you very much.

There's a bit of a buzz.

Especially sat out here watching people go by.

There's a bit of a buzz and around the sheep rings is a bit of a buzz as well.

So really nice see lots of people about at the show.

How has it been this morning?

Oh, this morning it's been a breeze.

It's been lovely.

Really enjoyed it.

Maybe not quite strong enough to come, but again, it just benchmarks where your stock's at and what you need to do to improve, to compete against other people.

So, yeah, I enjoyed it.

And again, nice to see everybody out and see what stock's about.

So, yeah, really good.

What are some of those things you've picked up this morning?

It's not somebody that I learn verbally, but I've seen some different ways that people dress their sheep.

Little things that I noticed that I can go back and implement and try out and figure it out.

And it's just something that I've done for years, like the years that I've done just teaching myself.

And if I want to figure something out, I'll ask somebody or try it myself.

Because it's you that's the pedigree showing enthusiast.

That's not been in your family?

Yeah, well, my granddad used to show cattle and my dad used to have pedigree Belgian blues, but never really got into the showing.

You know, I got to start with the blue Texels with Mum and dad support and then got into the Belltex.

And yeah, it's just going from strength to strength all takes time.

But I've got time on my side, so hopefully it'll come to flower and we'll get a go.

Very good.

Now, you say you got time on your side.

You're how old?

21.

21.

21, Yeah.

Something quite big happened to you on your 21st birthday.

Tell us that story from the beginning, if you don't mind.

So, yeah, I'll tell you the full story.

We started off coming out of school.

I was always into the sport.

I never really was into the farming.

15 Covid happened lots going on, lots of implications were happening with my father's health.

So I was sat doing the schoolwork inside and I was seeing people struggling on the farm and I was like, oh, I need to be outside.

So I just spoke to my teachers and they said, well, we've got people that are just not doing the work at all.

So you've got a reason not to do the work, you've got things that you want to be doing outside, so it's fine.

You, as long as you communicate with us, it's fine.

Go, go and help.

So I went outside and started helping.

Dad started to deteriorate.

He came off a quad bike, bust his collarbone.

Then he ended up having a heart operation.

Then he had a back operation that went wrong.

Came out of school, went onto the farm, really enjoyed it, took on quite a lot.

We had a couple of members, staff and they kept on letting us down and it was me and Mum and another member of staff and a few friends that were helping out because obviously dad wasn't, wasn't able to be able to do stuff.

He was still managing, which is really good.

But quite a lot fell onto my shoulders and we kept on working away.

We had two small holdings.

We only owned 30 acres.

We'd have about four and a half thousand, 5,000 bread and breakfast pigs.

We had 200 cattle fattening all the time because we supplied six local butchers, which we really enjoyed.

It's really, really nice having your own style stuff, come back through through the butchers and being able to say when you go to the pub or that's our bit of steak or something like that, it's really, really nice.

We also had 400 breeding y Suffolk Crosses.

Mainly we would lamb in December and March, so we had a constant flow of lambs for the butchers as well.

And we had about 50 suckler cows as well.

So we had our calves to come through.

We also had a small contracting business, so we bailed all our own straw as well.

And you were 15 when you were.

Taking on this responsibility.

Got to 17 and you're obviously trying to be a youngster, go out and play your sport.

But then you would come home and you'd be tired and you get to 18, you go out for a drink, you get home late, you'd be tired and then it's just not worth going out, it's not worth having a drink.

Yeah, it just started to build up and get on top of me, got on top of Mum and got on top of the whole family.

Something wasn't Quite right.

Something really needed to change and we discussed it and we.

One day I saw a farm in Selkirk on my phone.

I said to dad, oh, have you seen this?

And dad said, yeah, I did, but I didn't think he'd want to look at it.

Anyway, that started our journey off to go to Scotland.

So what was the rationale, then?

The.

The farm was in Scotland.

The plan was to move.

I didn't realize it was Selkirk.

I thought you were in Lanarkshire.

We are in Lanarkshire.

That was the first farm that we saw.

We went and tended for, but we didn't get it.

And then that started our journey.

We were probably.

We were about a year looking and before we got a farm.

But that had made your mind up to make that change and make that move.

Yeah, we fell in love with that farm in Selkirk and we were like, yeah, this is what we're doing now.

Our family's thinking was, for the Future, you've got 250 acres of your own ground.

We've got 400 acres that's rented on the hill around us, but it's all there.

Like in Yorkshire, we're doing 40 mile radius.

We had bits rented all over the spot, which again, added to your workload, because to get anywhere, you half an hour to get to just check your stock and when you had everything else to do, it just wasn't working.

So obviously everything in a ring fence and then we actually owned it.

We weren't dealing with landlords as well.

30 Acres to 250 is a remarkable thing to do, especially with dad being first generation.

I think I'm so proud of him to be able to say that he's done that.

And it's just such a shame that he can't go and enjoy that as well.

He's enjoying it through me and my little brother now, because he can't go and do the work and graft it.

So that's.

That's another thing.

Scotland seems to support the young farmers a little bit more as well.

That was kind of our thinking as well.

Obviously, you still get the single farm payment up in Scotland and again, land's half the price.

Well, we sold our land for, I don't know, 15, 16,000 an acre up in Scotland, it's about six.

So that's all.

Everything that added up for us, it just made sense.

For all sorts of reasons, it made sense.

So the thing we're building up to is hearing about the fact that you had something of a mental health crisis.

Certainly a Mental health, major wobble, we'll call it that.

And I think it's worth just sort of drawing out the sorts of things that lead to that sort of thing happening in somebody's mind.

And what it sounds like to me is it was just pressure upon pressure upon pressure, worry.

I've done a bit of work in the past with young carers.

So without putting too fine a point on it, Joe, you became a young carer and you took on the responsibilities of running the farm.

Yeah, yeah.

It's no surprise to me that that was quite difficult.

Oh, yeah.

But you just gotta.

You gotta keep going.

And I think that's the thing in agriculture.

You just say, oh, I'm fine, I'll be right, and you just carry on.

But it got to a point where we couldn't have carried on the way it was.

Number of times that I came back home and I said, we need to do something.

Please can we do something?

And that led us to me going to the doctors.

And I was so against it.

I didn't want to go to the doctors.

I said, no, there's nothing wrong with me.

Went and spoke to the doctor and I got my dad and the girlfriend at the time left the room and spoke to the doctor and he just said, it's not depression, it's just pure pressure.

Write a letter.

And that's something that I would say.

If you're struggling and there's something going on between family members and you're finding it hard to verbally get it out, write it down.

Even if you don't give it to them, it gets it on paper and then it gets you moving forward.

You're not stuck.

It's the first step.

It's that first little step that was like the first time.

And then that's why we got to start moving to Scotland.

And then we got moved up and then we had the carry on with the lambing, which was really like rock bottom.

It was awful.

It really was.

You've moved to Scotland, you're looking for a fresh start.

You're looking to draw a line under troubles.

What happens next with the lambing?

So we sold our livestock from Yorkshire and we obviously sold the livestock.

That livestock money was going to go into the dairy cows, but that didn't quite work.

That all fell through.

So we started investing more into the pedigrees because obviously thinking about the future.

Mum and dad were very supportive of me.

Put the monies into pedigrees because that's what I'm going to go on and hopefully do some good with.

So we put the monies into the pedigrees and we're all raring to go.

Looking forward to it.

Moved the sheep up, got to lamb in time.

And I won't go too much into detail because it's still with the solicitors and stuff like that, but we bought some feed.

We got three weeks into lamb and something wasn't quite right and then we just kept on losing lambs and we started looking for things to, like, find out what the problem was.

And we were starting blaming each other.

Like me and Mum were in the lambing shed, we were blaming each other and it wasn't a nice environment.

Anyway, dad just came in and said, we've tried everything, we tried.

How about we swap the feed?

So we swapped the feed and within two weeks you could see the difference.

Within the, like, the end of January lambs and the February lambs, there was a massive difference.

But in that process, we lost 70 pedigree lambs and we scanned at 170%.

Like there was 100 out of.

Because there's 100 yows.

We lost 70 lambs out of 170, which, like you said, we were coming up to make an impression.

We didn't want to go and complain about the food because this Yorkshireman's just come up and his food's not right and it was just a sticky position.

We didn't have that support because we were used to, like, Mum and Dad's build the business down in Yorkshire.

30 Years of support, knew who to go to.

We come up to Scotland, where the hell do we go?

I don't want to ring my mates up back down in Yorkshire or this Scotland job or we're having a shitlaming and this is bad and this is bad and this is bad and then you want to meet.

Meet people and have a good impression, but then you don't want to go to somebody you've just met that you don't really know, but you call in a friend at the Young Farmers or anything and put all your problems on them as well.

So we were really stuck and we were just bashing our heads against each other at home trying to figure this problem out and it just got to.

It really got to me.

And I ended up sitting on the quad bike.

I'll never forget I was sitting on the quad bike.

I just didn't Want to be here anymore.

And a couple of days went by and I said, I can't live with this voice in my head.

There was this voice in my head, it was awful.

And I ended up ringing a local counsellor and I took myself to counselling.

I said to Mum, dad, I really just need that time on a Monday.

And after a bit of discussion and went to counselling.

That really helped.

And if by magic, I came across something on my phone, a mindset course all about your subconscious and all, all about your inner voice and it was awesome.

It's changed my life.

And that's, that's basically the story.

And since that had the summer, really enjoyed it, got to know people in Scotland and then got to my 21st.

And after all that, after all that, my biggest thing is that we must celebrate life.

I'd rather be there at my mate's birthday party than my mate's funeral.

Much rather.

I'd rather be there, shoulder to cry on, person to hug, somebody to say hello, big smile than them not being there at all because I've got friends, I've had family to commit suicide.

It's not what we want.

And I think that's my big emphasis is you need to celebrate life because we don't know how much we've got of it and I think it's so precious as well.

So that's why we had the 21st, we had the young farmers come up from Yorkshire, we had an exchange so everybody had somewhere to stay.

So that worked really, really well and we had a really good party and we were raising a bit of charity, I think it's Neil Hugs foundation we raised a bit of money for.

And I just said a few words about.

I didn't go into depth of the story, but I just said a few words about struggling.

And it was quite scary how many people came up to me and said, I'm sorry, Joe, we hadn't realized you were struggling, but we've had a bit of a carry on as well.

We've struggled as well.

And that just opened my eyes up.

I said, this problem wasn't just about me, it's an industry, it's a worldwide thing, it's national, it's not just me, it's everybody.

There's something going on.

And that's why I posted the video when I was tidying up after the 21st and that blew up 30 or 40,000 views.

And ever since then it's just gone from strength to strength.

The amount of messages and support that I've got, helping People working with some of the marriors and charities, Farm Strong Rsabi.

Just getting the message out there, helping as many people as I can and I really just want to make an impact and yeah, just get that message across.

You really enjoy, enjoy your life as much as you can because you don't know how much you've got of it.

And we'd much rather celebrate life now than be at a funeral.

Absolutely.

When I get going and get into my story and why I do what I do, I'm really passionate and just hope that it reaches the people that really need it and they get that support and figure out whether they've got that voice in their head or they're struggling with something that there is always a way through it.

Like something that we.

Or I've started saying this last year is there is no problems, there's only solutions.

And there is always a solution if you want to look for it.

And you might not always have the answer, but somebody does and it's being able to ask for that help.

I think what's really interesting, hearing you speak, Joe, is that a.

You're an absolute sort of case study of how depression and anxiety can get on top of you, like a layering and a layering and a layering of difficulty and stress and worry.

But then much more importantly than that, you're also a case study for how you then get out of that issue and that problem.

So what did you do?

First of all, you noticed, right?

You noticed that something was wrong.

You need to be aware, aware that you've actually got, as horrible as it sounds, you've got a problem, there's something going wrong, there's something going on, you're aware that something needs to change.

And then I would say seeking out help, you can help yourself.

There is ways that you can help yourself through writing, through journaling and then talking to a pal, talking to a professional, voicing that awareness and then going from there.

There's so many different tools that we can do as well because how often.

Are we told, particularly in farming, I think, because it's quite a sort of a masculine old school industry.

How often are we told?

Just crack on, keep your head down, crack on.

That's the thing, isn't it?

I'll be right.

That's what we say in Yorkshire.

I'll be right.

And you just put your head down and crack on.

You cut yourself.

Oh, I'll be right.

You just carry on.

Somebody said to me, if you break your arm, somebody says, oh, how have you done that?

When You've got something going on in your head.

It's not visible, you can't see it.

Nobody's asked, nobody's aware.

So when you're, when you're down in the dumps or something's going on, it's okay to voice it because you happily say, oh, I broke my arm, I did this.

But when it comes to mentally and you say, oh, this is going on and I'm struggling with this, people have that fear around talking about it because they think they're going to be judged or they're less of a person, but it's just exactly the same as breaking your arm.

Yeah, but actually, the more people that do stand up and talk about it, and the more Joe Barkers there are out there in the world, the less that stigma will be and the more people will feel comfortable moving forward.

So more power to you, mate.

Thank you very much.

And that's what I'm here for.

That's what I'm doing.

If I can just help that one person.

That's what I'm trying to do.

I'm interested to find out a bit more about.

So you posted that video online, was it TikTok, right?

Yeah, it was on TikTok, yeah.

Yeah.

And then you saw the numbers just blow up and presumably there were comments and posters and sharers.

What's going through your mind at that point?

Are you going, uh, oh, I don't know.

I just took it all.

Actually, thinking back about it, I just took it all in my stride.

It was like, right, okay.

But obviously the forefront wasn't about the followers and the views and everything.

It was just getting the message out there and helping that person that really needed the help.

And then it's just built on from there, I guess.

And were the commenters all positive?

Because social media is not always the most positive.

I'll tell you what I think over the last year of me personal, since October, I think I've had two negative comments.

The support that I have, I am extremely grateful that I've had the support.

I had a bit of fear posting on.

I've started posting on Instagram and being more widespread and on Facebook.

I had a bit of fear doing that, but I've broken that fear and the support I've got is amazing.

Yeah, some great friends, some great people, some great charities, happy to work alongside me and really work along with it.

So, yeah, you probably knew this question was coming.

What would you say to a 15 year old now, who is in your shoes that you were in then?

What have you learned the lessons, you've learned the hard way.

What would you want to pass on to somebody else?

I would say, I would say before, even younger, just, I said to my little brother in school, you try hard.

Don't get me wrong, try hard, but enjoy yourself.

Don't sweat the small stuff like when you're in school, it's good to get the grades, it's good to have your attendance do that.

But don't sweat it.

Just take it all in your stride and enjoy yourself.

Because that's what life is here for.

If you're not enjoying it, what are we doing it for?

That's what we need to be doing.

We need to enjoy ourselves.

And yes, you're gonna have bad days, you're gonna have days that you don't, you don't want to get out of bed.

You're gonna have days that you're doing a job that you don't want to do.

But if we can have them moments and really reflect on the perfect moments in life because we do have so many different perfect moments and if we can stand back and really see the perfect moments, I think that's wonderful as well.

So being able to just being aware of yourself and see the perfect moments, I think that's something that I would definitely push to somebody.

But then to say, so my 15 year old self, Something my teacher always would tell me, you're capable of anything if you put your mind to it.

If you have your mindset that you're gonna do it, you're gonna do it.

And the only person that's gonna talk you out of it is yourself.

And it's all up here.

It's all up here.

And that's why up there is so important to look after.

But how many of us do journal a little bit?

How many of us are looking after upstairs?

Especially in the farming community as it's.

I'll be right.

Are you proud of how far you've come, Jo?

Because goodness me, what an articulate, upstanding young bloke you are.

Oh, thank you very much.

I'm very grateful.

I'm very grateful for the opportunities that I have.

Very grateful that I have.

I've had these opportunities that I can help people and people have helped me as well.

And I suppose that's the thing.

I've had the help.

I want to help other people.

And yes, I'm.

Yeah, I'm proud, I'm proud of saying that I'm on my two feet because there was a time that I didn't think I would Be.

And that was a scary time.

So.

Yeah.

But I'm extremely grateful.

I'm extremely grateful to be here and living life and enjoying myself.

I would say that.

Well done, Joe.

Just to finish up, because we've talked about how you got out of the dark place.

Farm Strong is much more about, though, how we keep ourselves in good shape.

Oh, definitely not about how we kind of, you know, dig ourselves out of the very, very great difficulties that some people face, but the sort of regular maintenance, the sort of, you know, keeping a check on ourselves and keeping ourselves in good order that we do.

What are some of the things that you do on a.

Or are you able to notice, for example, when it's time to get off farm, when it's time to take a break, when it's time to do some social stuff?

You play five a side football.

Right.

With the local young farmers.

Are you aware of, you know, when it's time to down tools, check in with yourself, those sorts of things?

Definitely.

I think you've got to be careful of them busy times, you know, that them busy times are coming up and a lot of farmers, their busy times are all the time.

So we've got to be aware of that and being okay to take a break because a lot of us are grafters and think it's a bad job taking a break, but it's okay to take a break.

It's okay to have five minutes and take a break.

It's okay to have a day out to the show and get that.

It's okay to enjoy your life.

Yeah, exactly.

But people enjoy the work and there's nothing wrong with that.

But you'll enjoy it more if you're full of energy and not feeling groggy and just taking that time away.

So, yeah, getting out, connecting socially, because that brings your energy up.

Getting out, playing some sport, going to the pub.

Some people aren't sporty.

Some people just like that social connection.

There's so many different things that people do.

And that's why I'm doing my podcast and trying to speak to other people is because I know what I've done.

I'm a sporty guy.

I like going to the.

I like playing my five or five football, I like going to the gym.

I read some books.

Sometimes that doesn't always happen, but I read some books, sometimes I do my journal.

But that isn't for everybody and everybody's different, isn't it?

So that's why I speak to other people, because other people like going to the pubs and other people like Going on walks or walking the dog or going out with friends.

There's so many different things that we can do and it's each to our own, but we need to keep trying different things and enjoying life.

We'll finish up.

You mentioned your podcast.

What's it called?

We should plug it.

It's Real Talk Rural on YouTube and then all my social media is Joe Barkerfrom Yorkshire on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook.

There's quite a lot of episodes recorded.

But I need to get you on the job.

I need to.

I've got to edit them.

It just takes quite a while and I've been so busy with silage and getting to the Highland Show, I haven't managed to get them up.

But there'll be four or five episodes coming out at some point.

Real Talk Rural.

Real Talk Rural.

Brilliant, Jo.

Joe Barker, thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you.

Thank you for having me.

Really enjoyed it.

Hope I haven't chatted too much.

There's no such thing as chatting too much, Joe.

It's great to hear from that young man, Joe Barker.

We'll put links in the episode description to where he is online.

Go and connect with him.

Thanks also to the brilliant producer Dave for filling in at the Royal Highland Show.

Find Farm Strong Scotland online.

FarmStrongScotland.org Our how's it going tool is a brilliant, easy access way to think about your mental well being and what you might be able to do to find help if you need it.

We'll be back with Blether together again soon.

Have a great summer.