Last Saturday’s Kenilworth Agricultural Show took place in glorious sunshine and was, as ever, an engaging and informative showcase of various aspects of rural life. Congratulations to all those who exhibited or competed there and particular thanks to those who worked so hard to organise and put on the show, which is a huge undertaking. Events like this are an opportunity for the farming community to get together, but also an important chance for the farming and non-farming worlds to intersect. Farming underpins much of our environment in an area like this, but it could be much better understood. The countryside we enjoy and the food we eat are delivered by the efforts of farmers and the challenges they face in doing so need to be appreciated. Some of those challenges, perhaps hard to appreciate in a sunny field full of people on Saturday, arise from loneliness and poor mental health. Farming can be a solitary profession, with support networks not always as readily available as they may be in other occupations.
I have written before about my constituents Andy and Lynda Eadon, who have done so much already to raise awareness of the mental health challenges that young farmers face- in particular, in memory of Len, the son they lost to suicide. Andy will soon be driving a tractor the length of the country with Len’s Light mounted on the front – a symbol not of despair but of hope – hope that help and support will be available to far more people for whom it can make a huge difference. It was a particular privilege to join Andy on the tractor as it did a couple of laps around the show ring on Saturday. We hope the tractor will visit the Palace of Westminster on its journey and there, and everywhere it goes, help the Eadons continue to make young people in rural occupations more aware of their own mental health and that of their friends and loved ones, and of where they can go if they need help. You can follow their work (and the progress of the Len’s Light tractor) at https://leneadon.muchloved.com.
