Charlie

Bethel

Charlie Bethel

INTERVIEW

64

”

”

Sheds are basically

safe spaces where

men and women

can make, do,

repair, or repurpose

things

shedders too much, said ‘hello’, did his

own thing, and after three months he

turned round to the leader and said, “Do

you know I was going to kill myself

before I came here?” And the guy who

runs that shed said, “Job done”. If I do

nothing else with my life, that’s a good

job done.

Now that guy is working again; he’s in

society, he’s got a house, he’s fully back,

engaged having been disenfranchised

from life. We’re certainly not the

solution; but we’re part of the solution.

HS What goes on in a typical shed?

CB Sheds, like makerspaces, are very

different from one another. You might go

to one where the majority of things

happening are to do with

wood-turning. There will be other

sheds that have sewing

machines, electronics, a whole

variety of things.

A key observation is that the

shed is doctrine-free. Each shed

is autonomous, which is a

tremendous strength. It’s alive; it

can develop and grow in different

areas. Some sheds are 200

shedders-strong in big industrial

units. Other sheds may actually be in

sheds; others are in cargo containers,

some are in repurposed toilet blocks;

we’ve got sheds in morgues, sheds in

railway stations – we work with the

Railway Heritage Trust on that. It’s a

symbiotic relationship: they want people

in their properties, to help maintain and

keep the spaces safe and clean. We’ve

got one shed in a school where they

support the caretaker in the school, and

as a result of that, they get their facilities

at a peppercorn rent. I’m sure the shed

has saved the school thousands of

pounds, and the shedders are happy

to help.

HS Who goes to a typical shed?

CB These are guys who like to take

things apart and put them back together

again. The majority of shedders are over

HackSpace Let’s start at the very

beginning: what is a shed?

Charlie Bethel Sheds are basically safe

spaces where men and women can make,

do, repair, or repurpose things. Shed

members will do projects for themselves

in the sheds, or for communities,

charities, or local schools and, as a result

of doing those individual things, it gives

the people going to those sheds (who are

called shedders) a purpose. And it’s that

sense of purpose that is key.

The shed has also been referred to as a

form of therapy that dare not speak its

name, but that’s not why people go.

People go to help somebody else, or to

make something. But as a result of that,

you’ve got people working shoulder to

shoulder. Men don’t talk face to

face; we talk shoulder to shoulder.

Shoulder to shoulder, a man will

share his feelings potentially

more than he would if he went to

the bingo hall or somewhere else.

Part of the problem we find

with retired men is that men

generally (and I must say at this

point that it’s all generalisations),

men will often go and live where

their wife is from, and their

friends at home are very often their

wife’s friends or their partners. If their

wife passes away or there is another

change in life circumstances, the guy

can end up quite lonely and isolated. The

shed can provide a social opportunity

and fill that gap.

One example of why sheds work is

that if you put twelve men in a room and

say “talk about your emotions”, six would

leave, and six would try to find a corner.

If you say to the twelve men, “There’s a

lawnmower, can you fix it?”, they’ll know

each other intimately. They’ll know how

many children or grandchildren each

person has, who’s going to see the

doctor, everyone’s ailments, how they

take their tea... and you might get a fixed

lawnmower. That’s the best way of

describing how a shed works. We’re

taken off-guard because we’re doing

something else.

That focus on achieving something

is the principal reason that we feel

sheds give the well-being benefits they

do. They remove the obstacles you

would have in day to day engagement

with others.

HS Can you measure the impact on

well-being that sheds make?

CB The stats are: 75% reduction in

anxiety, 89% reduction in depression,

and 96% reduction in loneliness. The

act of doing something for somebody

else creates focus and purpose, and

that then has an effect on your wellbeing

in terms of reducing depression

and loneliness, which can be so

interwoven anyway.

If you take this impact further, we

then have anecdotal stories of the

impact of sheds in terms of reducing

suicide, or stopping people killing

themselves by suicide. The statistics say

that suicide is the biggest single killer of

men under the age of 45. 75% of all

suicides are men. It’s a massive issue,

and one that we don’t talk about; one,

because we’re men, and two, because we

don’t have the same exposure that other

groups that have been disadvantaged in

society have. And so Men’s Sheds do

have to shout that, and that’s why we

keep the word ‘men’ in our name, even

though each shed is autonomous and

can accept whoever they like. The

men-only session is really important for

men to be themselves and something

we promote.

There was a guy who went to one

shed, didn’t really engage with the other