Charlie

Bethel

67

LENS

the age of 50. Some sheds have junior

sections, and one of our aspirations is

to get sheds into universities, so that it

becomes the norm to have somewhere to

go to let off steam, to relax. There aren’t

many places you can go to do that, if

you’re a man, that aren’t based on either

alcohol or sport.

Sheds will change and develop; some

sheds have an area for board-games. We

have some shedders with dementia who

will go and just sand a bit of wood or just

go there to talk. It provides an outlet that

you wouldn’t get in society normally.

HS When did the Sheds Movement start?

CB The first sheds started to appear in

the UK in 2009, and the UK Men’s Sheds

Association appeared a couple of years

later. The movement that we have in the

UK was founded by Mike Jenn. His son

was in Australia, saw the concept of

men’s sheds working over there, phoned

his dad, and told him about it. He

established his shed and as a result of

that we have UK Men’s Sheds.

HS It sounds like the well-being effect

was always the point, rather than being a

happy accident.

CB Yes. In Australia that’s why the

initiative was set up. It’s a concept

that has been around for a while, but

the modern movement is Australian.

Australian culture is slightly different

to the UK. There were a lot of farmers

living on their own, very disparate

geographically. Sheds were developed

to bring people together. There are

over 1000 sheds in Australia, open

and running. Some of them are

absolutely huge.

That concept was a positive well-

being piece. In Ireland, they concentrate

a lot on the health and loneliness

aspects. Here, we focus on getting people

into sheds because it’s making and

doing. We don’t shy away from the fact

that there are positive well-being

benefits to sheds, and to the people who

use them. But it is essentially about