There's probably an assumption among the general public that farmers are fairly fit individuals: they’re up early, they spend long periods outdoors, the work is physical and very hands-on. It stands to reason that your average farmer would be in good shape. But, Laura Tully told Claire Byrne, the whole area of farming and health is not as clear cut as it might appear to be.

Laura is a registered nurse and the founder of Fit Farmers, a programme she started 5 years ago to get farmers to stop taking their health for granted. It took a while, but there’s now a waiting list to join the programme:

"We’ve seen a cultural change as well amongst farmers where, you know, they’re now willing to down tools and prioritise themselves and take a bit of time to step away from the farm and look after themselves a little bit better and to use their bodies in a different way, to strengthen them and to nourish them so that they can sustain their farming."

Before she set up Fit Farmers, Laura was seeing a lot of farmers with health issues while working as a practice nurse. A lot of the issues were down to the nature of the work and the absence of meaningful self-care routines:

"A lot of musculoskeletal problems, aches, pains, joint issues, mobility issues, a lot of cardiovascular health problems and their career and the life they live takes a real toll on their mental health as well."

So what does the Fit Farmers programme look like when it’s in full swing? Laura described a typical session:

"We come into a community hall in a rural parish. We have two hours together once a week and the first hour we’re generally learning about health. So, I’m delivering workshops on different aspects of health – nutrition, sleep, stress control, learning about sugar, learning how to understand food labels and then the second hour is the physical activity programme."

The physical programme can range from a "Farm to 5k" challenge to a "fit sticks for farmers" programme using activator poles. The focus of the physical stuff is on what Laura calls "age-proofing" farmers’ bodies. And she has heard from many farmers who’ve taken part in the programme that they’re feeling better physically and are suffering from fewer aches and pains.

Laura and Claire were joined on the line by retired barber Paddy Joe Burke, who’s an Age-friendly Ambassador for Roscommon, and who’ll be speaking at a Fit Farmers event this week. Paddy Joe told Claire that he used to see men who’d come into the barber shop looking for company:

"I was in the barbershop in town and the men would come into me, Claire, and they’d say, 'Paddy Joe, I really didn’t want a haircut, but I wanted to come in and have a chat with you because I didn’t speak to anyone for two days.’ And it’s lovely to sit with them farmers or them older people. All the wisdom that they have and they’re shy and a biteen insecure until you get them talking on the topic that they know."

Paddy Joe spent 52 years in the barbershop and he recounted what he called one of the saddest sights he saw in all his time there – a man from Roscommon town came into the shop just after it reopened one January:

"And he said to me, ‘Paddy,’ he said, ‘do you know what happened this Christmas?’ And I said, ‘What happened to you?’ He said, ‘I got no Christmas card at all.’ And he burst out crying. And I’ll never forget the sight of that man, Claire, in his late 60s, early 70s, crying like a child because he didn’t get a Christmas card."

"Kindness has a long memory," Paddy Joe says, and he suggests that we all take the time to send a Christmas card to someone that’s living alone:

"And the difference that that Christmas card – that one Christmas card – could make to someone living alone, could change their whole entire day."

"We’re all babies in big clothes," is another gem from Paddy Joe and he maintains that it’s lovely to let that child out and it’s even better to bring that child-like experience to someone that’s living on their own. In his time cutting hair, Paddy Joe says, it was a privilege to hear from the customers who came in:

"And all I had to do was give them my ear. The greatest gift, Claire, you and I can give any human being is our ear. We don’t have to have answers. All we have to do is just listen and the man in the chair will talk."

Paddy Joe and Laura are doing tremendous work for people in rural Ireland and hopefully farmers and non-farmers in rural Ireland will have a better Christmas thanks to both of them.

You can hear Claire’s full chat with Laura and Paddy Joe by tapping or clicking above.