{"id":406241,"date":"2026-01-11T12:52:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-11T12:52:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/406241\/"},"modified":"2026-01-11T12:52:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T12:52:08","slug":"tom-skinner-opens-up-about-mens-mental-health-struggles-after-creating-sunday-walking-club","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/406241\/","title":{"rendered":"Tom Skinner opens up about men&#8217;s mental health struggles after creating Sunday walking club"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Tom Skinner has opened up on GB News about the mental health struggles afflicted on men and spoken about his newly-established walking club to support men.<\/p>\n<p>For an Essex-based meander, dozens of men meet at a local pub at 8am every Sunday to promote chatter and cheer among men who might be feeling low.<\/p>\n<p>Today, dozens more have turned out in Brentwood for this countryside walk to show their support for men&#8217;s mental health, established by the cockney entrepeneur.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking about why he decided to create the weekly outing, Mr Skinner said: &#8220;Listen, us blokes don&#8217;t talk to each other enough. We&#8217;re always going to work, grafting, looking after the family. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;But we never talk about us. We never look after us. And there ain&#8217;t nothing out there really around this way for people to sit down, have a little chat, have a cup of tea, enjoy the countryside. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Just blokes supporting blokes. That&#8217;s all it&#8217;s about. Nice and early Sunday morning before you do the bits and pieces and we can relax.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Skinner held the first Sunday club last weekend, which was attended by approximately 80 people. <\/p>\n<p>But, a week on, dozens more men attended the event despite the bracing weather battering Britain.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"2f27a\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"09e8c8fdd95ed7ac97fa72f3f998639a\" data-rm-shortcode-name=\"rebelmouse-image\" class=\"rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image \" lazy-loadable=\"true\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%201117%20665'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-runner-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/tom-skinner.png\" width=\"1117\" height=\"665\" alt=\"Tom Skinner\"\/><\/p>\n<p>The group of men meet every week to have a natter and take a moment for themselves in the countryside<\/p>\n<p> | <\/p>\n<p>GB NEWS<\/p>\n<p>The former BBC Apprentice star told GB News: &#8220;So far this morning, people have come from all over, not just from round here. People come from Bethnal Green. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;People come from Dartford. One guy&#8217;s come from Canterbury. And obviously all the locals turn up too. <\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;ve got just over 80 people. I think we got to get more than 100 today and hopefully it grows. The more the merrier. We just want to put our arms around each other, have a nice walk and just say, &#8216;you know what, it&#8217;s alright&#8217;.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Suicide is often cited as the biggest killer of men under the age of 50, with men also accounting for 75 per cent of suicides.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" id=\"2518b\" data-rm-shortcode-id=\"227c33bed2cb256fc7f607876bca7060\" data-rm-shortcode-name=\"rebelmouse-image\" class=\"rm-shortcode rm-lazyloadable-image \" lazy-loadable=\"true\" src=\"data:image\/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns='http:\/\/www.w3.org\/2000\/svg'%20viewBox='0%200%201275%20662'%3E%3C\/svg%3E\" data-runner-src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/u200b-u200bthe-group-of-men-meet-every-week-to-have-a-natter-and-take-a-moment-for-themselves-in-the.png\" width=\"1275\" height=\"662\" alt=\"\\u200b\\u200bThe group of men meet every week to have a natter and take a moment for themselves in the countryside\"\/><\/p>\n<p>About 80 men attended the popular event last Sunday &#8211; with Mr Skinner hoping for a greater turnout today<\/p>\n<p> | <\/p>\n<p>INSTAGRAM &#8211; @IAMTOMSKINNER<\/p>\n<p>GB News&#8217; Bethany Elsie asked: &#8220;Thomas, this is a figure that we hear a lot in the news. It&#8217;s not a very nice statistic to hear.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It still shocks me to the core. What do you think we can do to try and help that statistics decrease?&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Mr Skinner responded: &#8220;Look, it&#8217;s really sad that that is happening. I&#8217;ve lost six mates to suicide in the past 10 years, and I know how much it devastates families lives.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;And look, blokes, we don&#8217;t get enough talk. We don&#8217;t talk about it enough. So if one person turns up here, that&#8217;s having it a bit hard&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Listen, let me tell you one thing. Tough times don&#8217;t last years. But tough people do. Might take a week, a month, a year, but just have a little chat with people.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;If you&#8217;re feeling sad, you&#8217;re feeling upset, you&#8217;ve got something on your mind, don&#8217;t boil it up and make you crack further down the line. Just talk about it. Relax and talk about it.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The walk starts outside local pub The Thatchers Arms where the group of men embark on a 90-minute-long walk around the Essex town.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone who is in emotional distress, struggling to cope or at risk of suicide can call the Samaritans anonymously for free from a UK phone on 116 123 or go to samaritans.org.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tom Skinner has opened up on GB News about the mental health struggles afflicted on men and spoken&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":406242,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[64,63,480,137,514,515,44,107638],"class_list":{"0":"post-406241","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-celebrity","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-mental-health","13":"tag-mentalhealth","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-video-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=406241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/406241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/406242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=406241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=406241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=406241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}