Hawkstone Farmers Choir celebrates victory in BGT finals<\/a><\/p>\nHawkstone Brewery is matching the sum with a separate \u00a350,000 donation to Shout, extending its partnership with the free, confidential 24-hour mental health text service.<\/p>\n
The choir\u2019s contribution represents one-fifth of the \u00a3250,000 prize money it received after becoming the first choir to win Britain\u2019s Got Talent in May.<\/p>\n
The group began little more than a year ago after farmers were recruited for what was intended to be a one-off Hawkstone recording session at The Farmer\u2019s Dog.<\/p>\n
It subsequently developed into a permanent choir of more than 30 farmers and agricultural workers from across the UK, with members speaking publicly about isolation, farming pressures and the impact singing together has had on their wellbeing.<\/p>\n
Ted Howard-Jones, a member of the Hawkstone Farmers Choir, said: \u201cWe wanted to make sure that the opportunity we were given through Britain\u2019s Got Talent could create something lasting.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis first \u00a350,000 donation is a massive moment for us, but it\u2019s just the beginning. Our goal is to build the choir into a sustainable organisation that can continue to support farming charities long into the future.\u201d<\/p>\n
The remainder of the prize money is being used to establish and develop the choir, with the aim of generating further donations for agricultural charities in future.<\/p>\n
Farmers seeking support<\/p>\n
Hawkstone has worked with Shout since 2024, establishing a dedicated route through which farmers can access its text-based mental health support.<\/p>\n
Between August 2024 and August 2025, 441 farmers used the HAWKSTONE keyword to hold 514 conversations with the service, with 42 returning for further support.<\/p>\n
One in eight conversations involved suicidal thoughts, while 1% required emergency intervention because the person was considered at imminent risk.<\/p>\n
Victoria Hornby, chief executive of Mental Health Innovations, which manages Shout, said choir members had spoken openly about their own mental health and the pressures facing farmers.<\/p>\n
\u201cFarming can be isolating work, and reaching out can be hard,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis donation will help us be there for anyone who is struggling, at any time, wherever they are in the UK.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wider research has also highlighted the scale of mental health concerns in agriculture. Rabi\u2019s 2021 Big Farming Survey, involving more than 15,000 people, found 36% of respondents were probably or possibly depressed.<\/p>\n
Alex Phillimore, head of operations and communications at FCN, said the donation would support its work \u201cwalking with\u201d farmers during difficult periods and times of change.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Hawkstone Farmers Choir continues to capture the hearts of the nation and to shine a light on the dedication and commitment of our farming community,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Hawkstone Farmers Choir and Hawkstone Brewery are donating \u00a3100,000 to farming and mental health charities following the…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":614843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[103,61,60,410,411],"class_list":["post-614842","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mental-health","tag-health","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-mental-health","tag-mentalhealth"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=614842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/614842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/614843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=614842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=614842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=614842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}