All Posts

Most men don't say they're struggling. They say they fancied a bit of fresh air, or a mate talked them into getting out and doing something, or someone at home thought it might do them good to get out. That's fine by us. We've learned that the real words usually come later, often somewhere between the second wheelbarrow load and the first brew. The quiet kind of disappearing There's a kind of struggling that doesn't look like struggling at all. A man keeps turning up to work.

September is World Alzheimer's Month - a time to talk more openly about dementia, and about what actually helps the people living with it and the people around them. Why outdoor activity helps At The Growing Place, we get it: time outdoors, moving, and doing something alongside other people makes a real difference to wellbeing. That's true generally, and it's especially true for men, who are often less likely to reach out for support in the first place. It's not just about th

What Flying With Tied Legs Taught Me About the Human Spirit A personal reflection from Nick, founder of The Growing Place Yorkshire Last year, I had a hard landing. Not a metaphorical one. A real one. Coming in to land under parachute something went wrong on approach and I hit the ground hard enough to fracture a vertebra. In the weeks that followed I had a lot of time to think - about the sport, about risk, about complacency, about mortality, and about how quickly everything

This morning I had a plan. Emails to send, site visits to organise, a quote to finalise. Then 11am arrived. I stopped what I was doing. Put my phone face down. Stood in silence. Two minutes. In that pause, I thought about the names I'll never know. The lads who never made it home from the Somme. The pilots who didn't return. The soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan who gave everything so we could keep living ordinary lives. My ordinary life. The one where I get to worry about ema

When you look after a place you bring it back to life. You turn neglect into pride and that's true for people. We all have those times when things feel messy, overgrown, out of control. But work, routine care and you start to see life coming back through the cracks...