Men’s Health Month: Scarborough's mental health charity encourages men to speak up as it returns to Scarborough Library

June is Men’s Health Month and Andy’s Man Club has been highlighted by Emmerdale in a recent storyline about vet Paddy Kirk’s mental health.

Shaun Tymon, said: “It was a really good representation of how Andy's Man Club works.

“They have to do slightly different things because it’s a soap but it was pretty good.

“From when Paddy was in the hallway and being sort of reluctant to go in, it's just like that with the men and they are often quite nervous about coming in that first time and then you sort of catch their eye and, metaphorically drag them into the room.”

Mr Tymon stated that Scarborugh's unique geography added to the challenges faced by the men of the area.

Mr Tymon said: “There's a lot of deprivation in Scarborough, even though people don't think that's the case, and that adds to the mental health issues.

“I think also being coastal we’re a bit more isolated and have less access to services.

“You know, if you're in a big city, like Leeds, you'd have, for example, access to more social things, and you know, there's more options for facilities, services, there's probably more charities operating, whereas obviously, Scarborough you've not got any services to the east of us. It's the North Sea”

Andy’s Man Club meets in Scarborough Library on Vernon Road every Monday evening (except Bank Holidays) from 7pm.

It began in the town in 2020 just before lockdown and since then, the club has had 3830 men attend. The group usually has 15 men in one group, but Scarborough’s Andy’s Man Club has around 60 men weekly meaning they have three or four groups running at once.

The group works by getting the men to sit in a circle, and a football gets passed around the group and when you have the ball, you can speak. If you don’t want to speak, you can pass the ball on.

Mr Tymon commented: “It makes it a comfortable environment for people to not say anything if they don't want to, but 99 times out of 100, even with the people who are reluctant to say anything, most of them are opening up a bit by the end of the night.

“As you can imagine, coming into a room full of men you don't know, you know what men are like, they don’t tend to talk about stuff, which is the problem. So it's quite a brave thing to do.”

Within the groups, the facilitator will ask three questions to start the group off, and then five questions for men to talk to each other, and the ball gets passed around allowing each man to answer if they’d like to.

The questions include what’s your name, can you give us a positive reason for being here, how has your week been, can you mention a positive from your week, is there anything you’d like to get off your chest. The last two questions vary each week, with one being quite thought provoking such as ‘what’s the best advice you’ve been given in the past and why?’ and the last question is a lighthearted, quickfire one such as ‘what’s your favourite food?’.

Members of the group can talk about anything they’d like to, except politics, religion and medication. Often, people might want to talk about the joy they’ve had because they’ve seen family members or want to get off their chest something sad that’s happened and they’ve not been able to open up to anyone else.

Alongside Andy’s Man Club, there are also several groups outside the main one which members have created themselves. These include dog walking groups, walking groups (on a Bank Holiday when the main Club isn’t running), walking football, surfing with Dexter’s Surf Shop, chess, etc.

Mr Tymon added: “Often, it will be that the men will make friendships with other people in the group and then that's kind of a support carried on that way.

“A lot of the men have come along to the group and then felt better for coming so they still come because they get to get something from helping other people so it sounds corny, but people want to give something back which is a bit of a cliche, but they genuinely do.

“I think from helping other people you end up benefiting yourself and you feel better yourself.”