Credit: MSUK

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Recognizing that “men will talk shoulder to shoulder, but not necessarily face to face,” Men’s Sheds give guys a space to tinker while they open up — and heal.

“While you’re doing this, you’ve got to concentrate on what you’re doing. And it takes your mind off other issues, and for those couple of hours, you kind of relax. Once you start feeling better, it’s like dropping a pebble in the water, and those ripples come back out, and you slowly get back into the community,” Morgan said on the podcast.

“It’s not an overnight cure. It could take people many years, but that two hours in the workshop can make a huge difference to their wellbeing.”

Veterans Woodcraft is one of 3,000 so-called Men’s Sheds scattered across the UK, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, the US, Kenya and South Africa. The concept began in Australia in the 1990s to help tackle isolation and loneliness in predominantly older men. As Men’s Sheds UK chief officer Charlie Bethel puts it, it’s the difference between traditional counseling and support groups, which force men to open up — sometimes unsuccessfully — and what can happen when men bond over a shared interest in a familiar environment.