Voices in Health and Wellness

Mental Fitness: The Revolution Talk Club Is Creating for Men's Health with Gavin Thorpe

• Dr Andrew Greenland • Season 1 • Episode 36

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How do we transform men's mental health in a world where vulnerability is often seen as weakness? Gavin Thorpe, co-founder of Talk Club, shares the remarkable journey of creating a mental fitness movement that's changing how men approach emotional wellbeing.

From a small gathering of five men in a Bristol pub to over 150 groups nationwide, Talk Club has evolved into something truly special. At its core is a disarmingly simple question: "How are you out of 10?" This numerical scale gives men a language to express their emotional state without immediately needing sophisticated emotional vocabulary – a crucial bridge for those unaccustomed to discussing feelings.

The results speak volumes. In Bristol Prison, where Talk Club established its first correctional facility program, self-harm rates dropped by an astonishing 60% within just one year. Now expanding to dozens more prisons across the UK, these safe spaces are proving transformative for men who've never had permission to be vulnerable.

What makes Talk Club unique is its focus on "mental fitness" rather than mental health crisis response. By normalizing regular emotional check-ins and creating genuine community, they're addressing the epidemic of loneliness that Gavin identifies as central to the male mental health crisis. Particularly for men navigating what he calls the "midlife transition" – questioning identity and purpose – having a place to connect authentically has proven life-changing.

Beyond the talk groups, Talk Club has embraced innovative approaches to sustainability, including partnerships with Bristol Beer Factory to create "Clearhead," an alcohol-free beer that supports their mission while raising substantial funds for their work. It's this entrepreneurial spirit combined with genuine compassion that makes their approach so effective.

Want to experience what mental fitness feels like? Start by asking yourself: "How am I out of 10?" It might just be the beginning of a transformative journey toward better wellbeing.

Guest Bio
Gavin Thorpe is the co-founder and co-CEO of Talk Club, a global men’s mental fitness movement dedicated to creating safe spaces for men to connect, share, and support one another. With over 150 groups across the UK, Talk Club is pioneering a preventative approach to mental health—helping men regulate, open up, and strengthen their resilience before they reach crisis point. Gavin is also a trained therapist and passionate advocate for making mental fitness as much a part of everyday life as physical fitness.

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Dr Andrew Greenland:

Welcome back to Voices in Health and Wellness. This is the podcast where we shine a light on the leaders and innovators who are shaping the way we think about care, resilience and well-being. Today's episode is all about challenge so many in healthcare quietly face. Even the most high achieving clinicians still struggle with work-life balance, and to help us explore this, I've joined by someone who's dedicated his work to opening up honest conversations around mental health Gavin Thorpe. Gavin is the co-founder of Talk Club, a global men's health sorry, a global men's fitness movement that helps people to open up, connect and support each other. Talk Club is built on a simple but profound mission to normalize the conversation around how we're really feeling and to make mental fitness as much a part of our lives as physical fitness. So, Gavin, thank you very much for joining us and welcome to the show.

Gavin Thorpe:

Thank you, andrew. Thanks for having me on. I should call you Doctor, actually Doctor, andrew. No, let's keep it informal. Andrew will do very nicely.

Dr Andrew Greenland:

So maybe we can start at the top. Could you maybe share a little bit about your background and what led you to co-found Talk Club?

Gavin Thorpe:

Yeah, sure, well, it started six and a half years ago now. Talk club's been around and we've been a charity for four and a half years, um, but it all came about, sadly, because of suicide. That is actually what brought us together. But, as the co-founders here today, uh, my co-ceo, ben acres, uh made a documentary called steve, and it was about his childhood best friend, steve yates, who took his life. And ben wanted to make a documentary about suicide because he was quite shocked about the stats, um, which not a lot of people talk about, um, and he couldn't believe that people weren't talking about this, this epidemic that was happening, that all these men were taking their lives around the country, and so he made a documentary. We met in the playground and both our kids went to the same primary school, and we met because of that, and we're both big Arsenal fans as well. That was another reason why we met, and he was telling me about his film, and I used to be a musician as well, so I had some songs. So I said if you ever need any songs, please feel free to use them in your film. He did, which is great, and that's how we met.

Gavin Thorpe:

And then and at the time I was just finishing my therapy training. I was training to be a therapist. Um, and uh, and and ben said, actually I'm looking for a therapist or somebody who works in mental health to help with an up with another project, setting up a talking group for men. And so I was like, okay, I'm interested in that. You know, that's something that, um, I'd like to get interested in, just about to qualify, and that'd be good. So I got involved, um, at the start, with Talk Club, and that was what I brought to the table, I suppose, is mental health and therapy expertise. And it just so happened at that time I was doing a lot of part of my therapy education. I was doing, I was doing a lot of work around suicide. I had an interest in it, I was doing a lot of reading, a lot of an interest in it, I was doing a lot of reading, a lot of research, and so it just so happened.

Gavin Thorpe:

So all these things happened for a reason and brought me to where, where, where, I was in that moment, um, and so we set up a talk group, um, at the back of a pub, uh, in Bristol, and, uh, there was, there was five of us, the co-founders, um, and it was just us. We thought, fine, we'll just do this for us and we called it talk club as a bit of a joke, to sort of fight club. Apart from, you do talk about talk club, um, and and it went from there. And then suddenly word got out and next thing you know, there's 14 men turned up and we're like, oh, we'd better start another night. There's more men and before you know it, fast forward to now and we've got 150 plus groups around the UK.

Gavin Thorpe:

We've got 13 prisons that we're working with at the moment, as well as various businesses we've been helping to support, and it's just grown from strength to strength and it's it's got so busy that I've had to reduce my hours of therapy. I was doing two days a week with my private practice and I now do one day a week my private practice and do four days talk club, um, because we're just getting so busy. But, um, I, I, you know, I love, I love both, both jobs, if you like. You know, um, yes, I'm around mental health all week, which can be draining, and and that sort of leads on to what you were saying about looking after yourself and how to look after yourself. I think the key word that always comes up for me for myself, for Talk Club and for my clients actually is regulate, regulation. How do we regulate? And that's something that I always look at and talk about and that's something that and the mental fitness part of what we do is we realize that a lot of people were focusing on a little bit downstream, a little bit waiting for the broken fix, it sort of model or culture, and we were very much like we want to focus on the positive side of how do we stop men falling over in the first place, but also almost a psychoeducation of, well, not just getting men talking but them to understand, rather than just mad, bad, glad and sad what's going on between mad, bad, glad and sad, and helping men to understand that a bit clearer.

Gavin Thorpe:

And we thought nothing simpler than that, than using numbers. And so the how Are you Out of 10, as you can see on my shoulder behind me was one of the co-founders mentioned it and said, oh, this is something I you know we've done with kids and to help them understand, and and doctors obviously use it a lot to measure pain, and we thought, well, why aren't we using it to measure mental health. It's so simple. That's why doctors use it, because it's a simple where it's almost like a shortcut to the truth, isn't it? If you can give me a number, you can quickly understand what your number of pain is. Um, and no different with your, with your emotional, physiological, psychological pain, um, with how you out of 10, and so that's why we we decided from day one we need something. We need something that's simple and gets to the point, and we start all of our groups with how you out of 10 and we end all of our groups of how you out of 10. So, whether it be a talk and listen and talk, and listen is sit around in a circle, talk and exercise, talk and run, talk and football, talk and skate. Um, talk and lift. We've got um and therapy groups and also one-to-one therapy as well. We do at talk club and all of those.

Gavin Thorpe:

One thing we wanted to create was a continuity of care. We felt there was something that was missing as well. Um, and not down to the the nhs is to blame for this but down to funding and time. Um, there is the continuity, the continuity of care. It's quite difficult in this country to to understand where you are in this moment. How do I get to there? No one knows, and that's really hard to understand, and we wanted to also make that simple, have a continuity of care so that, whether you're zero or ten, you, there's something for you at talk club. So you'll you know we can support you and help with your numbers. Keep your numbers up. Numbers drop okay. You can go to therapy groups. Get your numbers back up, go to the talk and listen groups or talk and run groups. Whatever it is you want to do that works for you. We want to have something that you can connect with, and by doing that, we've built this fantastic community, and that's one thing also that's lacking today, unfortunately, in the world um is that sense of community.

Gavin Thorpe:

Um, and we've, and that's the the beautiful thing now to witness is this loving, compassionate community of men, and we had it last week at talk and football.

Gavin Thorpe:

I went to and one man shared that you know he's really struggling and going through a difficult time and he cried and and I watched all these men gather around him and hug him and I just thought how beautiful is this, how amazing to see all these compassionate men supporting their fellow man, and and I thought I.

Gavin Thorpe:

I wouldn't have seen that on another football pitch. I wouldn't have seen that love and understanding and compassion. So it that was a moment I stepped back and was very proud of myself and very proud of talk club and what we've accomplished, what we've created um, and the loving community that we are providing and that men are joining in their droves. And we're getting emails daily from people saying how do I set up a talk club on a? Set up a group from work? And the same with prisons. We set up a talk club in Bristol prison a year ago now, ago now, um, and fast forward a year later they've got 16 talk clubs a week at bristol prison and self-harm has gone down by 60 percent, since talk club has been in place in that prison, um, and since then every prison's gotten contacts.

Gavin Thorpe:

How do we get, how do we set up a talk club? So, which is great, and and we're and we're trying to help as much as we can because we're still a very small charity, very small charity bristol. There's only 10 of us trying to do all this work, so it's it's a lot, um, and we've now trained up 13 prisons around the uk and we've got another 15 prisons who want to have some training. So we're we're hoping there's 106 prisons in the UK, male prisons. We are hoping to have a quarter of those prisons. We'll have a talk club in place by Christmas, that's. Our goal is to get a good 25, 28 of those prisons with a talk club in place. So, yeah, long we didn't answer that. I think I've answered about seven questions in one there. Thank you, yeah, I'll cross them off my list.

Gavin Thorpe:

I mean this is amazing.

Dr Andrew Greenland:

I mean you've basically created a movement. This is quite, quite amazing. I do love your um, how you're out of 10. I use this all the time. I mean NHS is quite simple. We generally use it for pain a lot, but in my functional medicine space I've used energy levels and stress levels and all sorts of things. It's incredibly useful. Just helps to be for people to distill down to something tangible in that moment and give you like a one word thing. So I really like that. I was going to ask you. I mean, obviously you've come to this through your therapy background, but is there anything about your personal story that shaped the mission behind talk club? So obviously you met up with this other person who came to it from you know a personal experience with suicide. I just wondered anything about you, know your, where you've come from in terms of how you've shaped, how this thing has grown and developed?

Gavin Thorpe:

yeah, sadly same, it's the same story, uh, andrew, that, um, about a month after, uh, setting up talk club because to start with, we just set it up on on on socials, it was just a social thing to see, you know set up a group online and to see how people respond to it, and about a month into setting this up, one of my good friend's brother took his life. So we were like, oh no, you know, this is the whole point of why we're doing this and someone's taken their life. That we know. So that was sad and sadly he wasn't part of this group. He wasn't, and that's one of the reasons we're like, oh, if he was part of talk club, we could have saved him. And, I'll be honest, it gave me even more impetus to do this. It actually really spurred me on, um, as sad as his death and his name's miles, miles, christie and the christiey family, having been incredible and supported Talk Club from day one. Because of this and it really I hate to use the word inspired, but it did inspire me it really spurred me on to go. No, we've got to stop this, we've got to do something about this. And the same happened again about not long after we got charity status, one of my friends took his life as well, and so I'm sadly you know, I've just been around suicide a lot now and people, luckily, that have survived as well, that have attempted to take their life. But my own personal mission I've always, I would say, been mentally fit. I now realise that that I've actually always been pretty mentally fit, but that's because I grew up with a very loving family, lots of support, felt very cared and loved. They gave me a lot of love and hope, which I think is really important, um, to have that love and hope, and I had that in abundance from my family. So I grew up quite secure in that sense.

Gavin Thorpe:

Um, but it's only when I got older and got and had children and got into my 30s, I realized the midlife. I don't like using the word crisis. I I tend not to use that with my clients. I, you know, midlife transition feels more, feels more. Um, as you can, as you can tell, I like to keep things positive and and midlife crisis sounds too dramatic, but you know, for some of this, but, um, that midlife transit, I think it's not until I got to my, my midlife transition that I realized I was, my numbers were starting to drop. I was starting to feel a bit distant. I stopped playing sport because I was couldn't was stopped playing football.

Gavin Thorpe:

Getting older, which means I was moving, I was detaching myself away from the community, detaching myself away from friends more, and I was really aware of, of feeling quite lonely in the world of, okay, who am I now? And getting to that point of I'm, I'm, I'm just a father and a husband, that's okay. But what about the other parts of Gavin that existed and where has that gone? And what's the future mean for me? So I, for me, it was definitely was a transitional moment. And then that's when I retrained to be a therapist because I thought, right, ok, I'm going to, I'm going to be a therapist and learn to understand what's going on for me and maybe help others too. So that was a real big inspiration.

Gavin Thorpe:

The major inspiration really was my dad dying 17 years ago. That completely changed my world because we were very close. So I would say they're the two key moments in my life my dad dying at the age of 30, where I was about to go into that midlife, start of what we call the second adulthood. I was about to enter my second adulthood and my dad died. So it's really bad time for him to die it's always a bad time but it was really affected me in that way of just about to get married and have children, and then I think I never really asked that question through my 30s of who am I, where am I going, and that it took the whole of that decade, I think, to figure that's. It took the whole of that decade, I think, to figure that out.

Gavin Thorpe:

And eventually the calling to be becoming a therapist was strong Sound like some kind of Jedi now from Star Wars, don't I? But it was strong, the force was strong in me, but I gravitated towards that and and then I just I do believe that things happen for a reason and I was meant to be where I am and talk club, and that was part of my journey and I'm, you know, I'm really happy. I didn't ask you how you're out of 10 at the start, which I normally start every meeting or conversational podcast with. I'm a 9.5 today. I feel really good, I feel I mean, I feel really mentally fit, physically fit, um, but yeah, so how are you out of 10?

Dr Andrew Greenland:

I've not asked you, andrew I think I'm a nine today. It's a good day, very productive day. Having meetings like this um kind of energizes me. Having interesting conversations, um, had some interesting patient this morning, so, yeah, I'm good, I'm good, um. So I'm gonna ask you. So, um, obviously this thing is growing. What does your day-to-day look like now with all this growth? Because I've actually had to adapt since starting from scratch and having the therapy work that you were doing before. What does your kind of day-to-day look like now?

Gavin Thorpe:

With Talk Club. The old saying be careful what you wish for. Because now we're getting bigger and bigger and now it's managing staff. We've got a team now of staff who are doing various roles in the charity. We are always trying to move forward and set up more talking groups, more exercise groups, more therapy groups. Um, we're always looking for opportunities. Obviously we need to look for funding. That's a big part of the charity's time is trying to find more funding so we can do more work. Um, rather than just sort of going cap and hand to everybody, we're always looking for opportunities. We're quite entrepreneurial in that way, like, for example, you can see behind we've got our own, our own um, alcohol-free beer with bristol beer factory Clearhead. We went to them a few years back with the name. We had the name Clearhead.

Gavin Thorpe:

We got a good name for an alcohol-free and I went you know it's good. And then we were sort of saying what do you think, do you want to collab with us and start a mental it was a mental fitness movement IPA, which is sort of the language, and they were a bit reluctant to start with and then eventually we we broke them down and they agreed and now it's one of their biggest sellers, um, and it brings five percent into the charity and I think today it's raised nearly 120 000 pounds for the charity. So it's, it's been, it's been amazing, yeah, um. So day to day is just trying to uh, spin lots of plates, manage stuff, manage problems, uh, money, um, trying to grow all the ideas we have, trying to make new partnerships, um, trying to connect with new people, uh, podcasts, um, you know, you name it. Um, we're every day. Every day is busy.

Gavin Thorpe:

I was saying to someone over there I've been doing this six and a half years and I don't think I've had one day where I've gone oh, I've got nothing to do. I've never not got anything to do. I've always got an email or a letter or, whatever it is, a spreadsheet to finish. I've always got something I need to be getting on with or do so day to day. So I must admit, tuesdays is my therapy day and it's my favorite day of the week Because I get to sit in my chair in my therapy room in Bristol and I have five clients come to me on a tuesday and, um, and I look forward to that I get to stop and sit in the same place and just be and just be there with my clients and I and I must admit I absolutely love the work um, so, yeah, choose is my favorite day cool.

Dr Andrew Greenland:

Um, so, from your perspective, what are some of the big mental health challenges that the people that you're seeing are facing right now, or even actually, people working in the caring space, whether it be clinicians or therapists? What are the things that they're all facing at the moment?

Gavin Thorpe:

Isolation's come up a lot. Loneliness has come up a lot. Loneliness has come up a lot, um, and what we try to do at talk club is we see, we try and stay, see what's going on in the communities and try and respond and try and come up with a solution not always, but try and go. How can we help? Isolation was one thing. Um, a lot of people we found out were going to libraries to search for company. So we've actually set up talk clubs in libraries. There's 15 libraries across the UK we're talking to to set up talk clubs in the libraries. But.

Gavin Thorpe:

But so I would say loneliness is definitely something that's come up a lot. And one thing I would I would say midlife transition. That is the one thing that comes up consistently in my therapy practice. I see a lot of men who have are trying to deal with that existential question of who am I, where am going, what's the meaning, why? A lack of identity and lack of you know of, of of meaning. And I would say the same in the community at Talk Club. A lot of men come to the groups because they're lonely and interestingly we had in our running group I've noticed recently we're getting a lot of men who are coming, who are new fathers, which is fantastic because there's obviously a lot of these groups, have antenatal groups and a lot of these mothers get together and this is what they're saying to me, um, and they're saying that they have got nowhere to go or anyone to talk to and, um, we've got quite a few new parents who have come, uh and and, and it's a place for them to come and share their frustrations and lack of sleep and all the other things that go with it, but feel like can't really talk about it because, rightly so, you know, the mothers are, you know, even more tired and more stressed and you know, and so it's a safe place for them to come and have this conversation. So, yeah, I, I would say we, we, you know, we, I would say midlife transition is, is something that is comes up a hell of a lot.

Gavin Thorpe:

Um, and I think, because we're creating that community, they really feel part of something. They really feel part of, um, of of a community again, and I and I know a few men have said to me um, you know, whether they've moved to the area around the country or for their job or whatever it may be, and they've said I've got no friends, like I've stopped you sport clubs and work, and I've just worked now and go home and that's it, and I feel like I've got no friends anymore. And they've come to talk and they said I've actually gained new friends by coming to talk club. And I know a lot of the talk clubs. They do the talk club session and then after the session they go to the pub and have a pint after, which is which is fantastic, it's absolutely that's what community is about and it's amazing.

Gavin Thorpe:

Um, and we hope, by being part of that community, you're not a burden, um, and you're not on your own, which we know are is is key language in in men when they feel isolated and then they feel suicidal. That's the key words they will mention about burden on society, burden on family and feeling isolated. We're hoping that being part of Talk Club will remove that for them, that you are not a burden, you're not on your own, you're with us, you know you're part of our community and you are a vital part of that community.

Dr Andrew Greenland:

Your own, you're, you're with us, you know you're part of our community and you are a vital part of that community. Thank you, um. I don't know how much contact you have with health care workers and how many sort of health care workers perhaps attend your groups, but do you still think the culture and health care resists vulnerability, or are we starting to see a shift there?

Gavin Thorpe:

um, yeah, I think, yeah, I think. So I mean, we don't, I don't know, it's not something we. We don't ask people what they do for a living or anything like that when they come. So I don't, I can't answer that um, honestly, because I do know of some that have healthcare professions that have come um and they've come because of you know the stress of jobs and and and so it is a place for them to come and relieve that stress. But that's why we're trying to, as the psychoeducation part of trying to get, especially in business support and in prisons.

Gavin Thorpe:

The reason why the men in in prisons of self-harm is reduced is because they're regulating, they're learning to regulate, which is what we were saying at the start of the of our conversation is we're not really taught how to regulate. People don't really know how to. They just it's up here or down here and the whole point of with how you out of 10, it helps you to regulate a little bit more, and in the prisons they're starting to understand a little bit more. Okay, yesterday I was a four, today I'm a five. Okay, great, well, what's going on there? Why? What do you do differently from the four to five to help you to get your numbers up.

Gavin Thorpe:

So I think that's, the awareness and understanding is really important.

Gavin Thorpe:

But we do know, especially in the healthcare system, that there is a lot of suicide and a lot of people who are struggling.

Gavin Thorpe:

So understanding that and putting the correct support in place whether it be the hard thing you've got is someone say, coming off a shift, I don't really want to go and do a talk club, I just come off a you know 10 hour, 12 hour shift. They're tired, I want to go to sleep. But even understanding the diet, sleep and exercise part of wellbeing which we always bang on about, don't we in mental health but actually is so true and so powerful that if you get those three things right which I think I've got right at the moment, that's why I think I'm 9.5, because I feel that those diet, I'm, my sleeping well and my diet's good and I'm doing exercise regularly, you know, with runs and football and yoga, I feel mentally fit and physically fit. So I think there's still a lot to do in the education side, but, um, uh, there's a lot to do in the compassion side of of, of, uh, of creating more of a compassionate society definitely thank you.

Dr Andrew Greenland:

Um. So you've talked about much of the success of talk club and its mission, but what's sort of um particularly frustrating or harder than you expected at the moment in terms of what you have to do and what you're trying to achieve?

Gavin Thorpe:

um, money, money is difficult because you've you, you've got to, you've got to keep raising money to to have staff, to pay staff to do what we do. So having a, an infrastructure that can, can build and keep building and and create more talk clubs around, I think people just think, oh, because we've got volunteers, that it's, it's quite easy and it it costs no money to set up a talk club. But we worked out for us it costs about two and a half thousand pounds to set up a talk club in the community because of all the infrastructure that goes with it, the planning, the advertising, the support we put in place, the safeguarding and all those things, the training that we call them captains who run the group. You know, training up the captains, support. Now we've got to pay someone to train them and I've got to pay someone to look after them, um, continually, um, so so money is a big factor in that. But obviously we try and keep costs down, um, and we. But we do look after our staff and we continually always checking in and we have, how you at, a 10 check in every morning.

Gavin Thorpe:

So money is the main factor in the third sector of trying to balance that and spend money wisely. But that's why I think now, rather than relying on bids and grants, you've got to think outside the box a little bit and get away from that old school charity model of hopefully someone will do a run for us and maybe we'll get a grant. Here it's again, you're relying on others, so we try and rely on ourselves, and that's why we did we've got the beer and we've got a coffee and we've got we're. We know we're help, doing business support, we're doing prison support, we're putting things in place to bring in a you know some income for the charity, and I think that's the answer for us is to be self-sustainable, um, but um, I think the sad thing is is, you know, we, we wish we could go out of business, we wish that we weren't needed. I think the day that we go out of business and go and we're redundant, we'll be. We're celebrating, go, great, no one needs a tour club, fantastic.

Gavin Thorpe:

But sadly, people do, people, the community does, the community um needs a place for men to go and feel safe, um, and once men feel safe, they can be vulnerable, and once they're vulnerable, they can open up, and so we're creating no safe spaces for men, um, and it's needed, and I and um, which is a which is a, which is a great thing, but it's sad that it's needed in the first place. In a way, it's sad that we've got to the point where men don't feel they can openly just talk and cry and feel. Sadly, that's been shut down over the years for many reasons. But yeah, you know it's, and eventually we, you know, we will hope that this will reduce the suicide rates so that a man takes his life every two hours in this country.

Dr Andrew Greenland:

It'd be great to bring that down, you know, and be a part of that movement absolutely um if I was to give you a magic wand and you could fix one thing in the organization, apart from the money and the funding which you've just talked about, what would that be? And maybe, maybe, I'll extend to the broader mental health landscape what would you like to fix with the magic wand?

Gavin Thorpe:

I think if everybody could wake up and ask themselves how you're out at 10 every morning, it would be a different world. Because I think if you could really understand where you're at before you even put on your shoes and have that because then I think you'll have compassion and I think you would have a more, a greater understanding before you start your day, what's really going on for you. It's amazing how many times I meet people and say how are you at 10? And they stop and go oh.

Gavin Thorpe:

Oh, I've not thought about it. Oh, oh, actually I'm a five. You're like, okay, is that? Is that good for you? Is that low? And because everyone's numbers are different as well, um, it's amazing that we're almost on autopilot, um, uh, and not really checking in with ourselves and see how we do it, and so I would. I think that would be amazing if we could all part of our mental fitness, of everyone regularly checking in with themselves and with each other and it there's no stigma around it.

Dr Andrew Greenland:

That would be incredible so you basically want a very, very big awareness campaign for the how are you out of 10 for the whole world well, I don't actually.

Gavin Thorpe:

I don't want awareness, I want doing. I want people to do it, because I think we've got enough awareness in the world. I think we're, I think we're awareness out and I think we, you know, I think that that's one thing I think talk club does well is we're doing charity. We do, we do stuff. We don't just say stuff, we get on and do it. So I would want people to do it, to, to, to become. It becomes part of the psyche.

Dr Andrew Greenland:

They wake up and go right, how am I at 10 as they open their eyes? Right, you know, got it. So if you were to start, if you were to start um talk club again tomorrow, knowing everything that you know in the journey that you've been on, would you do anything differently? Or has it been? Uh, you'd replicate your um, everything you've done so far?

Gavin Thorpe:

Oh, yeah, god, yeah, absolutely, it would do a lot of things differently. But, that being said, and going back to what I said, that everything happens for a reason then then no, because I think all the mistakes I've made and I'm going to answer for me all the mistakes I've made I've learned a lot from, to get, to help me get to where I am today. So, um, you know, could we have got here faster and done more? Maybe, but I think the way we've done it, we've tried to always be different to the norm, different to other charities, try to think outside the box. So we, I think, if you, you know, almost live by the soul, die by the soul we've always tried to be different and done things differently. Um, uh, I suppose the only thing had been, yeah, magic wand. If I'd have known that, you know what it entails, would I have done it? Maybe not, because it's a lot of hard work. I think that's the only thing I would say.

Gavin Thorpe:

Me and ben always joke that we're CEOs of charity. We're never meant to start. We're never meant to start a charity. It was just a talk group in the back of a pub to get a couple of mates talking, so we didn't envision six and a half years ago that we'd be sat where we are today and heading up a charity and lots of men, hundreds of volunteers, a thousand attendees coming to our groups. Um, I yeah, I mean it's a lot of responsibility, um, but, um, I would do it all again tomorrow, um, and and I will continue to do it and continue to help. Um, I feel that's what I'm here and what I meant to do. That's what I feel I'm here to do now. Uh is to help people and, and I and I get a lot of satisfaction from doing it amazing.

Dr Andrew Greenland:

It's a mission and a movement and I was going to ask you as a final question where do you hope to be in the next sort of six to twelve months? What's the trajectory for talk club?

Gavin Thorpe:

um, as I said, hopefully we've done. If I spoke to you in a year's time, angie, I would like to say to you yes, we've done all 106 prisons and there's a talk club in 106 prisons and all there all those men are talking and maybe that's having an impact on um, the uh, the rates of men re-offending, because it's something like 80 to 85% of men reoffend when they get out of prison. So maybe there will be an impact on that and we're going to, we're going to do a report on it ourselves. So I'd like to have all the prisons be trained up. We would like we're launching our one-to-one counseling service over the next month or so.

Gavin Thorpe:

That would be great to have that fully working across the whole of the UK and that would be great to have that fully working across the whole of the UK and and have, you know, 200 plus groups around the UK and continue to grow and continue to get the message out of how you attend and get people thinking and you know, and get more people talking and reduce that awful suicide rate. That's always going to come back to that at the end of the day, and we can only do that collectively, we can only do that as a society, that we bring that down together. It's not just on talk club and charities. That's something that we all need to be aware of, of being compassion, supportive, loving community that supports each other and helps each other amazing.

Dr Andrew Greenland:

Gavin, thank you so much for your time this afternoon. Really been interesting to hear about the mission and the movement that this is talk club and you know your personal story of how you've got to where you are and what you're trying to do. I think it's really amazing. I think people are going to find this conversation very interesting and I think we'll put certainly put your contact details on the bio page so anybody wants to get in touch and learn more can do so. But thank you so much for your time. Really appreciate it great.

Gavin Thorpe:

Thank you, andrew.