A place that makes men shed their inhibitions

Workshop teaches skills - and helps combat loneliness and isolation

- By CONAILL CORNER

LONELINESS can happen to any of us.

We could have a job one day and none the next; or maybe a long-term relationship has ended; in fact, there are countless circumstances that can leave someone socially isolated. However, there are solutions.

Eight years ago, Eddy Flynn founded Bootle Tool Shed, a workshop which specialises in woodwork and serves as somewhere for men who may be lonely, have mental health issues, or who might just be bored, to socialise while developing skills. The Shed, Eddy says, has taken in men who've been “written off” by society while members have even said they “wouldn't be alive” if not for the work they do.

The 58-year-old from Netherton had been struggling with his own loneliness and mental health problems back in 2015 when he came up with the idea for the Tool Shed. He told the ECHO: “I was looking for a woodworking group. I wasn't working and I just needed something for me.

“My mental health wasn’t great and I used woodwork as a way of dealing with that. But I became a bit isolated doing it on my own, in my shed.

“I couldn’t find a group so I asked a guy from Wigan, Dave, who was on a forum with me. He asked me if I'd ever heard of Men in Sheds. I said: ‘No, I am one, but I've never heard of it.”

Men in Sheds is a service run to support older men who want to get together, share and learn new skills - all in the welcoming space of a ‘Shed’

After hearing about the initiative, Eddy began researching and visiting Sheds he could get to and from within an hour or two. He added: “There was nothing close to me so I had a meeting with a guy who ran a Shed in another part of the north west, and ended up starting one myself.