Top sailor launches The Nest care farm at Framlingham

Hannah Tuckwell - who lives on a large 1,000-acre farm just outside Kettleburgh, near Framlingham - holds the world record for the fastest solo crossing of the English Channel.

She lives with husband James and their three children - Olivia aged five, Emily, three, and George, four months.

Even though she has had a highly successful sailing career, she has faced her own mental health battles - and decided to set up a care farm called The Nest to help youngsters facing similar challenges to her own.

The charity is based at the farm and is supported by a number of professionals.

"My challenges started when I was a teenager and they continued into adulthood," she explains.

"Navigating the transition from being a child to an adult is so confusing and it’s a time when most people start to struggle.

"It’s also proven that the younger you help people the less likely they are to be affected later in life.

"Many provisions in this country stop supporting young people at the age of 18 - a time when support is needed the most.  I intend to help fill that crucial gap."

In her own case, Hannah struggled with bulimia for 10 years as a young adult.

"I still suffer from depression which I take anti-depression medication for," she says. "When you experience and live it, it ends up being a huge part of your life."

After her sailing career, she became a successful sailing and sports broadcaster and media presenter - including covering the sailing at the 2012 London Olympics.

Back in Suffolk, she became a trained St John’s Ambulance first responder and helps out in the family business, farm machinery dealership Tuckwells.

Originally from Lymington on the south coast, Hannah, now aged 40, was a very high achiever despite her internal struggles.

She sailed the Atlantic three times as well as notching up her world record for her English Channel crossing.

She married in 2015. When she came to Suffolk after settling down with James she had no farming experience, she admits, but she "absolutely fell in love" with it.

"I loved the process of it, the simplicity of it, the purity of it," she says.

But she and her family still sail out of Levington - keeping that part of her life alive. "That's our floating caravan - the kids love it," she adds.

The idea for The Nest came about during the pandemic. With no travel and sports events, her broadcasting work dried up.

"I ended up full-time on the farm with a two-and-a-half-year-old and a seven-month-old," she recalls.

Her whole identity had been based around my work and her career and she found herself at a loose end.

She decided to get involved in the farm and phoned her good friends the Kerrs at Easton Farm Park to ask whether she could look after any of their animals. Fiona - who runs the farm park - immediately agreed.

She took on some chickens and sheep and revived a vegetable patch.

"We had the time of our lives," she recalls. During the pandemic, she remembers picking rhubarb and collecting eggs and taking them to the village shop where she would pick up fresh loaves.

"I actually felt happy and more content and more settled and more aware of my feelings than I had before."

Then in 2021 her daughter Emily became very poorly with an auto-immune condition and had to be hospitalised.

Being in the hospital opened Hannah's eyes to how many beds are taken up by people actually suffering mental health problems. Three months later - when her daughter was readmitted - some were still there.

"I had this absolute conviction that if I could take some of these people back to the farm, I could help them.

"When I was going through my troubles there was nothing in place to help me and here we were 20 years later there was still nothing there."

She started to research how she could make her idea a reality. 

That was when she decided she would not go back to work but would instead start a charity dedicated to helping young people like the ones she had encountered.

"It took a few months to work out what the charity would look like and how best we could do it. I then put together a five-strong board of trustees.

"We got charitable status at the beginning of September 2022."

A launch date was set for April and she managed to find funding to take on the first 10 young people aged 13 to 25 for 10 weeks, one day a week on a pilot scheme.

She has made a point of seeing every candidate who wants to take part so that they can put a face to a name.

Some that she hopes to help may not have left their homes for years, and these will be among the hardest to reach, she admits.

The idea is that they will take part in activities on the farm while taking part of a psycho-educational programme to help them work through their mental health problems. 

During their time on the farm they can expect to get their hands dirty, feel a sense of purpose - and take a break from tech.

"They will spend time in a stunning, nurturing, and safe environment looking after animals, getting hands-on growing produce, driving and maintaining machinery, cooking, and a lot of tears, laughter, and friendship along the way," she says.

The programme will be supported by trustee and clinical psychologist Dr Beth Mosley MBE who will come for part of the day, and the farm activities will be run by Stephen Shears.

"The biggest challenge for young people is that 18 threshold. Young people's mental health services will look after them to the age of 18," explains Hannah.

"We hope to bridge that gap so there's some continuity and consistency.

"The whole idea is to give these young people a toolbox of strategies to help them for the rest of their lives. This is moving away from the traditional talking therapy."

Hannah herself will be a volunteer working with the care farm - which at the moment is supported by funds raised from personal donations.

They have put in some facilities for the care farm participants and the activities will be based in a barn.

It has been a lot of hard work, she admits, but having a focus and a challenge is something she clearly enjoys.

"You can be very highly functioning. This really is absolutely my passion and I love a challenge first and foremost," she says.

"I want to make damn sure there's some help for them if they need it."

To find out about the charity or to donate visit https://www.thenestfarms.org/#