‘I lay in bed, listenin wondered if if it wou
Apopular Welsh TV presenter has spoken with raw honesty about the bout of depression which brought him to the brink of suicide.
Alun Elidyr, who fronts S4C’s Ffermio series, said he lay in bed one night wondering whether to end his inner turmoil by leaping into a river that runs through his farm at Rhydymain, Dolgellau.
He opened up about his illness in support of a new Dolgellau Hospital initiative that supports men with mental health issues, in particular farmers.
“The more I have spoken to people about this, the more I have realised they don’t know where to turn to for help,” he said.
The trigger for Alun’s depression was his mother’s death in November 2014.
After driving up from his family home in Talybont, Ceredigion, he found 90-year-old Annie Mary Edwards dead at the foot of the stairs at Cae Coch farmhouse. She was still warm.
“I usually get up at 7am and I can be at the farm by 8am,” he said.
“But that morning I decided to join the family for breakfast, so I was late getting there. I blamed myself. Perhaps it wouldn’t have made any difference, but I felt I should have been there for her.
“That triggered a feeling of worthlessness. I didn’t see any purpose in carrying on. I’d been looking after her for many years on the farm, so I didn’t know what to do any more.”
In 1997 Alun put a promising acting career on hold to fulfil his late father’s wish to carry on the 735-acre farm and look after his family.
At the time he was a well-known face on S4C. Eight years later he returned to the channel as part of the Ffermio presenting team, juggling it with the demands of farming, travelling and family life.
It was an arduous balancing act, and the first cracks appeared in the aftermath of the 2013 snow crisis. His mother’s death in 2014 was followed by a wet winter, when even the simplest farming job loomed as large as the mountains that surround Cae Coch.
“By the January I wanted to sell the place,” he admitted.
“I realised I had been farming for a long time to please everyone else, not myself. It created space for a lot of bad thoughts.
“I was still working, and I remember filming a piece at Nant y Arian [near Aberystwyth] and leaving thinking I couldn’t carry with the daily grind any more. I did consider leaving the [Ffermio] presenting team, though thankfully it never came to that.
“One night I lay in bed, at 2am, listening to the rain coming down and hearing the roar of the river which runs about 400 yards from the farmhouse. I wondered if it wouldn’t be easier to jump in, that everything would then be so much simpler.”
Fortunately, Alun shared his thoughts with his partner Catrin. She persuaded him to see his GP, who told him he had depression – a realisation that was the first step on the road to recovery.
“It was from that point I started talking about my feelings, which, in the end, saved me,” he said.
“At last I could give a name to my condition and use that as a tool to tackle it.
“I hadn’t been eating, I wasn’t sleeping. I was plagued by jumpiness and nerves. I was exhausted and had no energy.
“I thought that perhaps it was cancer – until then, I hadn’t realised how much your mind can influence your physical condition.”
A neighbour took control, helping out with menial tasks on the farm. A visiting silage contractor confessed his own depression and how to deal with it. Even so, Alun was left feeling vulnerable.
He said: “When a vet calls at the farm, he or she usually phones the next day to ask how the cow, for example, is progressing.
“However there was no follow-up for me. It was if I had dropped off the radar. I was given anti-depressants and, while they helped me to sleep, I felt the after-effects the next morning. It dulled the stress but also the good things too. I felt flat.”
Alun, 57, took control and weaned himself off the drugs after six months. But the more he spoke to