‘We need to talk about mental health’ – interview with CIH president Aileen Evans

It seems Ms Evans’ campaigning spirit (she is a founder member of Social Housing Under Threat, the campaign to save social rented housing) and belief in the importance of education and learning date right back to her childhood in Hucknall, a small former mining town just outside of Nottingham. The family’s experience during the miners’ strike in the 1980s, along with her father’s broader dislike for his job, still haunt her to this day.

“We are all a product of the past and all those experiences shape us,” she acknowledges. “Not having food during the miners’ strike shaped me. You know, my dad not working – well, he did work unofficially because a mate gave him building work and that is how we ate, but having free school meals because my dad was on strike. Being shouted at in the street when the power cuts came because there was no coal.”

In the febrile environment of the 1980s, her Irish mother was also the target of occasional abuse, she adds, “by people blaming her for the IRA”.

All of which left Ms Evans with “a raging sense of injustice really, that the world wasn’t a fair place”.

“The world still isn’t a fair place,” she adds. “But there is something [important] about doing your bit then to try and help it be a bit better.”

This ethos has certainly been a driving force behind Ms Evans’ career to date, as well as her new campaign. On top of raising money for mental health charity Mind, she wants the campaign, called Shine a Light, to focus on spreading good practice.

The strong belief in the importance of learning springs out of her childhood experiences, too.

“My mum and dad were not slouchers,” she states. “They were clever people but they had no opportunity. My father was a clever, thoughtful, articulate man, but he was painfully shy. So he ended up 35 years down a coal mine… He absolutely hated it every single day. But it put food on the table.”

Both her mum, who worked as a hospital receptionist, and dad “worked hard and did stuff they weren’t particularly comfortable with to make sure we [the children] were alright”, she adds.

“The thing I took from that is the value of education. It gives you choices. I’m really privileged to have these choices. I mustn’t squander them.”

It’s difficult to imagine Ms Evans squandering anything. She talks about both work and her family with a warmth and passion that makes you feel that this is someone who is determined to make the most of every minute. This perhaps is a product of her background, too – both the loving family environment but also an appreciation of the fragility of life. The latter point has led directly to the campaign.

“I always knew I wanted to talk about mental health,” Ms Evans says of the moment she first thought about standing to become president.

When asked why, she starts by talking about the moment her dad’s best friend killed himself when she was five.

“He was a happy, smiley, life and soul of the party person,” she says. “Nobody knew he was ill. It was a complete surprise. My dad never, ever really recovered from that. When I was 15, my dad attempted suicide. Because of being trapped in a job he hated. Being thwarted in the person that he wanted to be, in not having the life that his brain told him he could have had.”

Ms Evans’ husband has also suffered from mental health problems, and Ms Evans states bluntly that “I know my mental health has been shit at times”, too. At one point, when her husband was ill, she says she “lost a load of weight, I didn’t sleep properly but it was only kind of down the line that I recognised I needed some counselling and got some support”.

Ultimately, it is this last point that Ms Evans wants to inform the message of her campaign. “Sometimes all of us need a bit of support,” she states. “Sometimes some of us need a bit more support. I think it is framing it in a context that says, ‘It is alright to ask for it. You don’t have to be brave and soldier on.’”

In her own workplace, fostering a supportive environment has involved Ms Evans blogging about her own mental health in order to reduce stigma and encourage others either to open up or seek support.

Ms Evans also thinks the sector should take direct action to tackle the worrying number of suicides in the construction industry. While contracts typically have “reams” of health and safety requirements, mental health plans should become more widespread, she thinks.