Finding strength in farming, workplaces, and grief

This year, as a sponsor of Britain’s Fittest Farmer, I’ve been reflecting not just on fitness, but on something deeper,  how farming communities, workplaces, and families navigate grief.

Jacqueline Gunn © Workplace Bereavement

Through Workplace Bereavement advocacy, our focus has been on making sure people are not left to carry grief alone.

We train bereavement advocates in workplaces, schools, and agricultural businesses, giving staff the confidence to support each other when the unthinkable happens.

Sometimes, it’s an internal advocate, someone within the team who understands the culture.

Other times, it’s an external advocate, because we know how much easier it can feel to talk openly with someone outside the workplace, who can simply listen without judgment.

Alongside my business, I also run the charity Talking About Loss, which I set up after my dad died. Supporting people in agriculture and rural communities.

Grief has become not just a job, but a calling. Farming can already be isolating, and grief adds another layer.

Creating spaces where people feel supported, heard, and understood has been life-changing not only for the workplaces we train, but also for me personally.

Part of this work is deeply personal. My dad was a farmer, and some of my fondest childhood memories are of being out in the fields with him at harvest time, learning, laughing, and listening to his knowledge.

Dad dying suddenly has left a hole that can never be filled,  but his love of farming, his work ethic, and his resilience inspire everything I do today.

And yet, I’ve also learned that support has to be practical, not just emotional. For me, that’s meant coming back to movement.

Fitness has been part of my identity for more than 30 years. I’ve worked as a fitness instructor, served as a firefighter, and even stood on stage at a bikini competition in my forties. Exercise was always my anchor.

But when Dad died and the menopause hit (as if life couldn’t get any more brutal) that anchor slipped. For six and a half years, I’ve had to find my way with grief and change. And now, I’m finding my way back.

This September, I’m launching Riderfit here on my business partners farm in East Riding of Yorkshire, where we run animal therapy days for bereaved families and grief retreats for adults when the farm is not in use during the school day, with Vicky Simpson my business partner at Workplace Bereavement advocacy, workplacebereavement.co.uk 

© Workplace Bereavement

Vicky has built an alternative provision, land-based school, Millbrook Horizons millbrookhorizons.co.uk  for  children and young people who may struggle in a traditional classroom setting, offering animal management, equine management, horticulture, woodwork and outdoor pursuits, including Send at workplace bereavement advocacy.

We also have a young hearts bereavement training for teachers in schools, young farmers groups giving the leaders confidence to support young people coming back into the sessions after the death of a loved one, this training includes Send bereavement training and attachment and trauma.

© Workplace Bereavement

Riderfit will be a blend of circuit training and mechanical horse sessions, built around connection, resilience, and farm-to-fork eating.

It’s diversification with a difference not just a new enterprise, but a reminder that wellbeing belongs at the heart of farming life.

Running alongside my bereavement business and my charity, Riderfit is another way of helping people strengthen both body and mind while staying rooted in the farming community.

© Workplace Bereavement

I can honestly say I feel happy again. That doesn’t mean I’ve forgotten my dad, I never will but I’ve realised that living and grieving can coexist. The love and the loss both walk beside me, shaping who I am and what I do.

And grief isn’t defined by borders or postcodes. We’ve just launched in the US and South Africa, and a few more countries are nearly ready to commit. Grief is global and the need for better support is universal.

So the question is this: how do you support your team when grief comes to your door? Are you ready to make the change?

Bereavement training isn’t just about the workplace,  it flows outward, reaching clients, customers, and the wider community. When you invest in your people, that compassion carries further than you’ll ever know.

Because resilience in farming isn’t just about surviving another season, it’s about standing together, in work, in life, and in death. its not the grief that changes, it’s us.