Taming The Black Dog Elle's Fight For Farm Workers

Will’s death has highlighted a rural crisis

- Julie Jacobson

Hunterville, November last year. The annual Shepherd’s Shemozzle was about to get underway. There was Elle Perriam center stage, and some 200 young farmworkers and their dogs lined up along the main street.

Less than a year had passed since her 20-year old boyfriend Will had taken his life. She’d asked for a minute’s silence to remember him and the many others who had lost their lives to suicide.

At her side was Jess, Will’s treasured black dog. Jess would bark to break the silence and the other canines would follow. The noise was deafening.

“It was so loud, it sent shivers down your spine,” recalls Elle of the moment that launched Will to Live, a campaign to get young shepherds “speaking up” about their mental health.

But as stunning as the sound of dozens of dogs barking in unison might have been, it was the number of shepherds’ hands that shot up in response to Elle’s questions about their emotional state that really hit home.

“I asked people to put their hand up if they had ever had a bad day in the yards and heaps of them put their hands up,” Elle says. “I asked them to put their hand up if they had been mustering for 14 hours, had come home absolutely exhausted, were too tired to eat … and everyone put their hand up.”

Isolation, long hours and unsympathetic bosses. They’re recurring themes among the many young shepherds and farm workers Elle has spoken to since Will’s death.

The Canterbury-based 21-year-old knows the hazards of the job only too well. The Lincoln University student and part-time shepherd have worked both here and in Australia. She explains, “I’ve been on some amazing stations. Anyone from the big city would kill to live out there because of the tranquillity and peacefulness, but the loneliness is a big issue.