Two tradespeople lose their lives to suicide every working day, a devastating reality at the heart of the construction industry, where workers in the trades are around four times more likely to die by suicide than the national average.
To raise awareness, Fix Radio – the UK’s only radio station dedicated to the trades – has launched The Grand Builders’ Tea-Lay to help tackle the sector’s mental health crisis and encourage more open conversation across the trades. The station is using a familiar part of site life, “the builder’s brew”, to create a live, listener-led check-in that encourages tradespeople to pause, speak properly, and ask one another how they are really doing.
Alongside the relay, Fix Radio’s Street Team will distribute 300 Brew & Banter Packs to sites across the UK to widen participation beyond the Mug Bearers. Each pack includes:
• A Fix Radio x Brew & Banter T-shirt
• A Tea-Lay mug
• Tea and milk essentials
• A practical Banter Cheat Sheet designed to make starting the conversation easier
Listeners who send a photo of their pack in use will also be entered into a £500 cash draw. All interested listeners can register at fixradio.co.uk.
Fix Radio is offering a range of prizes for participating Mug Bearers, including:
• £1,000 cash
• An official Fix Radio Mug Bearer mug
• An exclusive Tea-Lay T-shirt
• 1,000 tea bags of their choice
A further £500 bonus will be awarded for the most creative arrival at a handover.
Tea-Lay is a live, listener-led mug relay travelling from site to site across the UK over ten days, connecting tradespeople in different regions through a series of on-air handovers during the Bald Builders Breakfast Show. Designed to cut through the silence that still surrounds mental health in the industry, the campaign turns a familiar part of site life into a practical prompt for conversation.
Sam Hughes, host of the Bald Builders Breakfast Show, said: “We’re excited to get this on the road. It’s all about bringing the trade together and sparking those chats that might never have happened without the excuse of a brew and a bit of banter and we’re going to have a lot of fun doing it. Our listeners are already delivering the laughs, with hilarious entries to transport the mug via everything from unicycles and motorbikes to flatbed lorries.”
The Grand Builders’ Tea-Lay runs from Monday 16 March to Thursday 26 March, with selected listeners becoming official Mug Bearers who each hold the mug for 24 hours before passing it on to the next tradesperson. At every handover the two Mug Bearers take time to check in with each other, with parts of those conversations shared live on the Fix Radio Breakfast Show. Those moments sit at the heart of the campaign.
By broadcasting them live, Fix Radio shows what a simple, stigma-free check-in can sound like in the language of the trades, direct, honest and grounded.
By using its national platform to normalise these moments live on air, Fix Radio is helping turn conversation into habit and making the simple act of asking “You alright?” mean something again.