Extracts from the Telegraph
The Chatty Café Scheme is the brainchild of 35-year-old Alex Hoskyn, who launched it in 2017.
What is a chatty cafe?
Her concept was simple: to create a welcoming environment in cafés with a “Chatter and Natter” table – not necessarily as a way of making friends, but just to inspire “good old-fashioned human interaction”. Anyone can join one of these tables, whether alone or in the company of a friend, a child, a grandparent or carer.
An average of 25 cafés have joined each month and last month saw the biggest influx yet, with more than 60 signing on (look out for a blue sticker in the window to spot them).
The scheme is also linked to pubs, libraries, gyms and other community spaces.
According to the charity Mind, feeling lonely in itself isn’t considered to be a mental health problem, but having a mental health problem increases your chance of feeling lonely – and feeling lonely can have a negative effect on your mental health. Sometimes, all it takes is a passing exchange to restore a sense of connectedness.
Loneliness, it seems, is an epidemic. According to the Campaign to End Loneliness, one in five people in the UK, are always or often lonely.
“When you talk to strangers, you’re making beautiful interruptions into the expected narrative of your daily life – and theirs,” says Kio Stark, author of When Strangers Meet: How People You Don’t Know Can Transform You. In her TED talk, she explores how the act of interacting with people you don’t know not only improves your mood but also boosts confidence and makes you feel human. “And you never know, you may well make a friend in the process,” she notes.
As well as taking an emotional toll, loneliness affects our physical health, too. One significant report has shown that loneliness can increase the risk of early death by 26 per cent, and that as a risk factor for mortality it is worse for us than obesity and comparable to smoking 15 cigarettes a day.
Now with over 1,000 establishments taking part from all around the country, from the National Trust’s Fell Foot Boathouse café in the Lake District to branches of Costa Coffee, Georgia’s kitchen on Hampton Hill and Fitzcanes in Midhurst are among a few on board.
Visit thechattycafescheme.co.uk to find a location near you