Why making time for hobbies requires more attention and must be a priority for us all.

Before I discusst the article, I will explain why it is so important to me.

I co-founded Agora Models with James, and my business partner, Liam White. Our mission was to create scale model kits of the highest possible quality, museum-level quality, that would excite us and be a joy to build. For James and Liam, the business was about quality products and the building experience. However, I also needed to find something in the business that addressed my appreciation of beautiful things and my belief that if anything is worth doing, it must be done with excellence in mind. It also had to allow me to connect with what we were doing on a deeper, personal level.

I have to be honest, I didn’t grow up making scale models. That expertise came from James, and being the mother of three boys who would sit around the kitchen table building plastic kits, paint and glue everywhere, on a rainy Saturday afternoon; then as they got older, collecting and painting Warhammer figures. My hobbies were dress-making (a product of 80s pop-culture – every girl worth her black eyeshadow had to have a home-made Siouxsie Sioux outfit), and drawing.

I struggled at school for a variety of reasons, but after drifting for four years from the age of 18 – 21, I found my true vocation studying psychology at The Royal Holloway, University of London. For the first time, I was deeply engaged and producing good results. Sadly, on gaining my Bachelor’s degree, the bottleneck many psychology graduates experience when attempting to pursue a career in clinical psychology prevented me from reaching my goal. Instead, I took up an exciting offer that introduced me to the world of publishing and marketing – a varied and winding path that led me to Agora Models.

So now, my interest in psychology blends with my business in making model kits. Producing model kits enables me to bring joy, happiness, and even therapy, that feeds positive mental health.

The report I have sitting on my desk is written by Sophie Wickham, a research fellow in public mental health at the Department of Public Health and Policy, University of Liverpool. Sophie Wickham’s article titled “Hobbies for mental health’ underscores the critical importance of engaging in hobbies for supporting mental and physical wellbeing across all stages of life. It highlights a study in the same journal which provided compelling evidence of the mental health benefits of hobbies – such as reduced depressive symptoms and increased happiness– among older adults in 16 countries and involving 90,000 individuals.

Sophie Wickham argues that for the first time, such a robust study validates the need to promote hobby engagement at a policy level globally. The author also discusses the significant cost of the global mental health crisis, (currently projected to US$6 trillion by 2030 in global health literature) and suggests that promoting hobbies offers a cost-effective public health solution.

The author suggests that policymakers need to consider how personal, familial, and societal pressures affect participation in, availability of, access to, and time for hobbies, given that these factors are all related to key health inequality dimensions that are amenable to intervention.

Importantly, Wickham also argues that while the study focused on older adults and the burden on mental health services in an ageing population, cementing hobbies in early life can also translate into health benefits in later life.

So, what can we do? Reading this article left me feeling motivated to ensure that my personal, family and company policy supports access to hobbies. My three sons are now in their early 20s and, like many, they’ve all had their struggles going through the pandemic, and now trying to find jobs. The two things that seem to keep them all feeling positive is cooking for themselves and going to the gym or running. I am happy to subsidise this both financially and in terms of learning to give up my kitchen, watching on as my best frying pan loses its non-stick I’ve tried lovingly to maintain.

My staff are free to come and go as they please if they need flexibility in their day to fit in their exercise or hobby, whether it be a gym class with a friend, choir practise, or watching a Spurs game.

With a business in the hobby sector, I also feel a huge responsibility to do whatever we can to provide greater access to our hobby – to modelmaking – in the community. After all, it’s just another small thing we can control, but that can have huge beneficial effects. In the early days of starting the business, this was difficult given that we had to reinvest every penny we could to grow.

Fortunately, we are now in a position where we can do something to make our hobby accessible to those who will benefit the most, supporting various charities in the UK, Europe, and the US. Working with the charity Models For Heroes has been one of the most rewarding experiences for our team. The charity was founded by Malcolm Childs, a modelmaker who recognised the curative effect of modelmaking in the recovery programme for Armed Forces and Emergency Service personnel. There is also a wealth of research literature to support Malcom’s belief. He soon convinced friends and family to help him set up the charity which now sends model kits to individuals and Armed Forces Organisations who will benefit from the hobby. Referrals are taken from other support organisations and the NHS.

Supporting Malcolm and his charity has introduced us to individuals who have directly benefited from the hobby, and stories we hear are profound and often very moving. Therapeutic effects range from providing social support, to helping to improve dexterity in the recovery from physical injury, to treatment of PTSD. For some, building a military model maintains a dependent connection to the military, and for others, a military model can aid in the recovery of suppressed fear and trauma. Always mindful that there are occasions when a model might trigger a negative, unwanted response, a model of a classic car is also available as an option. We have recently sent a kit of a Lamborghini Miura to a team in the Falklands.

Working with Models For Heroes has served to strengthen our commitment to recognise every model maker as an individual we must nourish and respect, underpinning every single decision we make.

I’m excited that our focus has recently broadened to include a younger generation of model makers, supporting young people to do their Duke of Edinburgh’s Award. I hope that introducing a meaningful hobby to young people can create a foundation to support their positive mental health throughout life in the way my boys have that foundation. They have the ability to recognise and identify for themselves the symptoms of feeling low and gloomy, and can put things in place to help, always a hobby such as cooking, going to the gym, running, climbing, or, of course, building a model kit.

Friday 10th October, 2025, is World Mental Health Day, and we’re promoting the event in a bid to generate greater awareness of the urgent need to make hobbies accessible to all by giving away more model kits than ever before in our ‘Big Model Give Back’. I am very grateful to researchers such as Sophie Wickham who help provide the compelling scientific evidence that doing so can have such profound positive long-term effects. I hope that we can also encourage more individulas and businesses to start making access to hobbies a priority.