A 22-year-old shepherdess opened up on losing her close friend as she aims to raise money for suicide awareness.

Eilidh Horton from Waverton near Wigton is has entered a pedigree sale on Saturday 28 August 2021 and will be donating money from the sale of a prized sheep to PAPYRUS Prevention of Young Suicide.

Eilidh lost one of her best friends, Lewis, to suicide in 2015.

"I'd grown up through school with [Lewis] and it was a big blow losing him.

"I'm trying to turn a negative into a positive and if it can help prevent someone else going through what I and everyone else who was close to Lewis has had to go through, then it's all worthwhile.

Sheep breeding started for Eilidh, who is from a dairy farming background, when she decided she wanted a couple of pet lambs in 2016.

She started working with Dutch Spotted sheep in 2019, but this is her first sale with the breed - something she described as a "learning curve".

On the decision to fundraise through selling her prize sheep, Everready, Eilidh added: "I've always said that I wanted to raise money somehow. Everyone does cake sales and runs, so I thought I would do something a bit different."

Raising awareness on suicide is something Eilidh said was all the more important in rural farming communities like Cumbria.

She said: "I think it's huge.

"We have an awful lot of farmers who struggle because they don't think that they can talk to someone.

"It's really important to get the message out and it's nice to be able to do it through the sheep.

"A lot of farmers are probably quite isolated. Working through the Covid-19 pandemic was quite strange, because it was only me and my boss most of the time.

"It was quiet and it wasn't like I was getting to speak to many people because I'm not living with my family. I was only really seeing one person a day and it did take a toll."

Eilidh has five pedigree sheep to sell, but she is just using one - Everready - to raise funds for charity.

She will donate 20 per cent of the price of a sheep and her boss will match-fund that.

Around £320 has already been raised through Eilidh's donation page, which you can visit at https://uk.virginmoneygiving.com/EilidhHortin.

You can keep up with Eilidh's work yourself by following her flock name - Murtle's Dutch Spotted Sheep - on Facebook.

Help can be found by calling the Samaritans, free at any time, on 116 123, or by emailing jo@samaritans.org or visiting Samaritans.org.