In January, a 75-year-old widower from South Australia posted an ad on Gumtree.

"My name is Ray Johnstone Australian I'm a widowed pensioner who is looking for a fishing mate my previous fishing mate is now deceased," Ray wrote.

The ad stole hearts around the country and went viral; Ray was flooded with responses. It all eventually led to 22-year-old Mati Batsinilas taking Ray on an all-expenses paid fishing trip to Queensland.

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Whatsapp Ray Johnstone fishing with Mati Batsinilas in Moreton Bay holding their first big catch.

Ray’s story resonated with Lee Crockford, CEO of mental health charity Spur Projects. It was representative of a bigger issue in Australia: the mental health, wellbeing and loneliness of older Australians.

“Men aged 80+ suicide the most out of any age group in Australia,” Lee told Hack, “And it’s a statistic that’s not really spoken about at all.”

While there was a greater number of deaths by suicide in younger men in 2016, and the leading cause of death for young men in Australia is suicide, the rate of suicide deaths per 100,000 is highest in men aged over 80.

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Whatsapp Proportion of deaths by suicide

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Whatsapp Number of suicides per 100,000 people

Loneliness is a major issue for mental health: while only about a quarter of households in Australia are composed of someone living alone, Lifeline Australia says people living alone account for about 55 per cent of their calls.

Lee Crockford hopes to change that, by urging young Australians to hang out with an older person in their life - for at least one hour a week. They’ve called the campaign ‘Old Mate’.

“With Old Mate, we’re encouraging 100,000 Australians to take the pledge online to spend at least one hour a week with an old mate in their life.

“Once you’ve taken the pledge, the website has about 70 different activities all of which are designed to reduce those factors to poor mental health.

If you were an older person who was isolated, wouldn’t you want people to be hanging out and doing things with you?”

Lee says Spur Projects found that older Australians, especially men, can often be stoic about their loneliness and mental health struggles.

“One of the things that’s really struck us is that older people don’t necessarily ask [for people to hang out with them], but when you talk about it, and say this is something we want to focus on, their eyes light up.

I think in a more electronic world, some of that isolation is increasing.”

The Old Mate site offers up examples of activities you can do with your old mate - like “Old Mate Double Date” where you and your old mate hang out with another friend and their old mate.

If you don’t actually have an old mate in your life, the site directs you to services and charities where you can meet and volunteer with old mates.

“There’s a lot of evidence out there that any sort of volunteering is good for the soul, good for your own mental health, I think there’s also an element of, we’re all going to be old one day. And I think this problem of isolation isn’t necessarily decreasing.

“So I think there is a cathartic element to it as well.”