Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins

It’s been a hell of a week. A living hell, for some of our neighbours around the country. Compared to them, I have little to complain about. But I wondered how the last few days have been for your mental health, especially if the disorder we’ve seen has touched your life, or that of your family, in any way. Share your thoughts in the comments, or by sending me a message. Also, the last couple of w...

Hello You is about stuff, and things. People and stories, mental and physical health and wellbeing, art and creativity, Shrewsbury and Shropshire, self-knowledge and the changes, obstacles and complexities of life. Meet Tina. Tina lives in Shrewsbury, and she responded to my invitation to people who have a story to share, and thoughts to think about. She has plenty to share about pretty much all o...

What do you pick up at your local convenience store? A couple of pizzas and a few beers for movie-night at home? Tea bags, ice cream, bin liners … and help with loneliness? Julie Kaur has been behind the counter at Jule’s Convenience Store on Haybridge Road in Hadley for thirty years. She’s developed an eye for people who maybe need a chat, or some company. If you look like you need one, she’ll ma...

A fun-size episode! Some recordings from a slightly chaotic visit to Shrewsbury’s Pride Hill, where I sat on the benches and listened to some people. I’m displeased with myself. I wasn’t entirely happy with how I dealt with this Bench session, which took place last Friday lunchtime. In the interests of full disclosure, I deleted the first conversation I recorded, ostensibly because the person I wa...

‘Who wouldn’t want an Uncle Buck? Someone loads of fun who’d also stick up for you?’ Tracey J. Morgan, from Shrewsbury, has published a new edition of her biography of the Canadian actor John Candy. She’s also been going to remarkable lengths to contact a famously elusive Hollywood legend, for her next writing project. They involve a letter, a golf course and holidaying in the same place and at th...

‘If you find something you enjoy, you’ve got to hold on to it’ Nigel’s been listening to, and commenting on, Hello You since the very first episode. And now he gets one of his own! Take a listen and meet him for yourself. I want to build a virtual summerhouse But to do so, I need your knowledge and expertise with Facebook. My idea is this: Create a Hello You hangout, so the Hello You family has so...

Wow. I started this podcast kinda by accident, as this episode explains. And with your support and encouragement, I’ve now made  fifty  episodes! Thank you so much. This means a lot to me now … again, as this episode explains. If you’re on board with Hello You, please hit ‘Like’ anywhere you can. That helps other people find out about it, and we can enlarge the Hello You family. Subscribe , too, o...

What took Sonya Jones from a small village on the Shropshire border with Wales, to a nationally-recognised authority on child exploitation and safeguarding? And how did the tragic, violent death of a teenager from Merseyside on a Shrewsbury housing estate begin to unlock the mechanisms and the sordid mysteries of county-lines drug trafficking? More by Sonya Jones: ‘'I wasn't a gangster, just a kid...

Includes: * repairing stuff * growing things * giving people voices * kids and nature * the Bench’s backstory * many, many postcards of Ruyton-XI-Towns * yarnbombing * the paranormal * Castlefields * the Hello You philosophy - what I’m trying to do * the history of Our Price Records * scary dolls * old radios * people who make Shrewsbury a better place, and * psychic phenomena. Some of which happe...

How do you life your life, when you don’t know how much life you have left to live? Last spring, Nick Deane - a previously fit and active fifty-something, a Parkrun stalwart and a member of the Shropshire Shufflers - experienced the first symptoms of motor neurone disease . In this episode of Hello You, Nick tells his story, and shares his thoughts about living with an incurable condition for whic...

Conversations from a Shrewsbury Pride Picnic in the Quarry [Park]. Hear from people who’ve moved to Shropshire from Barcelona, the Philippines, Venezuela, Spain and Wales - where do they prefer? Also: * why do so few specifically-queer songs have happy lyrics? * learning a sense of right and wrong from Star Wars * how it feels to realise you’re the only person of colour around * the importance of...

Some people have been around horses all their lives. I’m not one of those people. But an hour in the company of half-a-dozen horses opened my eyes to what they can teach us about ourselves. Hear what happened in this episode of Hello You. Julia Jones runs Altezza People , providing ‘fun, effective and experiential learning with horses’. Spending time with horses, under Julia’s guidance, can increa...

Toby the Cat is part of the community in Much Wenlock, Shropshire. He took an interest in what I was up to, when I sat on a bench near the Guildhall last Friday afternoon. Topics that came up in conversation: * family history, and discovering stories of famine, persecution and having to flee * where and when would you go in a Time Machine? * loneliness * finding joy in simple things * the importan...

Content warning: suicide, cruelty Meet Kate McLanachan , Shropshire mental health nurse and author of ‘ Spirits of Shelton ’. Kate’s second book recounts the paranormal experiences and reported ghost sightings of people working at Shrewsbury’s Shelton psychiatric hospital. It also covers the hospital’s often tragic history, and some of the former treatments and practices … which are just as likely...

The sounds of a summer day in Shropshire - bees in the sunshine, the odd showers or two, walkers and quite a few excited dogs, plus a light aircraft buzzing lazily across the sky. I recorded this while sitting on a bench on Lyth Hill . I’ll be honest, this wasn’t what I set out to produce, but as you’ll hear, I had something of a moment, and things changed. I suppose that’s what happens when you s...

Where might you find: * a Faerie Trail * a faerie to tell you about it * a House on Crutches * the Happy Bap * a hamster on a stick (pictured below) * a secret garden (also pictured further below, with its creator Whitty) * the British Champion Women’s Scyther * Derek (98) and Christmas lights (eventually) * the Badger Cavalry * and an astonishing number of former pubs? Answer: In Bishop’s Castle,...

Shrewsbury is rich in heritage … but do we think beyond the Castle and the Flaxmill, the Abbey, and the surviving Tudor and medieval buildings? A few weeks ago, the Sentinel Works on Whitchurch Road in Shrewsbury closed. It’s currently up for let. It’s a very familiar building in north Shrewsbury, but is it heritage? What about the history of the place, and the stories of the people who worked the...

Thanks for being there; welcome to the Hello You family. It’s Mental Health Awareness Week. Or Mental Health Week, or Mental Health Awareness Month, or something … It’s all a bit confusing, but anyway, we’re all being encouraged to think about, talk about and be more aware of mental health. Which is a good thing. It’s one of the reasons I started this podcast, after all. (I frightened myself durin...

It’s always exciting to be allowed into somewhere well-known, but that comparatively few people have visited. So I was thrilled - and a little surprised - to find myself in the dining room of Darwin House, formerly known as the Mount House, which is the birthplace of Charles Darwin. But it was also a family home, under the gaze of materfamilias Susannah Darwin. How much do you know about Susannah...

Content warning: suicide Get your earbuds in, headphones on or Bluetooth speaker fired up, and join me on a bench in the Dingle, in Shrewsbury’s Quarry (Park), where I recorded some conversations, a soundscape, and an appeal for help , on a sunny Bank Holiday Monday afternoon. Topics covered in this episode: * mental health * coping with grief * the joy of a skilled craft * men’s mental health * A...

We’re all searching for happiness, each of us trying different routes to scale that mountain. Katie Millard is The Happiness Coach . But can people be coached to be happy? Hear her answer in this episode of Hello You. ‘People who are hurt, will hurt other people’ You can also find out more about Katie’s work in Shropshire’s schools, giving children and young people the tools to cope with the compl...

We’ve mentioned before on Hello You, how physical health and mental health overlap. One can help make the other better, or worse. A change in one may well bring about change in the other. Author (among many other things) Tracey Morgan knows all about this, from personal lived experience. She tells her story in this episode, touching on a range of topics including: * endometriosis * depression * hy...

The Bench random recording session yesterday afternoon absolutely flew! I sat on a bench at the top of Wyle Cop, in Shrewsbury, where I met some amazing people and heard some remarkable stories. You want to hear them too? Click on the audio … then share it with your friends, family and colleagues, whether they’re in Shrewsbury or anywhere in the world. There’s stuff in this episode that people eve...

Always remember, on radio or any other type of audio, there’s always someone who’s hearing you for the first time. I forgot that, so there’s a verbal welcome to both new subscribers and casual listeners at the start of this episode. Want to be a new subscriber? Click here: Want to be a lovely person? Share this episode with people: … or introduce them to the Hello You family (I talk about this in...

A conversation with Leanne Southey from Proud To Be Me, at the organisation’s new venture, Mumma’s Emporium - a café and antiques shop on Shrewsbury's Pride Hill in Shropshire. What’s Hello You about? To quote The Captain: ‘people, life, Shrewsbury, Shropshire, social and community events, mental health and pondering the complexities of life’. I’d love to know what you think of Hello You. Message...