Curious Chats & Kind Acts

Krystle, is the co-owner of Honey Suckle Florist in Hoole. We discuss her upbringing as a Jehovah’s Witness and how leaving the faith affected her relationships.

Hope you enjoy!

In today's episode, I'm interviewing Anthony. We will be discussing his struggles with mental health, gambling and his relationships. He also speaks about a social enterprise called The Wilderness Tribe and for more info, on that have a listen to the episode we did with Tom (Episode #4).

Trigger warnings: We do talk about suicide and gambling, so just to give you a heads up.

I hope you enjoy the episode.

I've known Joe for years, we met when we worked in prisons together setting up mentoring and employment support projects, and the friendship has continued.

Joe recently spent time in hospital with sepsis, and nearly died, we talk about Joe living his best life with a disability, and more recently needing support from carers and how that has impacted his life.

We chat about the impact being in a wheelchair has on Joe, and Joe explains why he tries to see his wheelchair as an asset and how it’s fundamental to who he is and the challenges that come along with that… like being pushed with being asked!

I hope you enjoy this episode.

Mark grew up in Rhyl but he now lives in the middle of nowhere and when I visited I had to go via several farms on the way to his home. Mark lost his leg when he was 10, from a car accident.

This led him to swimming therapy where he received the biggest act of kindness of his life, access to a swimming coach. And from this, he went on to win Paralympic medals. We discuss his brushes with royalty and how he started his award winning business called Limart. Now they make prosthetic leg covers, which help amputees improve their confidence.

In this episode, I speak to Shirley.

Shirley’s done something pretty remarkable in her community. She started a cycling group to help people get on their bikes and get fit. Including me! Oh and she’s done all this whilst surviving cancer…twice.

She’s a pretty amazing person, and you’ll hear this from just 1 second into our conversation. We talk about how she started her group, how it changed people’s lives, the absolute power of friendship, and why she doesn’t want you to treat her any differently as a cancer survivor…

And just before we crack on, we do talk about bereavement in this episode too. 

I start off by asking Shirley to take us back to when she got her first cancer diagnosis…

I know Tom through work, I have always admired how he has always been so open and vulnerable, and I wanted to chat with him to find out why. We talk about his mental health, and how his journey has led him to start up the wilderness tribe.  A social enterprise that gives people, mainly men a positive experience in nature to improve their well being.  And quite bizarrely, he convinces me that breathing is an act of kindness!

In this episode, I speak to Cathy, Cathy is a retired social worker, with a fascinating life! 

We hear her  journey that saw her living in a caravan in the middle of field for 10 years, which included homelessness, teenage pregnancy, adultery, bigamy… there’s a lot to unpack. Then we hear what it was like living without running water, whilst trying to rear pigs who like to wallow in water! We chat about carbon monoxide poisoning, and medicinal spliffs - there’s a lot of twists and turns and I hope you also enjoy hearing about her colorful life!

I start off by asking Cathy where it all began for her.

Alex is at uni, and is going to be a paramedic. I’ve known Alex since he was very tiny. But back then, Alex was a girl.

So in this absolutely fascinating conversation, we go on that trans journey with Alex and visit stuff like hormones, body dysmorphia, misgendering, top surgery and things you don’t even think about when you think of changing genders, like adjusting the way that you sit!

So bearing that in mind and by way of a trigger warning, we do get quite detailed about surgery, and we touch on mental health and sexual themes.

In this episode, I speak to Louise, I know Louise through work. Lou facilitated some amazing Action Learning sets for me when I worked for Macmillan.

Lou is a really kind person, and I wanted to explore that with her, we talk about how she tries to radiate a positive energy and how she follows the energy.  We discuss shyness and how her clubbing days brought her out of her shell, unkindness in the work place and the challenges of losing your hair.

Just to warn you, we do discuss drug use in this episode.