The Rev Ian Dewar talks to Lancaster garden designer Jennifer Lauruol to explore the idea of growing your own medicine.

Jennifer, who died in 2023, had decades of experience as a gardener, including gardening for wildlife, habitat conservation, growing medicinal and culinary herbs, designing sensory and therapeutic gardens, and working in a biodynamic market garden.

Her work was featured in The Guardian, Gardens Illustrated and Permaculture Magazine.

Podcasts | The Bay Health Festivals

From his attic studio overlooking Lancaster, a specialist artist is producing work that has helped us all.

From the simple to the complex; from information leaflets to cutting edge research, Philip Ferguson Jones has over 20 years’ experience as a medical artist.

Medical art can help break down complex medical concepts and provide an easy and engaging way to learn.

Philip’s now a leading figure in this specialist industry yet his involvement was down to chance.

Nigel Thompson spent an afternoon watching him at work:

Podcasts | The Bay Health Festivals

We’ve just experienced the highs of the festive season and for many January is a tough month to get through. Dark days, bills to pay – it can feel like the winter month lasts a lot longer than others!

A drop in temperature can affect how you feel in the winter. If you find the colder months hard on your mental health, it’s a good idea to think about simple ways you can help look after your health now.

Gemma Wright is a practice development nurse for Lancashire and South Cumbria NHS Foundation Trust and shares this insight and top tips with the Bay Health Festivals:

Podcasts | The Bay Health Festivals

As many gardens and allotments are put to bed for the winter a group in Barrow are busy planning how to make the most of their land next year.

Mind in Furness are cultivating a disused allotment in Vickerstown. The aim is for it to not only produce fresh fruit and veg for the area but also offer care for those whose mental health needs nurturing.

As the Bay Health Festivals Nigel Thompson reports from Walney Island, the charity already has a strong track record in using horticulture to improving health:

Mind in Furness for Bay Health Festivals

Podcasts | The Bay Health Festivals

At the end of January 2020 Covid 19 arrived on our shores.  It took us by surprise, even though we knew that we were long overdue a pandemic.  Only 3 years ago, and yet it seems a long way away.  But perhaps, like the death of a loved one, moments that seem a long way away suddenly become immediate once more, as if they have just happened  That is why acts of remembrance are so important, they give us a framework.

When your loved one dies of Covid 19 and you cannot grieve as normal, what do you do?  When that loved one is a frontline worker and a well known figure, what challenges does that present?  In April 2020, Simon Guest, radiographer at Furness General Hospital died of Covid 19 and it made the news.  In this thoughtful and poignant interview, his widow Nicky Guest speaks of her journey since that fateful day and how she has found a path of healing.  She offers her story to encourage others to share theirs. 

“Am well. Thinking of you always. Love”
― Albert Camus, The Plague

Podcasts | The Bay Health Festivals

Professor Adam Taylor, from Lancaster University, delivers a demonstration of anatomy and discusses its implications for healthcare with a group of invited 6th form pupils.

For more on anatomy and its contribution to science and health, see our book review:

The Butchering Art by Lindsay Fitzharris, thebayhealthfestivals.org.uk

Podcasts | The Bay Health Festivals

Nigel Thompson visits the 2023 Bay Health Festivals events in Lancaster and Kendal to learn more about the ways we inspire people to live healthier lives and connect the organisations working to improve public health in north Lancashire and south Cumbria. 

Podcasts | The Bay Health Festivals

How powerful is your mind?  Is your mind in prison or free?  What simple changes could be made that might make you a new person or build a new community?  In this fascinating interview, neuroscientist Ian Robetson gives us an insight in to where the research is taking us.  For a full bio of Ian https://ianrobertson.org/

Podcasts | The Bay Health Festivals

Want to know what we are all about?  Nigel Thompson from Morecambe Bay Podcasts talks to the founder of Bay Health Festivals, Ian Dewar, and asks; what is The Lost Art of Living and why is it so important for living in the future?

Podcasts | The Bay Health Festivals