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PODCAST

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins

I’m trying to give you something a little different. Hello You is about stuff, and things. People, and stories. Shrewsbury, and Shropshire. Mental health and well-being. History and heritage. Arts, culture and music. Faith, belief and the complexities of life. I’m a good listener. It’s what I do. And for Hello You, I’m listening to (and talking with) fascinating people, mostly but not always from Shropshire, so that you can hear what they have to say. It"s public-service local journalism that

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All Episodes

27:17

Hello You 148: Jonny Thaw loves his country

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/11/07

‘We could be so great, we could be great to people and do great things’Displaying a national flag and saying that you love your country can be quite loaded gestures at the moment. But why?Shrewsbury artist Jonny Thaw tackles these issues head-on in his new show at the town’s Swan Hill Studios. And if you’d never normally go to an art show, he’s particularly keen to know what you think of it! So why not go this weekend? It’s free to enter, and it would make a change from traipsing around a retail

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92:48

Hello You 147: The lost art of noticing

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/10/25

‘I look at nature and it takes my mind away from my problems’What do you notice in the world around you?Artist and educator Sara Bellis - ‘I identify as geek’ - is building a community of people who are reviving the lost art of noticing. Under the banner of Get Out And Get Arty they gather in a couple of special places in Shropshire to practice nature journalling.#INIWIRMO - I notice, I wonder, it reminds me of …But what is nature journalling, and how can it help you? I joined Sara and her GOGA

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45:42

Hello You 146: Home wasn't built in a day

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/10/16

‘Sometimes I was absolutely freezing, but there was so much warmth around’How do you feel when you encounter Shrewsbury’s street people?Walking down Pride Hill a year or two ago, you might’ve seen a young woman habitually sitting on the ground with her back to the wall, outside Holland & Barrett. Sometimes she’d be nursing a bottle of vodka.That was Emily Jayne.‘When you drink a lot of vodka, fear doesn’t come into anything’Emily Jayne recently responded to some hostile comments on a Facebook post

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57:44

Hello You 145: There's hope for us all

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/10/12

‘I want to be as woke as possible, and I’m not ashamed to admit it’What is it that takes Shrewsbury-based Methodist minister Rev Richard Hall - shown above with members of the ‘Sanglier Dynamique’ scout group in Gahanga, Kigali - to Rwanda, a country of which he says ‘the fact that there’s any kind of functioning society at all there is remarkable’? And what is it about Rwanda that means Richard’s visits there give him hope for the whole of humanity? ‘There are moves in society which are deeply

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53:36

Hello You 144: 'It's about having the voice to...

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/10/02

‘Learning to sing is learning to find your voice’Hello You the Shropshire podcast is about people, and stories. It’s also about amplifying the voices of people you might not hear from otherwise … or giving them a voice in the first place. Cathy Beech also gives people their voices. She helps them to discover the voices they may not even believe they have.Cathy’s a vocal coach with her own singing school, Angel Voice. She’s based in the Welshpool area and extending the reach of her work further into

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62:38

Hello You 143: 'He makes us find joy in the simplest...

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/09/19

‘We have spent twenty-five years fighting to ensure he has the chance to live the life he deserves’After the summer-showcase gig of the local music-training organisation Rockschool (here’s the episode of Hello You I recorded on the night) I was approached by Sarah Thomas.Sarah is chair of Shropshire Parent Carer Council, which supports SEND families in the county. She wants you to hear what it’s like, being the parent of someone with special educational needs and disabilities. ‘The conversation

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38:00

Hello You 142: To Shropshire ... and Beyond!

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/09/14

‘I want to create the pictures that my eyes see, not what the camera sees’Shropshire is a beautiful county.So you might think a job taking photographs of it would be a breeze. But early starts, arduous walks, long editing sessions and hours of waiting are all part of the gig … along with the occasional inexplicable experience.John Hayward is the creator of those wonderful images you see on social media (Instagram and Facebook) under the banner Shropshire and Beyond.‘When you’re just sitting looking

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61:07

Hello You 141: 'I live here and I love it'

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/09/10

‘People go to York, but why go to York when you can go to Shrewsbury?’Wouldn’t it be wonderful to explore Shrewsbury with an expert guide on hand? One that can tell you all about hundreds of fascinating places and buildings, including stories and information you’d never even guess?Now, it’s possible, thanks to cultural archaeologist Dr Paul Belford. He’s created Histomap. It’s an app which is crammed with information about Shrewsbury’s buildings and places, and their history. I love it!Paul joined

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36:27

Hello You 140: Flags, fences and 'fair-weather f*ckers'

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/09/07

How does this make you feel?This is an image of a flag of the Cross of St George, aka the England flag. You can tell it’s a flaggy-flag, because on the left-hand side you’ll see two eyelets through which you can pass cable-ties while wobbling up a ladder against a lamppost at 2:30am. Image credit: Temu, who must be laughing all the way to Shanghai’s Financial District right now …Quite a few of these have appeared, attached to street furniture and bridges, around Shropshire and the whole country over

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43:02

Hello You 139: 'They're in somebody's in-tray somewhere'

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/09/04

Is it possible to care too much?A couple of things to mention while you ponder that question …Thank you for being part of the Hello You family! Just by listening to Hello You the Shropshire podcast, you’re part of a very special friendship group. It’s more like a family, really. If you want to pull up a chair to the Hello You virtual kitchen table and make yourself properly at home, then please subscribe? After much thought, I’ve decided: I am going to do an episode of Hello You about The Flags

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35:43

Hello You 137: Be more rock!

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/08/20

‘Rock music goes into me’There’s nothing quite like playing music with other people. You learn so much about them and about yourself, it enhances aspects of your mind and your life in a way you wouldn’t believe, and it’s just so much fun, so satisfying, so life-enhancing …Anybody who introduces others to the thrill and joy of making music, especially in an ensemble or a band, is a hero to me. ‘It’s a universal language that can touch everybody’Recently I was invited to Summer Smash 3, the annual

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47:11

Hello You 136: Would you cross the English Channel in...

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/08/13

‘Fewer people would be getting on small boats if there were safe routes into the UK’The issue of migration, refugees and asylum-seekers is the rusty barbecue of British politics.It’s dragged out every summer. Cautious people steer well clear. And then some knobhead douses it in petrol. ‘It says we don’t care’This episode of Hello You the Shropshire podcast came about after the sudden - overnight, on a Friday evening - scrapping of the Afghan resettlement scheme. That was followed just a few days

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38:04

Hello You 135: Not the Shrewsbury Flower Show Special

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/08/08

‘Quite where the Flower Show goes next, I don’t know’The Shrewsbury Flower Show should have been taking place this weekend. But it isn’t.Shropshire Horticultural Society announced back in the spring that this year’s show wouldn’t be going ahead, owing to rising costs and challenging commercial circumstances. The news came as quite a shock, because the Flower Show has been a fixture in the Shropshire calendar for a century and a half.What’s the real story here?Aubrey Kirkham has recently stepped back

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46:38

Hello You 134: A sample soundscape from the Square in...

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/08/02

A Shropshire soundscape in vivid stereoHave you heard a Hello You soundscape before?This is something I do on Hello You the Shropshire podcast, to transport you to somewhere in Shropshire for a little while.The soundscapes are quite simply recordings of what’s happening in a particular places at a particular time. In audio art parlance, they’re field recordings. They can help you perceive somewhere familiar or unfamiliar in a new and different way.For this soundscape, I set up the Hello You recorder

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22:53

Hello You 133: Blooms, bins, benches and Helen Ball

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/07/31

‘It’s for us to put the jam and cream on the scone of Shrewsbury’What is ‘… in Bloom’, and why is it such a big thing in Shrewsbury? Does it lead to Shrewsbury’s street people being removed from the town temporarily? And why do the benches in the Square keep moving around?! ‘This Square belongs to the public, three-hundred and sixty-five days of the year’Shrewsbury’s Town Clerk Helen Ball tackles these questions and more in this episode of Hello You the Shropshire podcast.If you like this, you

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42:35

Hello You 132: 'Every woman's got a story about their...

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/07/29

‘All of us are terrible parents at some point’Mothers. We’ve all got one, or had one, and our relationships with them can be loving, fraught, empowering, frustrating … and even creative.All Roads Lead to Mother is the title of an exhibition of work by mother and daughter artists Sam Pooley Stride and Daisy Pooley Tolkien Williams. It was shown recently at Shrewsbury’s Swan Hill Studios, a space that Sam Pooley Stride believes is part of an explosion of artistic activity in our county town. ‘This is

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56:03

Hello You 131: Crates and crates of carrots

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/07/25

‘Lots of people use us as their corner shop’Join me on the bench outside Tesco Extra in Harlescott, Shrewsbury, to meet people who work, shop, and meet there, in this episode of Hello You the Shropshire podcast. The conversation covers Oasis, people-watching, The Yodel Man, tackling climate change by reducing food waste, neighbours from hell, loving or hating self-service tills, and one of my favourite words from any recent Hello You episode: Gleaning ‘It brings us all together’ Rachel Benson is the

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40:03

Hello You 130: 'I'm an optimist, I never give up'

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/07/21

‘It’s the actions that people recognise’In July 2024, Dr Julia Buckley was elected as Shrewsbury’s first Labour MP for twenty years, and the new constituency’s first-ever female MP.How has her first year been? What impact is she making on behalf of the county town, in the corridors of Westminster?I sat down with Julia Buckley to hear her answers not only to those questions, but also to a whole clutch of others suggested by Hello You listeners.You can hear what happened in this episode of Hello You

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25:36

Hello You 128: Shirehall - too good to lose?

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/07/18

‘There’s nothing else like it in Shropshire’Shirehall, former home of Shropshire County Council and subsequently Shropshire Council, is certainly unique in the county.But is that a good enough reason to keep it, and develop new uses for the building?There’s an exhibition of contemporary photographs from around the time of the 1967 opening of Shirehall, currently on show at the Bear Steps Gallery in Shrewsbury. The title of the exhibition is ‘Shirehall - Too Good to Lose’. No question mark at the

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45:06

Hello You 127: Shropshire My Home

Hello You - the Shropshire podcast with Jim Hawkins ·

2025/07/16

‘Singing is good for your soul’Just before you meet the subjects of today’s episode of Hello You the Shropshire podcast, let me tell you what’s coming up on the feed over the next few days:It’s one of Shrewsbury’s - Shropshire’s - most controversial buildings. But what should its fate be? Shrewsbury Civic Society thinks Shirehall is too good to lose. Hear why on Hello You on Friday morning …The very essence of an English summer Saturday afternoon in Shropshire - what does that sound like? You’ll

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