In episode 355 of The Just Checking In Podcast our Founder Freddie flew solo to remember a very special woman who sadly died last year.

We interviewed a woman called Claire Johnson on JCIP #66 all the way back in October 2021, where we discussed her incredible life, from dating the lead singer of 1970s rock band Deep Purple, to working in the Police service during the Yorkshire Moor murders, to the London 2012 Olympics and finally, becoming a mental health advocate.

Prior to that, in JCIP #45 in July 2022, we checked in with Sam Thomas, a mental health advocate who has been working in this space for even longer than me!

In Sam's pod we discussed his very severe mental health crisis as a result of an alcohol addiction in 2018, where he was admitted to hospital as an in-patient for the second time and an incredible, kind and supportive person called Claire Johnson supported Sam through that crisis.

Claire was very well known on Twitter in the mental health space for her tireless support of mental health advocates, and was always on hand to send a supportive message or reply to a tweet when anyone disclosed publicly they were struggling.

Fast forward four years and tragically, last year we were informed by Sam that Claire was very seriously ill and implied she didn’t have long left to live.

Then, on 12th June 2025, Claire very sadly died. Initially we had planned to have a conversation with Sam about Claire’s life and death on the podcast but unfortunately, he wasn’t ready to do that, which is absolutely fine.

However, we still wished to celebrate Claire’s life in this podcast, and we obtained permission from Claire’s son to tell you the listeners about it.

In a world today where the inter-generational divide in the UK is bigger than ever, young men and women are becoming more and more politically polarised and people have increasingly little empathy online, we need more Claire’s in this world who will approach everyone with kindness, empathy and love, whatever their situation is.

If there were more people like Claire in this world, I am 100% sure it would be an infinitely better place.

As always, #itsokaytovent

You can listen to Claire's JCIP below:

• JCIP #66 - Claire Johnson: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2595459/episodes/18686157

You can also listen to Sam's episode below:

• JCIP #45 - Sam Thomas: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2595459/episodes/18686194

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In episode 354 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Adam The Sartorial Gardener.

Adam runs an Instagram account where, as the title suggests, he documents his life tending and working on his garden whilst looking very dapper and elegant at the same time.

Adam also posts on the account to cherish the memory of his wife Evanne, who tragically died of brain cancer on April 29th 2025.

Adam and Evanne met at university in Lancaster where he met her on the very first seminar he ever attended.

Evanne was originally diagnosed before Adam met her, on December 28th 2018.

They graduated together in 2022 but tragically, in November that year, her brain cancer returned and she was re-diagnosed with a grade 3 form of the tumour.

Adam and Evanne had originally planned to get married in July/August 2025. However, because of Evanne’s prognosis and decline, they moved it forward and after getting engaged in March 2023, got married in March 2025, just one month before she died.

During their time at university, there was a small garden at the end of the road of the flat where they both lived together. Adam started volunteering there and Evanne took pictures of the bees and flowers there as part of her degree.

From that point, Adam’s desire to do horticulture and gardening for a career was born.

In this episode, we first discuss Adam’s triple diagnosis of dyslexia, dyspraxia and dysgraphia and how that impacted his childhood and adolescence. We also discuss how the early diagnosis and having a hugely supportive state-school environment allowed him to thrive alongside these conditions, manage them and succeed by going to university.

We then discuss the love story of meeting Evanne, how they navigated the brain cancer treatment, the story of their marriage, and Evanne’s tragic decline from her second diagnosis.

We discuss the grief he has gone through in the last year since her death, his desire to keep her memory alive through the gardening account, and a hike he did in September 2025 alongside Adam and Evanne’s friends and family, which raised £3,300 for brain cancer research charities.

We came across Adam through his interview on friend of the pod JD’s ‘What’s On Your Mind?’ channel.

As always, #itsokaytovent

You can follow Adam on social media here: https://www.instagram.com/the_sartorial_gardener/

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In episode 353 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked back in with academic, author and commentator Dr Ashley Frawley.

Ashley currently works as Senior Editor at Compact Magazine, as well as holding roles of sociologist and Visiting Researcher in the Centre for Parenting Culture Studies at the University of Kent, as well as Visiting Research Fellow at the MCC Brussels in Belgium.

We first checked in with Ashley in JCIP #253 in August 2024.

In Ashley’s Part 1, we discussed her academic journey, the influence of Frank Furedi on her views and career, her critiques of ‘therapy culture’, her view that there is a crisis of meaning in Western society right now, an eating disorder she had from the ages of 14-21 and how she overcame it.

In the last year, Ashley has written and commented on a range of issues, including the assisted suicide debate in the UK, trans discourse, Islamism’s influence in the West and has commissioned articles in Compact, including issues like Tucker Carlson’s recent political direction and ‘black post-liberalism’.

The most spicy recent article we saw on Compact she commissioned, which went semi-viral was by a writer called Helen Andrews called ‘The Great Feminisation’. In the article, Helen argued that Western society has been slowly feminised over the last 20 years, to the detriment of political debate, and argued that cancel culture itself is a feminine phenomenon, propagated and executed mostly by female activists.

Naturally, we wanted to find out more and interrogate the pros and cons of this argument, as well as covering other issues Ashley has spoke about through a mental health lens.

As always, #itsokaytovent

Please find links to all the articles we discussed in the podcast below:

• The Fall of Maternal Liberalism - Dr Ashley Frawley
• The Great Feminisation - Helen Andrews
• Boys Without Men - Dr Ashley Frawley

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In episode 352 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Tom Festa.

We came across Tom through friend of the pod Mark Ferris as Tom was fundraising for Mark’s stepson Callum and his treatment for brain cancer through his ‘Race Around The World’ journey.

Initially starting it as a personal journey for himself, Tom came across Callum’s GoFundMe page.

He didn’t know Callum or his family but after finding out about Callum’s love for education, as a teacher himself, he chose Callum's story to fundraise for.

In May 2025, he took his mum out to Canada with him and he ran his first half-marathon.

From there, he travelled to Brazil and ran his first marathon on August 31st 2025.

Then, in October 2025, he travelled to China and did a 7-day trek up and down the Great Wall, walking over 65,000 kilometres.

And finally, he flew to Perth in Australia, where he completed an ‘ironman’ in December 2025 and visited some family members. His friends also flew out and joined him out there too.

Tragically, in-between the time we organised this podcast and recorded it, on 26th January 2026, Callum died from the cancer he had been getting treatment for, with his funeral held on Friday 13th February 2026.

In this episode we discuss the origins of Tom’s fitness journey, which came following the end of a 10-year-relationship. We discuss the aftermath of it, the crisis it provoked and how he used the campaign to give him a new purpose of raising money for Callum for the time he did.

For Tom’s mental health journey, we discuss the grief of losing his grandfather on his mum’s side, which brought on a form of cleaning OCD and health OCD which became permanent in him.

We unpack the traits this presented in his mental health back then and why, why it carried on beyond the grief and into adulthood and whether it presented in him prior to that point under the surface.

We then discuss how he's managed the OCD, navigated a healthy life alongside it, and how running has quietened these traits for the period of time he’s been doing it for.

As always, #itsokaytovent

You can follow Tom on social media below:

• Instagram

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In episode 351 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Stephen Hall.

Stephen is a qualified therapist and a Member of the National Counselling & Psychotherapy Society, providing walk and talk as well as online therapy for his clients.

Based in Cumbria, Stephen is also the Founder of Stand Tall Empower C.I.C, a social enterprise which organises events and activities outside in nature and helps men step out of survival mode and reconnect with themselves and others.

Prior to becoming a therapist, Stephen had a very different career in teaching, where he spent over 20 years as a secondary school English teacher and housemaster.

11 years ago in 2014, Stephen left teaching after having a mental health crisis. He had an identity crisis after no longer being able to do his job as a teacher, which had shaped most of his adult life, and tried to take his own life. At his lowest point, he was sectioned and placed in an in-patient facility.

However, his mental health state did not improve and he experienced delusional psychosis.

The turning point came when he was able to access EMDR therapy, which helped start his recovery and he used it to address decades of suppressed childhood trauma.

After this, Stephen began his recovery. He tried starting several businesses, which unfortunately failed and then during the Covid-19 pandemic, he was spending time online in several men’s groups and doing a lot of mentoring to fill the void left by teaching.

One of the men in that men’s group encouraged him to become a therapist, and the rest as they say, is history.

In this episode we chart his professional journey across teaching, therapy and everything in-between.

We also discuss his mental health crisis, the pain of having to leave teaching, carving out a new career and landing as a therapist, building the business, and why looking back, he needed a male therapist to suit where his mindset was and to make him feel comfortable.

We finish by discussing how and why he operates walk and talk therapy sessions in the nature of Cumbria and North Yorkshire, and the Empower events for men to reconnect with nature outside of a traditional therapy setting too.

As always, #itsokaytovent

You can find out more about Stephen's work here.

You can follow Stephen on social media below:

• Instagram

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In episode 350 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with academic Dr James Nuzzo.

James is an Exercise Scientist and Men's Health Researcher.

He also runs his own SubStack called 'The Nuzzo Letter'.

In this episode we discuss his academic journey and how he got to where he is today, his academic cancellation from Edith Cowan University (ECU) in Australia, how it impacted his mental health and how he rebuilt his career after that point.

We also discuss why there is a life expectancy gap between men and women globally, across the West and the factors behind it.

We then discuss the research bias he argues that exists against men and boys in academia.

For James’s mental health journey, we discuss his move from America to Australia, the impact on his mental health, and self-development.

As always, #itsokaytovent

You can find out more about James's work here: https://www.jameslnuzzo.com/.

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In episode 349 of The Just Checking In Podcast we checked in with Jessica Nguyen.

Jess is an entrepreneur and the Founder of Oh Tuesdays! Microbakery.

Based in Bristol, Oh Tuesdays was launched in August 2025 after Jess sat in a café on her way home from work and had a very expensive cookie and thought she could create one just as delicious but at a much more competitive cost!

We came across Jess through her interview with friend of the pod JD on his platform ‘What’s On Your Mind?’, where she spoke about her journey in creating the business and giving up a corporate job which wasn’t giving her fulfilment.

In this episode we discuss her professional journey and how she created the idea of the bakery, balancing growing the business alongside a second job as a barista, social class and the importance of maintaining a healthy work-life balance.

We discuss what she's learned along the way, the importance of taking yourself out your comfort zone and following your dreams, wherever it may lead.

For Jess’s mental health journey, we discuss a breakdown she had in 2021, her experience of depression and being prescribed anti-depressants, specifically Sertraline, an SSRI, which she was on for a year and came off it two years ago at time of recording.

We finish by discussing the importance of her friends in believing in her and the business, supporting it and giving her the belief that she can make it a success.

As always, #itsokaytovent

You can find out more about Oh Tuesdays! here: https://ohtuesdays.sumupstore.com/.

You can follow Oh Tuesdays on social media below:

• Instagram

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In this episode of our Reel Stories series, we checked in with Jude Vause-Walsh.

Jude is a voiceover actor and coach.

Jude’s career started out after she completed her university degree, where she began carving out an acting career.

She landed some roles in small films and TV work and then she saw an advert looking for traffic and travel radio presenters. She applied and became a radio presenter for 15 years, working at Virgin Radio, Real Radio and Century Radio, in what is now known as Greatest Hits Radio.

She mainly worked on the Breakfast Show so had to have a regular 3am alarm clock set. However, she had plans to start a family, and wanted to adjust her work life to match her new life as a working mum, and voiceover work seemed like a natural fit.

In this episode we chart that journey, her favourite roles she’s done and ones she’s seen others perform, the stigma that can exist around voiceover work compared to on-screen work, the art of being a voiceover artist and the creative process behind inhabiting a character that no one can ‘see’.

We also talk about the mental health impact of seeing her clients thrive after working with her and landing voiceover work themselves.

For Jude’s mental health journey, we discuss the solitary life that comes with being a voiceover artist, her mother’s dementia which she was diagnosed with three years ago at time of recording, and Jude’s diagnosis of breast cancer five years ago, which was thankfully caught early, treated with surgery and she has recovered from it.

We discuss how the breast cancer has shaped her attitude towards gratitude and given her greater perspective on life, career and family.

As always, #itsokaytovent

You can find out more about Jude's work here: https://www.voiceovercoach.uk/.

You can follow Jude on social media below:

• Instagram

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