New podcast series – Your Best Journeys!

Bluebell from our Better Journey’s project tells us about their fantastic new podcast series – Your Best Journeys. A brilliant series of stories from Sheffield's over 50s, reminiscing of old journeys and dreaming of new ones.

We are very proud of how our wonderful delivery partners are rising to the challenges of lockdown, embracing new, innovative, ways of working.

We spoke to Bluebell from our Better Journeys project who tells us all about their new podcast series – Your Best Journeys. Recognising that everyone’s travel has been restricted recently, Bluebell thought it would be the perfect time to take a trip down memory lane instead!

Over to you Bluebell!

At Better Journeys, we aim to reduce social isolation and loneliness amongst the over 50s in Sheffield by making independent journeys easier. This can be through various means; from using public transport, to active forms of travel such as walking and cycling.

However, the Coronavirus pandemic has had a big impact on the service we are able to offer, especially during lockdown. As a result of this we wanted to do something different but still focused on travel. Because everyone’s travel has been somewhat restricted during this time, we thought it would be good to offer people the opportunity to either reminisce about journeys they’ve made in the past, tell us about a new journey they’ve been making during lockdown, or even about a journey that they hope to be able to make when things return to normal.

We absolutely loved interviewing our participants. For many of them the journeys that they told us about were from their past, some recent and some from many years ago. We believe that it was a positive experience for the adults involved, as it gave them the chance to speak to someone at length about a happy memory – which hopefully will have been a real mood booster and improved their wellbeing, especially for those who may have been feeling more isolated during lockdown. It also really reinforced to everyone involved how important travel is when it comes to creating special memories and aspirations for the future.

We’re sure it won’t be long until the fabulous interviewees can go back to making more journeys around Sheffield, but until then we will be continuing putting out the podcasts as a source of happiness and inspiration.

Here it is – Your Best Journeys podcast series!

Episode 1 – Ann Farquharson

In the first episode of Your Best Journeys podcast, Ann tells us about her trip to Toronto, Canada, in 1991, describing all the wonderful things she did including the Niagara falls and American bingo! She also remembers some of the group trips she’s been on with SOAR, one of our delivery partners, including a trip to Chatsworth via coach.

Episode 2 – Graham West

Graham reminisces about a holiday in Malta he took in 2016. He flew out there and stayed for 2 weeks. Whilst there, he bought a weekly bus pass which meant he could travel all over Malta and see all the different areas – he tells us all about the narrow streets, the lookout towers and a soldier firing a cannon!

Episode 3 – Marie Borchert

Having lived in Sheffield all her life, Marie remembers an eventful trip to Poland. Having visited Poland on a few occasions with her husband, her trip in 1974 turned out a little different… Marie recalls the small cargo boats that would take them from Hull to Poland, holding only 6 or 8 people, and how on the journey over there they made friends with couple returning to Poland and ended up taking a train with them and staying at theirs!

Episode 4 – Jane Worthington

Jane lives in Bamford in the Peak District and tells us about how retirement has changed what journeys means to her. She recalls her ‘arduous’ commute to Manchester University via the snake pass for her job as a research scientist. Having retired, she tells us how journeys feel very different to her now and are often done for pleasure. She tells us about one specific journey – a bike ride with her family along the snake pass which has changed what that road and that journey now mean to her.

Episode 5 – Joan Worthington

Joan has lived in Hathersage for 10 years and tells us about using her free bus pass to travel to Sheffield and how she has met friends on these journeys. There is one journey that Joan shares with us that has had an impact on her – having spent the last 3 years recovering from a car accident, she recalls the journey with her daughter to a reservoir where she walked unassisted for the first time…

Episode 6 – Noreen Binfield

Noreen and her husband have lived in Sheffield for 50 years and before lockdown, made good use of public transport, getting the bus and tram regularly. Noreen tells us how her and her husband were lucky enough to have been on holiday just before lockdown – a cruise to Norway. She tells us about it being a ‘Winter Wonderland of snow, sun and dog sled rides with huskies!