Mind over natter: the small town with a happiness plan
Now here’s an inspirational story about how local action can offer a potent antidote to some of the health challenges we face through a place based approach. This article tells us:
“A minister, a pub landlord and a mayor … it sounds like the start of a really bad joke, doesn’t it?”
The Rev Matt Finch laughs as he recalls the origins of a novel attempt to create a paragon of mental health in the small Cambridgeshire parish of St Ives. The three men – who walked not into a bar but a coffee shop – are trying to bring a smile back to the face of a community that has suffered its share of recent blows.
As a collective, they hope their string of initiatives to reach people in their darkest hour could establish St Ives as a model town for others to emulate, in an age of growing mental discomfort.
An old market town around 12 miles north-west of Cambridge – population 16,384, according to the 2011 census – St Ives is venerable enough to feature in the Domesday Book. Back then it was known as Slepe. There have been some rude awakenings of late.