Deepness, the established group for those experiencing or living with someone with dementia in the north end of Lewis, has launched a new project – Deepness Dementia Radio. Deepness already have their monthly meetings in the north end of Lewis for those needing advice, or for those who would like to help or learn more about dementia. Now, however, they will be able to extend their reach to the wider dementia community, providing support and understanding beyond the community of Ness.
Mark Firth, of the Wobbly Dog café in Lionel, is the newly appointed Station Manager, who will manage the schedules of full radio programming. The station is committed to delivering programmes relevant to the dementia community, in the form of pertinent interviews, conversation pieces and playlists from years gone-by. It will soon also become an ‘Alexa’ app (that is, smart-speaker compatible), and can be played online, anywhere in the world, with no adverts or commercials. People are able to message in live to the programme, making it very much a collaborative venture, and there is hope that in future, people with early-on set dementia could be involved in creating their own programmes. Speaking to Mark Firth and Karen Taylor, co-founder of the Deep Ness organisation, stated that they would also like for people to contribute to a Gaelic programme, and would be happy to broadcast local church services on a Sunday. Whilst the radio station has the ability to reach much further audiences, Mark and Karen stated that they are “keen for the radio station to have a local connection.”
The station has already featured notable guests, including the famous author living with dementia, Wendy Mitchell. Diagnosed at 58 with early-onset Alzheimer’s, her memoir, ‘Somebody I Used to Know’, has received significant critical acclaim, as well as being a Sunday Times best seller. She was recently interviewed by Mark for Deepness Dementia Radio, and the conversation currently forms part of this week’s radio schedule. The station would also like to extend their music library, so anyone with any unwanted CDs that they are willing to donate can be dropped into the Wobbly Dog café.
Aside from the radio station and group meetings, Ron Coleman, also a co-founder of Deepness and living with early dementia, has created a play called ‘Caught in this Moment of Time’. Set slightly in the future, the play explores family relationships, personal emotions and artificial intelligence, with the first act shown at An Lanntair in September 2019. fios plan to do a more extensive coverage of this play at a later date, as it is hoped that it could go on to the Edinburgh Festival Fringe with Crowdfunding fundraising support.
The radio station can be accessed at https://www.deepnessdementiaradio.com/, and Mark is happy to be contacted if people would like to contribute ideas, either through the Deepness Dementia Radio page (link above), or the Wobbly Dog Facebook page. The Deepness group meet on the last Wednesday of every month from 2:30pm – 4:30pm at the Wobbly Dog for tea and chat.
