A tiny yellow bird. A mining community. A producer and broadcaster back on patch. Throw in a surprising number of coincidences and two people who can’t resist following the next question, and you’ve got a conversation that goes to some wonderfully unexpected places.

Heather Dempsey is one of West Cumbria’s own—a girl who’s gone out into the world and done good.

An astute observer of people, life and her own generation, Heather has the rare ability to spot a story, trust her instincts and follow an idea wherever it leads. That instinct has already seen her build an impressive start in broadcasting and podcasting, working with the likes of Simon Mayo, Mark Kermode and Kirsty Young.

Now she’s back on patch in West Cumbria, researching and recording a story that begins with canaries and their connection to the region’s mining heritage. What starts as an exploration of a tiny yellow bird soon opens up a much richer story about mining, family, identity and belonging.

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In this episode of Assa Marra, Janine Ward shares a story that begins with the rejection of infidelity. While that may seem to be the story, it quickly becomes clear that it is only the gateway.

Speaking with striking honesty and openness, Janine reflects on the diagnoses, counselling and soul-searching that followed as she tried to make sense of a life that no longer resembled the one she had imagined.

As the conversation unfolds, it becomes clear that explanations can only take us so far. Whatever has happened, life still asks us to get up each morning, put one foot in front of the other and decide who we are going to be.

For Janine, that journey led her back to West Cumbria, the place where her story began. Today, she has channelled her lived experience into the charity Together We, believing that the chapters we would never have chosen to write can still become chapters that help someone else.

This is an episode about heartbreak, identity, healing and hope. It is also a reminder that while we cannot always choose what happens to us, we can choose what comes next.

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This episode of Assa Marra was recorded live at Energy Coast UTC in Lillyhall, West Cumbria, the first Assa Marra recorded on location as part of Assa Colours, whose raison d’être is to reach young people in communities through storytelling, building confidence, and helping them find their unique voice.

And what a venue it was. It felt like being on the set of Grange Hill.

Then the conversation with Cherry Tingle unfolds and honestly, it has more layers than the onion in Shrek.

At points it almost beggars belief what Cherry has surmounted whilst remaining so positive, philosophical and able to find remarkable gold in extraordinarily dark places.

This is a life that takes us through single parenting, mental health, Africa, leadership, education.

At 17, Cherry was literally thrown out by her mother and left to fend for herself. Yet what emerges through this conversation is not bitterness, but wisdom, perspective and enormous humanity.

And that is why the audience in the room were so utterly rapt. This podcast moved into pin-drop territory.

At the core of everything Cherry does is the cellular belief that young people deserve access to a good education, the chance to thrive, and somebody who believes in them.

Cherry is one extraordinary woman.

Episode 25 of Assa Marra is sponsored by Axiom and produced by Assa Colours

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