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:
You can also listen to Sam’s episode below:
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