Story for The Macclesfield Express - Community radio has existed for some time, allowing local communities to communicate with people in their towns. There are 228 stations in England alone supporting local communities. However, some stations are open to broader ideas about what community radio can do for local people. One such example is Canalside radio at 102.8 FM based in Clarence Mill in Bollington. Canalside Community Radio offers a very open and encouraging platform for people from many different demographics and includes all the community and local people. The station is a not-for-profit organisation, and its training arm (Phase One) is a registered charity around East Cheshire. They accommodate everyone where they can and treat everyone equally and with respect.

Canalside Radio has won radio honours over the years. Last year, the station manager, Nick Wright, won a National Community Radio Champion Award in Leicester from the National Sound and Vision Project. They have produced a wonderful advertising platform for local businesses at staggeringly low costs making it affordable and better than Google Ads and similar platforms.

Local scientist and author Mark Janes, AKA Mr Carbon Atom, has joined Canalside to promote his publishing business, his scientific work, and his books. Earlier this year, Mr Janes submitted a letter to the Macc Express called ‘I will vote for women’ about his resentment of the behaviour of men around the world. Mr Janes feels that if more women were in positions of power, there would be far less harm in the world, and he wants to support this and encourage others to do the same. The letter was published in the Macc Express on 24th April 2024.
This led to Mr Janes appearing on Canalside radio, where he talked candidly about this letter and his feeling of embarrassment at calling himself a man in this very misogynistic and cruel world. The interview with station manager Nick Wright went well and produced some interesting responses. Mr Janes, a local scientist, author, and formulator of a grand unified theory of life called Carbonology, felt that this might be an excellent platform for him to promote his theory, his books, and other interesting topics.

He submitted a proposal for a weekly program about his theory called ‘Carbon’s World’ and many other interesting topics he wanted to discuss. Canalside manager Nick Wright was very open to this, and the two produced their first interview about Manic Depression on the 17th of July 2024, for two hours. The interview could not have gone better as Mr Janes opened up in a very brutally honest way about his personal experiences of severe mental illness, in particular, Manic Depression. Mr Janes was diagnosed twenty-six years ago and ran the Manic Depression fellowship in Macclesfield for around six years. A lifelong sufferer of the condition, he went through his life from birth to today, covering the formulation of his theory of life called ‘Carbonology’ and how he came up with it and its relationship to his mental illness.

He described how a chance moment at Stockport College in 1992 whilst studying chemistry led to a theory explaining all life in the universe. He talked about his time in the pharmaceutical industry at ICI in the early 90s to AstraZeneca Macc Works and how redundancy opened the door to fully develop his ideas further and take them to the broad international scientific world. He talked about becoming an author, writing fourteen books on Carbonology, Manic Depression, COVID and even acne, to name just a few.
Nick Wright at Canalside is a superb interviewer, and there seemed to be good chemistry between them, not to mention the knockout 80s playlist.

Mr Janes will now have his own show as a radio presenter at Canalside. He will be talking about all sorts of hot topics, such as dementia, talking about his experiences caring for his dad, Rick, during the last ten years of his life and the toll it can take on carers. He will also talk about how to write and publish books to support and encourage local people to become authors and self-publish. On top of that are topics such as vaping, the science of life and the theory of Carbonology, getting on top of acne, the problem with modern teaching, coping strategies for mental illness and general anxiety disorders, meditation techniques, sleep disorders, and transhumanism.

Others include evolution in our everyday life, music, his fear of modern computer technology (technophobia), becoming an author and writing your first book, cancer and the sixth extinction. Also, euthanasia, some of the history of Macclesfield and the decline in local businesses in the twenty-first century, to name but a few. They will be well-researched and will provide a short program with clear and concise facts. These will be recorded as ‘infomercials’, programs with a ‘call to action’ to investigate Mr Janes's website, carbonbooks.net and Canalside Radio; the show will be repeated regularly with weekly content.

Mr Janes said, ‘This is a wonderful opportunity for me. Finding a platform for me to talk about lofty issues in the world and to promote my own books, scientific theory and publishing company at carbonbooks.net is wonderful. I hope I can find an audience in the local community, and I have many ideas and plans for capitalising on this. My work doesn’t only appeal to scientists but is written for the general reader as I cover all sorts of global issues. Finding a mechanism to launch a major scientific theory must be a first for community radio in a global sense.

Canalside is to be congratulated for its open-mindedness and commitment to supporting local people from all walks of life. I look forward to embracing this opportunity, and I hope people enjoy my content and will return week after week. A big thanks to Canalside and Nick for being so supportive.’ Mr Janes's books can be found at carbonbooks.net, and Canalside radio is broadcast on 102.8 FM. The website can be found at canalsideradio.net, where people can listen live.

Nick and Canalside Radio will be at the Community Radio Festival again this year. The festival, which supports local people, is held in September in Poole / Dorset.