In the wake of Mr McKay’s death, his family and friends were determined to honour his memory, and two months later they were offered an unused cafe space that became the foundation for Johnny’s Happy Place.<\/p>\n
Ms McKay, who previously worked in the hotel trade and now also volunteers with the British Heart Foundation, said the cafe has been her lifeline.<\/p>\n
“When Johnny died, I sort of gave up my life. I didn’t do anything, I just focused on this,” she said.<\/p>\n
“Starting a cafe sounded preposterous at the time. None of us had any experience, but I’m so glad it was suggested. Every time I open the door, I’m pleased to be here.”<\/p>\n
Ten years on, Ms McKay said strangers still share stories about Johnny with her. <\/p>\n
“They knew him and they have such wonderful anecdotes,” she added.<\/p>\n
Johnny’s Happy Place will hold its anniversary event at the cafe on 6 July. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In the wake of Mr McKay’s death, his family and friends were determined to honour his memory, and…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":235538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4317],"tags":[105,218,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-235537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mental-health","8":"tag-health","9":"tag-mental-health","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114791012752212412","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/235538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}