FORMER nurse Carol Henshaw is aiming to breathe new life into a Southport health shop.

Her Nature’s Remedies store, in Market Street, dates back 50 years.

The founders sold out, but the downturn took a terrible toll on the new owners and the business closed down last summer.

Mrs Henshaw, a lifelong advocate of natural remedies, said: “Bravely, or stupidly, I decided to re-open it.”

The mother-of-four added: “I was at a crossroads in my life and needed a change.”

She had previously been a nurse for 20 years, working at hospitals in Preston and Ormskirk and also nursing homes.

But she revealed that she was raised on natural remedies: “As a child, I wasn’t vaccinated, and have never had any medication or antibiotics.

“Mum used to pretend to give me medicines, but I always got better.”

She said: “It seems ironic going into nursing, but my personality is, I like to help people. That’s why I became a nurse.

“It sounds really corny but it is what makes me happy and it is a fabulous feeling when people come back and tell you how well they are doing, just by giving them Vitamin C, for example, for an eye problem when they might have been on steroids or some aggressive medicine.”

Mrs Henshaw’s husband was a practitioner of homoeopathy and she said: “I learned a lot about it and thought it was a fantastic way of treating people by looking at the person themselves.”

So, 10 years ago, they remortgaged their house and bought a health food shop in Penwortham, near Preston, and Mrs Henshaw left nursing two years later to concentrate on the business.

Then, three years ago, the couple separated.