Many of you know that I attend hospital every week as a volunteer to chat with and entertain patients, playing musical requests using a Bluetooth speaker and the Spotify App. Last Monday morning was quite eventful. I stayed 4 hours in all and visited two wards and I need to split the tale into two! This is Part 1.
There was a tube strike last Monday and many volunteers were unable to get in, so I was asked to take and distribute about 30 newspapers (the Metro and the Mirror) to patients in bed. The inside pages were splashed with many colour photos of the royal family and party crowds. So after introducing myself, I brought up the Queen’s 70th Jubilee celebrations in conversation with near everyone and opened up the newspapers to show the colour pictures. All the ladies I spoke to had such wonderful things to say about the Queen. Even lying in bed unwell, they spoke so lovingly of the Queen. I found it quite moving. I said to one lady how much I would have liked to have filmed and recorded everyone's wishes and posted the video to Her Majesty.
The first bay I visited had four lady patients, one of whom was moving about in a wheelchair, but for reasons I cannot now remember, I decided to play woodland bird song to the patients in that bay! I think I was in adventurous mode - a kind of Danny Kaye in lights. I'm interested in the patients reactions. And the nurses!
One lady was entranced by the bird song. She lay in bed with her mouth wide open and her face expressionless, except her eyes were transfixed on the cylindrical Blue tooth speaker. She raised her arm to touch it with her fingers. I let her place her fingers round the cylindrical Bluetooth speaker. She moved it and placed it upright against her body whilst lying in the bed. What she thought in her mind no one will ever know. I gave her a smile and the thumbs up sign. But still her face was expressionless. But I stayed with her, ten minutes or so of birdsong with the occasional sound of a waterfall! The lady opposite was less generous, saying to me "The birds sing better in my garden!" Maybe she was referring to the squeaking wheels of the wheelchair, a noise comparable to sparrows sharpening knives on telegraph wires!
Finally, in this account I will mention a rather quaint and demure lady, sitting on top of her bed with an Alpaca blue patterned blanket wrapped around her with a midnight blue woollen shawl draped over her shoulders. She was very prim and proper. Very petite and demure. Short cut black hair going on grey. Petite features. Of course I said I was a Ward Musician and could play requests. She told me she played the clarinet and that her husband died 3 years ago. He liked jazz and used to listen to jazz record requests on a Saturday afternoon. I sat by her bedside and suggested I find a clarinet solo which I did. I then mentioned Nat King Cole and she brightened up “Oh yes”. So, it was “Let There Be Love” with George Shearing on piano accompaniment. It was then she asked, "Can you find Stranger on the Shore", a song made famous by Acker Bilk, he of the bowler hat, goatee beard and striped Waistcoat. It was one of her husband’s favourite tunes. If you don't know it, I find it a bit melancholy but oddly comforting. I found the tune on YouTube and began to play it. At the same time I chanced upon the most recent YouTube comment which I just had to show Gill. It read:–
“My husband died 10 years ago today. This was one of our favourite songs. We did dance on the shore. We loved on the shore. We sailed past many shores, we lived and loved the sea. I will always love you Roger.”
I had to confess, listening to the music and reading this comment, made my eyes water. Music can be so powerful and especially in hospital. Gill too, shed a tear, but these were tears of happy reflection, tears to show she had eyes and ears to enjoy life still. At one point, Gill took a call from a relative or friend and I heard her say “I’m being entertained by a lovely young man.” It doesn’t get better than that.
I will follow this up with the remainder of my visit in a few days time.
