It all started when…

Several years ago the three fivers were asked to do an afternoon entertainment session for group of elderly people. My working role was as a Service Manager to a registered service for people with early onset. One of the Day Clubs heard of the three fivers and suggested that they would like to come along and listen. They duly did and what was observed was truly wonderful. A lady who attended the Day Club, who by this time was unable to communicate verbally, sang every word of every song that the three fivers performed.

Following that afternoon John Bell (then a support worker) came to me and asked, “Did you see what I saw? We have to do something.”

John and I got together and spoke about establishing a choir. It was important from my perspective that we understood what it was we were hoping to achieve. We put together some aims and objectives that included:

• While this would be a choir that included people living with dementia it would not be exclusive to them.

• We wanted people throughout the community to understand the abilities of those living with dementia and change their misconceptions.

• It was important that we worked with what people could do and not what they couldn’t. We wanted to enhance their well being and create an environment of achievement for all.

Within our leaflet advertising the Forget Me Notes we make the ambitious objective of wanting to change the world but, as a friend of mine often says when asking how he is, “ I am changing the world one step at a time”. So we set out one step at a time, through the use of music, to provide the opportunity for people of building relationships that would sustain and assist them in their daily lives.

We launched the choir but had no name, so we all felt that it was important if the choir was to grow that we had a name that we could call our own. At the time we had about eight members and no pianist so people were reliant upon me starting in the right key, but we had a lot of fun.

We held a ballot as to what we might call ourselves, we would all bring along a name and then we would vote. The name “ Forget Me Notes” was brought along by a very clever member of staff who formerly sang with us. It was a unanimous decision this would be our name.

It was important that we found a pianist. We had more than one go, we interviewed and started two people neither of them stayed long. We then interviewed a third person, it was important that the person playing the piano was more than a pianist, they needed to understand the overall ethos of the choir and be an important component for us achieving our aims and objectives. We had interest from a gentleman called Paul Barfoot, a music therapist. John and I went to meet up with Paul and chat about what it was we were doing; it felt like the perfect fit immediately and that is what it has turned out to be. Paul has helped take the choir to the next level, described by one member as “an inspiration”

From humble beginnings, yes, but the growth and achievement has been beyond what any of us could have imagined. The Forget Me Notes have sung at various venues throughout Edinburgh and beyond, including Murrayfield Rugby Ground, Hearts Football Ground, The George Hotel, St Brides Community Centre, Heriot Watt University and Radio Forth where, for dementia awareness week 2017, we were part of a project called “Down Memory Lane”.

One of the choir’s biggest highlights was singing at Dynamic Earth for the SSSC Dementia Champions training day. We did a slot for around 45 minutes with stories from different members about why the choir was so important to them. At the end with a packed house they stood as one to give the choir a rapturous round of applause. There must have been around 200 people still there at the end; it is an event that the choir still talk about.

The choir now has a membership of 26 people who meet once a fortnight. We love the music we sing, but we love more the friendship and warmth that each member contributes. It is great to see new members come and watch the choir change as the person along with their personality blends into the group. We become different again and understand that great Scottish saying “We are all Jock Thampson’s bairns”.

Our choir is unique and we are achieving our aim of changing the world one step at time, as we move into a new phase of our singing together and become a part of the forget me note project why not come and join us.

 It could be so much better if you were a part of us!

Alan Midwinter
Chief Executive