Anne Miles organised this visit and was accompanied by Jenny Cobb, Jill Coggins, Pam Jones, Kate Belinis and Yvonne Squire.
The group travelled by train, brilliantly executed by Anne’s meticulous planning and were greeted by Julie who gave us a short history of the building and site.
The house at the front of the site is the music therapy training centre. The building which houses the therapy areas and administration office is a converted electric sub-station gifted to the charity in 1976 on the back of a concert given by ‘The Who’ at Knebworth.
Patrons of the charity, Status Quo, also gave a concert at Knebworth in 1990 along with Paul McCartney, Elton John and Eric Clapton to raise funds. Other supporters include The Arsenal Foundation, and an affiliation with The Royal Albert Hall.
The recently refurbishment has taken 18 months from inception to completion with months of consultation with architects, music therapists and the wider community.
The ground floor has a large group therapy area, a medium sized therapy room with a viewing gallery, and one further, smaller therapy room. The upper floor is the operational hub of the charity.
Elaine McGregor, the music therapist running the Saturday sessions, gave a short synopsis of each child we were able to observe from the viewing gallery. We split into two groups of three so we could each have 15 minutes in the gallery.
The first was a young girl who is autistic, whose favourite song was ‘The Wheels on the Bus’. Even when Elaine changed the tune to ‘Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star’, she carried on with her actions and singing.
The second was a young boy with cerebral palsy and problems with verbalisation. Elaine explained that he uses the word ‘apple’, not because he’d like one but it is a word he knows and can communicate with.
In between we were treated to our own session! We were each given a different musical instrument and had to create a short rhythmic piece that was easy to repeat. Elaine directed the music encouraging us to play louder, softer, some stopping, then starting again. Then we had a ‘jam’ session when we went freeform, each of us having a solo. We had such fun…especially Jill…..who really let her hair down!
We finished with coffee and Julie answering our questions and explaining the work of the charity, not only in this country but also in other parts of the world.
It was a fantastic and inspiring morning and we all came away pleased that the money raised at our annual Quiz Night had been used to purchase instruments which are so important for the work of the therapists and understanding more of the work of the Nordoff Robbins Music Therapy charity.
