Musician: Nat Keen (guitar)
I deposited my guitar case and crossed over the wide street of imposing and beautiful Georgian townhouses to enter Great Ormond Street Hospital. It was drizzling a bit, my guitar survived though, which pleased me. I like walking around playing my guitar, whether it’s crossing the street, walking the corridors, or getting the lift, most people are intrigued, some like to strike up conversations, guitar = music, and most people like music. Spitz GM Thom and I met doctors in the lift who asked me to play them some live elevator music. We also met children who gazed up at the spectacle and fizzed with excitement. Co-incidentally towards then end of our visit I bumped into an old friend who happened to be working as children’s entertainer that day. He works for a wonderful charity called Theodora, who take “Giggle Doctors” into children’s hospitals and care centres. he was dressed as a clown and had bubbly squeaky things, I felt a pang of jealousy.
We began our music-making in a communal waiting area on one of the wards, somewhere deep in the belly of the huge building. There was a play area, tired-looking parents sitting around and some bright-eyed little souls running around. I began by asking “does anyone want to hear a song about a donkey?”. A few people looked a little bit confused by this proposition, but a girl of around 7 with hands full of disgusting looking green rubber slime gave me an emboldened head nod…..as I began my sea shanty, eyes from around the room were drawn in;
Were you ever in Quebec,
Stowing timber on the deck,
Where there’s a king with a golden crown,
Riding on a donkey?
(Chorus)
Hey! ho! Away we go,
Donkey riding, donkey riding,
Hey! ho! Away we go,
Riding on a donkey!
Were you ever off Cape Horn,
Where it’s always fine and warm,
And seen the lion and the Unicorn
Riding on a donkey!
Were you ever in Cardiff Bay,
Where the folks all shout “Hurray!
Here comes John with his three months’ pay
Riding on a donkey?”
It’s a good one, let’s face it, who doesn’t like the odd Donkey song from time to time?
After warming the kids up with some more sea shanties and popular children’s songs, the requests started to come in thick and fast from the children and their parents who seemed just as keen to get involved and were understandably in need of some respite.
We had Michael Jackson’s ‘Beat it’ and‘Thriller’ , The Beatles’ ‘Here Comes The Sun’, Pharell and Daft Punk’s ‘Get Lucky’ and Bobby McFerrin’s ‘Don’t Worry Be Happy’ which all seemed to go down well with the parents and with an older child. Then the requests took a starboard turn into unchartered musical waters for me, the world of contemporary children’s songs. A very young girl suggested ‘Tiggle wiggle monster’, not knowing it, I asked her if she would sing it with me, but shyness understandably kicked in. I then proposed finding the words and that we could create our own new version together, asking her things like ‘how scary should the music be’? or ‘shall I play faster or slower’?. Soon she was (very impressively) articulating how the music should sound and joining in with some of the lyrics as we journeyed through our new creation together…
We met lots of other bright sparks as the day went on and I felt very privileged to use music as tool of connection, transcending language/cultural barriers and generally bringing a bit of silliness to what must be a very serious experience for the children and their families.
