#7 Stormont, Mummy and Me

Last year my mummy, who is a Project Manager for the Belfast Trust, opened a Palliative Care Hub. She had been planning this new service for a long time. Although the service opened last year, she arranged the formal opening for this month. It was held in Stormont Buildings where the government holds all meetings and important events.

Mummy asked me to play at the event.

It was very exciting going to Stormont that morning. We had to take the harp through security and wheel it along very grand corridors. Stormont was very busy with lots of people coming and going. The hall I played in was called the Long Gallery and I was at the front of the hall with all the speakers. As Mummy was there early organising everything, I was able to practice and the sound of the room was really good. I asked Daddy to record me playing and I posted me playing Gymnopedie by Erik Satie on TikTok.

I played as the guests arrived and also during the lunch. I also played during Mummy's speech. My music, which was recorded with Brian in Beechwood Studio, was also used in her slideshow presentation. She talked about my Grandad, who had set up the hospice in Derry and how he had been planning it since she was a little girl, even younger than me. I also played during the speech that a lovely lady called Claire Marie gave and she spoke about her parents too.

The other time I played was when all the the people in the room (there were about 100 guests) wrote down what they felt dying well was. There was a lady called Michelle who collected all the notes and recorded some of the people's thoughts about this. Michelle is the Music Therapist in one of the hospices in Belfast. She came to live here from England about 30 years ago and guess what? My Grandad gave her her very first job as a music therapist! She told me that he was very visionary as no one was employing music therapists in health at that time. Michelle was lovely and has asked me to go along to the recording studio with her as she is going to compose a song about the event.

The Minister for Health is called Mike Nesbitt. He was really kind and talked to me for a long time. He told me about his son who is a guitarist.

I had a lovely experience. Everyone was really kind and thanked me for playing. I'm getting lots of likes on TikTok too!

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