How Did Sing Along With Ellie Start?

Ellie; Music & singing has always played a large part of my life, not professionally but just the pure joy of it.

The inspiration to start Sing Along With Ellie is my wonderful mum, Mary, she lived with dementia for over 7 years. Before mum had to go into a care home & then later on into Nursing care, my family & I supported independent living on her own for as long as possible. One of the vital activities we started was “Singing For The Brain“ organised by the Alzheimer’s Society in a local church hall. This literally changed our lives, to see everybody involved animated, engaged, happy & having fun in a safe, friendly & warm environment surrounded by music & the wonderful sound of singing.

During this time, a fantastic opportunity came up at a local care home for an Activities Co-Ordinator, so I jumped at the chance to start making a difference and enhancing people’s lives living with Dementia. Within this role I took it upon myself to start a sing along session within the care home. Even using quite crude equipment & no repertoire to fall back on, I quickly established a lovely little sing along group. Having fun & using music to connect, reminisce & sometimes break through some of the barriers and social isolation that loneliness, depression and dementia can bring.

My wonderful mum continued to sing and engage with music, whether it be taking part in sing along sessions in the nursing home or just the two of us sitting, singing our favourite songs together. Music surrounded & comforted mum throughout her life. Like I said, my
inspiration.

Singing is good for the soul, it lifts all of our spirits & is a lovely way to express ourselves when words are sometimes, just not enough. Everybody involved in our sing along sessions, gain so much from music therapy, I have witnessed this time & time again, I just want to reach out to people & make them smile whilst singing! Life is so much better when you sing !!!!!!

Sing Along With Ellie actually started during Covid, live streaming my Sing Along Sessions into care homes during the “lockdown“ periods from my purpose built studio ( a summer house in my garden ) using, Skype, Zoom & Facebook. When the world finally opened up, I was then able to go into Care homes directly & then eventually to start the Community Groups.