It’s a song of joy, a song of hope, a song of optimism…and it’s written and performed by the people who know best of all what the support of the St Luke’s team means to them.
One of the most popular activities at our St Luke’s Ecclesall Road South site – home of our Patient and Family Support services – is the weekly singing group.
Patients who visit Ecclesall Road South include those with early-stage diagnoses for cancer, Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, Motor Neuron Disease, Parkinson's Disease and other palliative conditions.
A special grant from the Sarah Nulty Power of Music Foundation funded special sessions of creative musical support from musician and composer Julia Waldron, who helped the Wednesday singing group to compose their own song reflecting what the support of the PAFS services means to them.
And those sessions were instrumental in helping Les Jowitt to reveal a musical talent he didn’t even know he had.
Les, who is 76, attends the weekly Ecclesall Road South sessions primarily as the supporter and carer for his wife Sam, who is living with cancer and Parkinson’s Disease.
But he quickly became involved with activities himself and was delighted to be invited by singing group leader Julia to take part in the sessions that led to the creation of the song that is now on target to become a St Luke’s anthem – A Beautiful Place.
“It was suggested that we write our own song and Julia was brilliant – she got around ten of us to get together and asked us to share our thoughts on St Luke’s and Ecclesall Road South,” Les says.
“We all put our ten penn’orth in and that’s where the words came from, all reflecting exactly what we think about St Luke’s and what it does for people.”
For Les, though, the big surprise came when Julia then asked him if he could come up with the melody that would bring the lyrics to life.
“I do a lot of singing but only on my own around the house but Julia asked me to sing something that would fit the words,” he explains.
“I’ve never written a song before but the tune came to me, I sang it – and fortunately they kept it!
“I remember the first time I sang it, everybody clapped and I am really proud of what we’ve done together – it’s turned out brilliant.
“When people listen to the words they really are in tears because the song’s about exactly how we all feel about the support we receive from St Luke’s.
“It isn’t a sad song but the words are very moving and the really good thing is that we all had an input and now we’ve recorded it, you can hear all our voices singing together.”