Care home residents hope to become chart-topping pensioners

Care home residents hope to become chart-topping pensioners and compete with the likes of One Direction and Rihanna, when they release their charity single.

Residents from care homes and retirement housing properties run by Anchor have written a song which is being recorded and released for charity. The single features Anchor residents and staff as singers, pianists and ukulele players.

The single celebrates the positive aspects of ageing and challenges stereotypes and misconceptions.

All the money raised from the sales of the Anchor Community Band record will be donated to the charity Contact the Elderly.

Anchor Community Band manager Carl Martin said: “Music is a powerful medium which brings people together and we wanted to write a song based on real life experiences, lifetime achievements, challenges overcome as well as older people's aspirations for the future. Together we are creating a record that highlights the wealth of talents older people have and hopefully, will become synonymous with the benefits of age.

“Rehearsing for this song with lots of older people living in Anchor properties has been such an amazing experience. It’s a really powerful song because the words are telling younger people that the older generation are exactly the same as them, with just a bit more life experience.

“I hope that people will support us by downloading or buying the record when it is released later this year.”

The single features a solo piece by Vera Welch, who used to sing to the troops in the Second World War.

Ms Welch, 86, who lives at Silk Court care home in London said “Music has played such a big part of my life. After the war, I was the lead singer for 25 years with The Tommy De Rosa band, which was one of the big bands at the time and performed at all the top hotels in West End.

“I loved every minute so to sing decades later on this charity record is fabulous. I am really excited about being in a band again. Rehearsing with lots of other older people living in other Anchor properties has been such an amazing experience.”

Silk Court’s manager Marcia Forsyth added that “for the majority of the band members this is the first time they will perform in front of a microphone but Vera loved being back in the limelight and sung fantastically.”

Ninety-year-old Nell Clark with her friends Celia Wagstaff and Pearl Allen, who live at Anchor’s Thomas Henshaw Court care home in Southport, also sing on the single.

Ms Clark said: “This was the first time I have ever sung on a record and it was an exciting experience. My family think it’s a brilliant thing for me to have done.

“It’s a really powerful song because the words are telling younger people we are exactly the same as them but just a bit older.”

More than 150 people from across the country will be singing segments of the song, which will be mixed by a professional record producer in London.

The Anchor Community Band is Anchor’s new Grey Pride project to keep older people on the agenda.

click here for more details or to contact Anchor