AS a boy, Dr Michael Swallow OBE was a chorister at Westminster Abbey and then Magdalen College Oxford.
However, at the end of his schooling he was torn between a career in music or in medicine. Although medicine won, his passion for music continued and an interest in music therapy enabled him to combine neurology, rehabilitation and music.
This was born out when he established the NI Music Therapy Trust in 1990. Now renamed Every Day Harmony, this respected charity is working specifically with people who find communication and interaction difficult because of learning and developmental disabilities as well as physical disability.
In NI around a dozen music therapists working for Every Day Harmony divide their time between a variety of centres, home visits, schools and hospitals.
"When I say 'I'm a music therapist', the reaction is often 'what a lovely job'," Emma Hamer told me.
"Well, I agree – but not in the way they think. It's not a sing-along, it's carefully structured sessions to build self-esteem and communication skills."
Certainly there's a place for entertainers who go into care homes and hospitals and perform songs from the shows but they are not music therapists.
It's a happy time and fills an afternoon, but for professional therapists there's a long training period and constant working with clients who trust them.
As there's no course available here, Emma Hamer spent two years training to Masters level in Cambridge to become a clinical therapist and a member of the Health and Care Professionals Council which regulates health, psychological and social work professionals.
"My job is where science meets art and it's a valued service, available on the NHS in England but not in Northern Ireland."
Maybe things will change following a scientific study at Queen's where researchers monitored children and adolescents with mental health problems and found that music therapy increased their ability to communicate.
Leading the study, Professor Sam Porter said this is important at a time when these young people will be leaving school to look for employment and heading towards dealing with mature social issues:
"Could it be integrated into main stream health services? It's important to have evidence and it was the largest trial in the world conducted with this population and music therapy."
Dealing with end of life care, mental health and physically disabled clients, and especially working with children, can be very emotional.
Counselling is available, but the therapists support each other and learn from each other's experiences. Their's is a dedicated profession and they get results.
I was especially impressed with one young client with mental health issues who was severely depressed and self-harming, her arms scored with scars.
After time spent working with her therapist, she wrote words describing her confused and painful life, then she set them to the music of The Beatles' Let It Be.
She's proof that music therapy can open the mind, engender courage and allow achievement. In her song she sings:
"Looking to the future, I see nursing as a life for me,
Make people's hurt stop, make them free.
Going home, Getting better, Wanna be free, Wanna to be me,
Find ways to survive, Just wanna to be free."
She is now studying to be a nurse.
When a shy, visually impaired man sat at the keyboard and played he suddenly became joyous and animated, lost in his ability to be independent.
A father talked of his son who suddenly smiled during one session – it was a heart-stopping moment, and now he lives for those smiles.
A mother tells of her son who suffers hydrocephalus and how little response there is at home, but now, after a long time of working together, he responds and sings along with his therapist.
A major step forward and unlikely without music therapists like Emma Hamer, a gentle young woman who always loved music, has a music degree from Queen's University then trained at Anglia Ruskin University.
As she works, she makes constant eye contact with her client, sometimes toe to toe for a physical connection as they make music together.
This is a very sensitive and confidential service: clients feel safe and are prepared to open up, they lead the way, make the choices.
At a time in their lives when they are unable to take personal control. music therapy gives them the opportunity to express themselves.
Sadly, although supported by the health trusts, schools and other funders, in many cases organisations or individuals have to find the money themselves and, for this reason, those who could benefit from this service cannot.
More information at Everydayharmony.org.
Again music is making a difference, this time to young people with cerebral palsy.
The Lighthouse Trust summer school comes to an end very soon following a very successful few weeks and I enjoyed visiting Donaghadee to meet the pupils who are benefitting from carefully programmed fun designed to stimulate and exercise the mind and body.
The photograph on this page last week showed a young man and his mother in his beach wheelchair – the caption should have read "Janice McKee and her son Nathan on holiday last year".
This week's photograph of Nathan shows just how he enjoyed this year's summer school.
At 12 years of age, this young man obviously enjoyed every moment, as he has done for the last six years, at time when his parents can relax knowing he is in good and kind hands whilst they have some time for themselves to catch up on everyday life.
