On Saturday 15 March 2025, we were delighted to attend a fundraising event held in support of Young Sounds UK by Songs on Wheels. Based in the Wimbledon area, the group consists of two professional pianists and 24 amateur choral singers.
Since January 2014 the group have been travelling to care homes, day centres and clubs for those with physical or mental disabilities, to share the enjoyment of singing old songs. The group draw from show tunes and popular songs mainly from the 30s, 40s, 50s, and even 60s, as well as comedy songs, traditional songs, and light classics. They’re also known for their lively shows, handmade hats and props! The group leader Libby Asher says:
“We try to keep everything good fun, particularly the care homes. People may not get out to live entertainment very much so we tried to make it lively live entertainment.”
Typically they perform twice a week in smaller configurations however this event saw the entire group come together.
“Obviously, not everybody wants to go out twice a week and the care homes don’t have space for more than 12 or 16 at the most. So once a year we like to get together and have everybody singing in one place, and that’s the Wimbledon Village Hall, and we do a couple of concerts, a matinee with tea and cake and an evening performance with fish and chips, which seems to go down very well, and we do those for charity.”
We were thrilled to have been selected as this year’s charity and jumped at the opportunity to join in with the fun and it didn’t disappoint. Living up to their joyful reputation, lively may have even been an understatement. The audience were encouraged to join in with kazoos, shakers and programmes.
On the evening Libby says:
“We thought it was very fitting to raise money for Young Sounds UK. Most of us are retired. That’s why we’ve got time to go out to care homes on a weekday afternoon. We’ve had a lot of pleasure from music through our lives and we’re really happy to support talented young musicians at the beginning of their careers.”
The event was an enormous success raising over £2,000. They took advantage of our Arts for Impact campaign and doubled their donation! This was also made possible thanks to an army of volunteers who very generously gave their time to assist in the set up and pack down of the event
Thank you to Songs on Wheels, Libby, Lynda, Janet and John and Wimbledon Village Hall. If you’d like to fundraise for us we’ll be launching a new fundraising pack soon.
For the time being you can double your donation this week as part of Arts for Impact. Every donation made to our appeal between Tuesday 18 March and Tuesday 25 March will be doubled, by the Big Give and their partners, New Philanthropy for Arts & Culture (NPAC), until we reach our fundraising target of £20,000.
If you believe that nothing should stand in the way of a talented young musician reaching their potential, we’d be delighted if you’d support us.
