In a recent interview with The Sunday Times Imelda May recalled working for a care home in London during her early twenties.
Initially she waitressed but then took up shift work in a local care home and still gigged in the evenings and at weekends.
Speaking about the patients she nursed there she said; “Some were in the thick of Alzheimer’s, dementia or Parkinson’s, others had strokes and were debilitated.”
Imelda also shared that “I fell in love with a lot of the residents. I felt it was such an honour to take care of people in their dying moment, to be allowed into that most personal and private space.”
Specifically, the Irish star shared that she used to sing for some of the residents; “It was amazing how certain people who had strokes and hadn’t been able to string a sentence together could sing.”
A moment Imelda said she will never forget in her life was that of a woman who sang with her and “it was the first time she had heard something that made sense coming out of her mouth in years.”
Imelda also revealed that she cared for a woman who had worked in fashion her whole life, she left Imelda her favourite dress; “a beautiful glittery number, and I still have it.”
She also recalled becoming friends with a wife of one of the patients. When he died his family requested that she sing at his funeral and she sang Ave Maria;
“I was honoured to do it. The joy that was in that place. The people who were there. They were made of strong stuff.”
