Last week Jan and I spent the afternoon in Newcastleton learning to play the ukulele along with a group of local older people as part of our Flourishing Borders project.  Jim Benton-Evans a ukulele player from Peebles made the trip south to help us run the session.

When Jim, Jan & I arrived at the Grapes Hotel we were welcomed by 8 very enthusiastic people keen to learn how to play, half of whom had never played before.

Jim gave us a quick run through of the different parts of the ukulele and then we got started, learning different chords and before we knew it we were all strumming and singing away to various different tunes – as you can see in our video below (apparently you only need to know a few chords to be able to play lots of different songs on the ukulele!)

The two hours flew past and before we knew it we only had time left to discuss if the group wanted to continue.  Everyone was keen to keep going and decided that meeting up fortnightly and having a little more tuition was the way forward, Jim is going to help us find someone local to support the group and Outside the Box will help them look for a little funding to buy some ukuleles, percussion instruments and some tuition.

A huge thanks to Paul Smith from Church Army for organising the session in Newcastleton and to Jim Benton-Evans for taking time out to travel down for it.

For more information on the impact our Flourishing Borders project is having on older people’s mental health and wellbeing in the Scottish Borders please have a look at our Flourishing Borders project page.

Watch and share our video of the first session below!