The Daily Mail of Friday 4th January had a marvellous news story, written by Andrew Levy, about a young girl of four named Rose who was being helped to communicate by her time on a farm. This reminded us so much of our friend Chloe from Starlight that we wanted to share this with you.
The Mail tells us that Rose Willcocks from Bishops Storford was born with a speech impediment and could not talk at all, nor communicate with her parents, and this led to her being frustrated and upset. However she has spent some time on a local farm as part of a therapy treatment and now her family are thrilled to find that she is in fact communicating with the cattle there by making the first sounds she has ever done, working her vocal chords and therefore moving towards speech with people in the way that she can now speak with the animals. Her mother, Esme, has nicknamed her Miss Dolittle after the fictional Doctor.
We wish Rose and her family all the best for the future, and are reminded of young Chloe, a Starlight Charity Child, who adopted one of our goats here at the Farm when she visited us with her family, courtesy of the Starlight Foundation and Old Macdonald’s Farm. Chloe has a serious and complex illness but when she came to spend the day with us, her pleasure and delight at petting the animals here was a great improvement to her. Starlight specialise in granting wishes for seriously ill children and you can see more about them on their website www.starlight.org.uk.
We would welcome contact from parents with children who may well benefit from a day out here at Old Macdonald’s Farm, and also from Special Schools or groups who we would love to welcome here at any time. We are fully accessible and our staff are not only trained to assist those with specific needs but delighted so to do.
By the way, we at Old Macdonald’s also communicate with our animals but mainly using rather loud and rude words when the goats have eaten our clothing or the sheep are feeding on everyone else’s food!
We wish Rose and her family every success with her future progress and congratulate the Daily Mail on publishing such a moving story. The photos above were from the Daily Mail and accompanied the story, showing Rose on the Farm.
