British expat songbird pensioner keeps spirits up under lockdown in Spain’s Costa Almeria with weekly rooftop performance

LOCKDOWN CHEER: “People needed lifting up”, said Anne CREDIT: Anne Anstey

A BRITISH expat songbird pensioner has been keeping up her neighbours’ spirits during the long weeks of confinement with weekly concerts from the rooftop of her Los Gallardos home.
Anne Anstey, 79, has been singing on stage all her life, so it seemed quite natural to her to put on a free show to bring some cheer at these dark and uncertain coronavirus times.
Every Saturday at 2pm she has been setting up her PA system and belting out tunes for a good hour for the entire Huerta Nueva residential community.
“We’re all suffering from stress at the moment, and people needed lifting up, especially as a lot of the residents here are elderly,” Anne told the Euro Weekly News.
She does a selection of 18 or 19 songs, publishing a list on forums in advance so people know what to expect each Saturday.
There are just two tunes which are weekly regulars. Viva España, and Best of Friends, “as we’ve all got to be looking out for each other,” Anne stresses.

CREDIT: Anne Anstey.

There has certainly been a fantastic response to the unusual concerts. Many neighbours join in and sing along, and even have a bit of a dance.
“In these depressing times it’s lovely to have a bit of entertainment to cheer everybody up,” Huerta Nueva resident Allan Trigg told EWN.
Originally from Bristol, Anne performed with bands back in the UK, and here in Almeria she regularly sings at fundraising events for the Turre-based Stepping Stones carers’ support group under her ‘entertainment name’ Anne Rogers, a tribute to her husband, who she describes as her “backbone.”
The coronavirus State of Alarm lockdown has put the fundraising appearances on hold for the moment, but Anne plans to carry on with the rooftop performances, at least until social activities return to some kind of normality.

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Written by

Cathy Elelman

Cathy Elelman is the local writer for the Costa de Almeria edition of the Euro Weekly News.

Based in Mojacar for the last 21 years, Cathy is very much part of the local community and is always well and truly up on all the latest news and events going on in this region of Spain.

Her top goals are to do the best job she can informing the local English-speaking community, visitors to the area and the wider world about about the news in Almeria, to learn something new every day, and to embrace very new challenge this fast-changing world brings her way.

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