AFTERNOON TEA AT THE HOSPITAL & ANDY MACE

AFTERNOON TEA PARTY AT HAWKHURST COMMUNITY HOSPITAL
18TH April 2026

On Saturday I went along to support the afternoon tea party. This was a change to the normal where we have a tea party and I take and sell second handbooks for 50p each or 5 for £2 in aid of HCHLOF along with Bev. The books we supply are from our large library of books we have read. There was not going to be a tombola either, just afternoon tea for the residents and their families if there. Plus, the star attraction Andy Mace.

I think this is the third time he has been there and he is just such a polished a performer with a fantastic voice and he can take off the voice of Elvis or Sinatra. Even an ABBA song sounded just right for his voice. He did joke about the words he was singing about being a girl with long blonde hair.
I was fascinated he knew the words to whichever song people asked for. Speaking to him afterwards he said he had just learned one before he came to us sitting in his car. How good is that? He says he learns new songs all the time. I would add that’s new to his repertoire as most of the tunes are over thirty years old. No good singing something from Ed Sheerhan. For some it would be, who?

Andy had been on the stage in the West End for many a year, but times change. In 2021 after the Covid epidemic, he started singing locally to make ends meet. Being in a production is not easy as you have a limited run and as he said to me you can be without a job for months.
You have to audition every time for that spot on stage.
In recent years instead of going to an audition in London, you were required to do this from home and through this method it opened the door to more people auditioning as a wider net was thrown for that one spot.

After Andy finished a run in 2023, he decided to try and sing locally full time and spent six hours a day on his computer finding contact details for different organisations. The rest is history. He told me since that day he has done over 2000 gigs.

He is very popular wherever he goes and its hardly surprising apart from a fantastic voice, he uses the backing from the original recording. He was and rightly so proud of using a Count Basie with Sinatra.
He has a wicked sense of humour and typical British humour we did laugh. It is all about taking the mickey out of people. We British are excellent at laughing at ourselves.
Sugar who is one of the therapists who we assist with many of the items she uses with the patients is Indian loves our sense of humour.

An observation on the people there. I sat at the back, and I watched a mother and daughter in front of me and how the daughter rubbed her mums back and then took her arm.
There was an elderly lady who was in tune with all the music and I felt she would have got up and danced if she could, she did the right actions to the music with her arms. She had a giggle with her daughter.
The power of music, the last thing we ever lose.

On his business card there are quotes from several well-known people from the entertainment world: –

Eric Clapton – “A great voice”
C J Ranger – “The West Ends best singer”
Paul Whitehouse – A great character actor”

We must thank Sarah for organising this and also for all her fantastic cakes, what a baker and a chef. I found out the other week it was her life’s dream as a child to be a chef. Well, she certainly did that as we thank her for the cakes and also for being involved so much with Hawkhurst Community Hospital, from cakes to creating a garden for the patients.

Jane Pyne
Trustee for Promotion and Entertainment
19th April 2026