I’ll be blowed! Clarinet has cured my 50-year asthma
A CURE for Maxine Bradley’s chronic asthma is music to her ears.
Maxine, 78, who has suffered with asthma for more than 50 years, took up the clarinet on the recommendation of a doctor friend.
Now, after a year of lessons, she no longer has to gasp for air and her breathing has improved.
Retired teacher Maxine said: “I can’t believe how much better I feel.
It is the first time I have been wheeze-free for years.”
She credits the breathing control required to get a note out of the clarinet for strengthening her lungs.
In the past she has tried cycling, swimming and yoga in an attempt to ease her symptoms.
Maxine and her husband Tony, 81, live in Florida for half the year – and it was there that her friend suggested she should try a woodwind instrument.
Tony promptly bought her a
Maxine says breathing control is the key Julia Atherley
clarinet for her 77th birthday in February 2019. She started lessons at Blackpool Music Academy when they came back to the UK later that year.
Maxine said: “I said to my teacher, ‘I’m not a musician and I don’t really know anything about music’.
“My family were in hysterics. They thought I was going mad. “I never would have thought that at 78 I would be blowing a clarinet.
“But within eight weeks my teacher had got me playing a tune – not very well, but I could play the song.” Maxine, who is currently shielding at her home in Lytham St Annes, Lancs, has three children and three grandchildren. She said: “I’m sure it is the breathing control that helps because you are breathing from lower down. “I honestly think if I’d have taken it up at 27, instead of leaving it this long, it would have helped me so much more. But nobody suggested it.”