Drew Kelleher met up with grassroots ministry ensemble PSALMS ONE-FIVE-O.

Psalms One-Five-O

An aged woman, bent double, shuffles over and holds my hand, my camera, my jacket - she does this until a friend comes and takes her by the arm and leads her away. Both are octogenarians but they look like schoolyard friends enjoying one another's company during break-time.

Another, all in blue, sitting on a blue chair, looking blue - but the only one with intelligent eyes - crosses her blue tartan slippers.

Her eyes suggest she is the only cognitive one present. She sits in the bay of the Victorian picture windows at the end of the day room, away from the wailing and gnashing of teeth of other residents
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However she doesn't seem to register the entrance of gospel music group Psalms One-Five-O. Even the trundling hospital trolley laden with instruments and speakers seems not to disturb her tranquil countenance - but in this farrago tranquillity is the exception to the rule.

As Psalms One-Five-O members file in, patients are dragged into position by the blue plastic-aproned staff members. The day is Easter Sunday and the place is the woman's geriatric ward of Birmingham's Hollymoor Psychiatric Hospital.

The band begins to play and a short-lived hush descends but the guttural groans cease only momentarily. The audience, lost in a phantasm of senility, seem largely oblivious to the performance. One lady appears to be gnawing her tongue while she rubs frantically at the armrest of her chair. Another shouts at me from an adjoining room - incomprehensible: sounding like somebody on helium. The woman in blue floats away again...into further contemplation of her blue slippers.

Up to this point the only ones noticeably attentive are the nurses standing together at the back of the room - smiling and swaying to a soft samba, they look like the Meg-line' of a Broadway musical.

Before too long, though, some of the patients have let the melody draw them back to a shadow of reality. Some make an attempt at singing and tapping; their feet to the music while others begin to sway. Between songs the blue dame crosses her slippers and appears a little more attentive as Carol begins a song with the prophecy from Isaiah, "Come, all you who are thirsty come to the waters and drink."

The music is soothing, melodic, with most of the lyric content coming directly from Scripture.

The dulcet tones of Karen Johnson and her self-accompaniment on keyboards are highlighted by Carol Humphries' harmony backing vocals. The instrumental sound is filled out by David Maynard on bass and Ray Johnson on lead guitar.

Their Psalms One-Five-O ministry involves a series of smooth songs linked with Bible passages - the most pertinent example to this situation being "Jesus said, 'My peace I give unto you." For by the end of the performance it is obvious that some of the patients had been touched by that peace. Afterwards members of the group walk around talking to those patients who can talk and touching those who can't - in effect communicating with their audience to show them they were more than a group of hospital patients but are a group of individual people, precious in God's sight. As the band began to pack away their equipment Carol admits "the patients were a bit noisier than usual." But there is also no doubt that some had responded well. Comments Carol, "I love to see it when the lights turn on in their eyes - it means the Lord has got through to them." The songs performed by Psalms One-Five-O centre on Scripture, partly because of the way the group's mission came about but partly because of the regulations concerning the patients they play to. One of the founders the group, David Humphries, explains how it is not permitted for the group to go to the hospital and preach. So instead they let the songs speak for them.

The genesis of the group is something to sing about in itself. As individual musicians the group had been secretly practicing during fellowship meetings in David and Carol's King-standing home in the West Midlands in 1983. They would rehearse, then put their instruments away in cardboard boxes under the stairs. The congregation at their church were unaware of their endeavours until one particular Sunday. David Humphries remembers, "Right out of the blue were about 10 prophecies and all of them were about music. One of them was, 'It's time to get the instruments out of the boxes' and another was from Zechariah, 'Do not despise this small beginning, for the eyes of the Lord rejoice to see the work begin' [Zechariah 4.10]." David Maynard, adds: "We thought we had to be brilliant first but He keeps getting us into situations where we don't have the expertise...but the Lord shows us that He can do it through us." Carol concurs: "Isaiah 55 had been confirmed in what the Lord had given us. That is why we try to stay with Scripture. The Lord dealt with us individually...we didn't think we were spiritual enough until we had all those prophecies about music."

Since their formation the members have made a point of taking their ministry to the sick, the physically and mentally handicapped, to prisons, schools, rest homes and other community groups. They have played at numerous evangelistic meetings and crusades and are a particular favourite of international evangelist Morris Cerullo. Yet Psalms One-Five-O's ministry is often far from the big crowds and acclaim.

"There's no use taking coals to Newcastle," says Carol. "We are taking the music to where the people really need it... we just like to be performing where the Lord is present." David Humphries recounts how the group recently performed for a group of people born with Down's syndrome. "They were holding each other's hands and calling I out - I thought they were taking the mickey at first. But they were praising God. "They weren't even held back by anything - they were totally uninhibited. The Lord is marvellous...the thing I like most about Him is His style."