Makaton champion from Northern Ireland gets invite to Coronation of King Charles III

Claire Thompson, who is in her second year at Queen’s University studying Learning Disability Nursing, is using social media to raise the profile of Makaton – a language using symbols, signs and speech to enable people to communicate.

She said: “Last year in January I started ‘Makaton Monday’ on TikTok. Every Monday I would go online and share Makaton signs. It’s developed a bit since that, so every Saturday I would go to local businesses and do a shout out for them and they learn signs, and then on a Sunday, me and my husband, bless him, we do a song in Makaton."

Claire explained how she first encountered Makaton: “I honestly thought it was just for children. I genuinely believed that Mr Tumble created it and that’s where it came from.

"Then on one of my placements for adults with learning disabilities they were all using it, I just thought this was incredible. It’s used by both children and adults, it’s been around since the seventies.

“It is such a great communication tool – why are we not using it more?”

The 28-year-old from east Belfast said: “We spoke to Queen’s University and asked if we were going to be learning Makaton, they said, ‘we can’t fund it because it’s too expensive especially if there’s a load of students learning it’.

“I just didn’t think that answer was good enough because we should be able to communicate with our patients.

“I started Makaton Mondays and since then, my goodness, it’s been a journey, it’s been great. Queen’s have been so supportive of it.”

Describing how Makaton works, Claire said: “Makaton is used for those with a learning disability or a communication difficulty. It is something that is used to aid communication rather than with sign language it’s just signing. With Makaton there is speech and signs and symbols.”

It’s been a couple of weeks since Claire received an email inviting her to Westminster Abbey on May 6 and it’s still sinking in.

"It all just happened very suddenly,” she said.

“Last year I got runner up in the Student Nurse of the Year, we thought that might be something to do with it but we think it is maybe just to do with the Makaton and the influence I’m trying to make.

"I just know that I’m going to Westminster Abbey, I don’t know where I’ll be or what I’ll be asked to do, if anything. The invite is just for me, but my husband Josh is coming with me to London.

“There’s one of the West End shows called Hamilton. One of the actors from it, he did a Makaton Monday video for me. The hope is I’ll get to meet him when I’m over.”

Belfast Giants have also done a Makaton Monday video while there are TikTok clips in the pipeline from West End star Carrie Fletcher and Glentoran FC.

Claire’s father David who is heavily involved with the east Belfast club helped to organise the Glentoran video. Earlier this year he was one of a team of Orangemen who climbed Kilimanjaro raising more than a quarter of a million for children’s cancer charities.