Talented singer Rhona won't let cleft palate hold her back

RHONA CHRISTIE clearly loves singing.

A member of the National Youth Choir of Scotland, she also has a choral scholarship job as a soprano in a cathedral in Edinburgh and is part of the University Singers, performing at graduations and other ceremonies.

And that’s despite being born with a severe cleft palate and lip that her music teacher initially thought would prevent her from singing in the classical style.

“It was a busy summer with the National Youth Choir because we toured America, then sang at the Proms in London and then headed to France,” says Rhona (22), who’s just started her fourth year of a biomedical degree at Edinburgh.

“And I like the fact it bewilders my singing teacher how I am able to make the right noises with my background!

“I know quite a lot of singing teachers and none of them has come across anyone who sings in the way I do.

“One of the Pussycat Dolls, Carmit Bachar, has a cleft lip. It’s been repaired very well and she’s the only person I’ve come across who had this malformation and sings.

“A huge part of the correct technique when you’re singing in the classical style is the muscle control of your breathing, but with a cleft palate and the malformation, I have a lot of air escaping down my nose.

“That’s why a lot of people with cleft palates will sound quite nasal when they’re talking.

“So obviously if you’re trying to sing long phrases and you’re constantly leaking air, you won’t be able to do it properly.

“I wouldn’t say my breathing technique is the best, but it suits me and my singing teacher was just very intrigued by how on Earth it all worked!” Rhona laughs.

“Singing was one of the reasons I got a palate repair when I was 17, to help the muscles that stop air leaking down the back of my nose.

“I felt sorry for my surgeon because she was having kittens that she might muck up my singing voice for good!”

Carmit Bachar (Frederick M. Brown/Getty Images)

That palate repair was the eighth op Rhona, who’s originally from Banff in Aberdeenshire, has had.

She explains: “When I was born, they made a feeding plate for me so I could feed — though apparently I was always enthusiastic about food!

“My first operation was when I was just a few months old because it was quite a bad cleft palate, so they had to try to fix that early on.

“I went through the standard set of operations and they do it in different stages,” she adds.

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I had quite a severe deformity and so they had to make quite a few attempts at the same thing to fix it — I liked to make things interesting for them! — because it was too big to shut in one go.

“There are some things they can’t do until you’re a certain age — they won’t touch anyone’s jaw for example until they’re about 16, once all your teeth are in and the jaw’s grown.

“I have both an underbite and an overbite, one jaw’s too short and one’s too long, so they would have to break both of them and reset them because my teeth don’t line up very well.

“But although they’ve offered it, I’m not having that operation. It’s pretty major work and I don’t need it for functional reasons.

“I don’t really want to have my jaw wired shut for a year. My friends wouldn’t know what to do with the silence!

“I’ve had lip repairs and I had a nose correction when I was nine or 10. My cleft was quite severe so my nostrils were quite malformed and my mum says I was quite shy and embarrassed about that when I was little, which was the only thing I didn’t like, and I asked to get my nose fixed.”

Rhona, who spent her gap year in South Africa working in admin in a hospital specialising in HIV medication, did get a bit of bullying at school, but she says: “It was just a wee bit, the sort of standard stuff for anyone with my sort of thing.

“I was quite lucky because I went to a small village primary so you got to know people, it’s easier to have a go at someone you don’t see every day.

“At senior school there was a bit more teasing but I had some close friends which mitigated that.”

“And I’ve had a very nice time in Edinburgh, I’ve never had any comments about my appearance, but every time I go back to Aberdeen I seem to get yelled at in the street, like the young guy that shouted ‘Look at the nose on that’ when I was sitting at a bus stop last summer.

“No one should be subjected to negative comments or face discrimination, and having a facial difference doesn’t mean you can’t live the life you want to live.”

Changing Faces work to help people who have a disfigurement find a way to live the life they want. For more information visit www.changingfaces.org.uk or call them on 0300 012 0275.

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