She can’t hear a note of the music, but she can feel the vibrations on the floor and uses them to guide her. “Rachel’s had a lot of problems for years”, says her mother, “but she doesn’t like to feel different from other people”. Since she was born, Rachel has been in and out of hospital with health problems affecting her heart, lungs, throat and ears. There hasn’t been a year of her life when she hasn’t had to deal with some operation. But that’s never put her off doing anything.