The Oldie

Saving graces

Wemmick’s Aged Parent in Dickens’s Great Expectations, beaming by the fire and enjoying his son’s jovial banter despite being stone deaf, remains the template for a contented and cared-for old age. But we read few such scenarios today. We read only of the high cost of care, the scarcity of carers and a post-pandemic picture of locked-down loneliness.

‘Who cares?’ has become a huge question. Richard Bates, having cared for his own father, has edited a collection of carers’ tales, Who Cares?: The Joys and Challenges of Unpaid Carers. Most unpaid carers are spouses or offspring and Bates asked a dozen of them to write their stories.

They are rivetingly candid. They tell tales of small tyrannies, bathroom horrors, mulish sulks and nocturnal needs, twice as demanding as child-rearing. But also of the gratifying aftermath: guilt assuaged, duty fulfilled.

Diana and George Melly, the ebullient jazz musician and writer,

You’re reading a preview, subscribe to read more.

More from The Oldie

The Oldie2 min read
Rant
I had to calm an unusual source of road rage the other week. ‘I can't find Radio 4!' hollered my wife from behind the steering wheel of an ancient hire car that had only an old analogue tuner rather than a modern digital receiver. ‘Where do they keep
The Oldie3 min read
I Read The News Today – Oh Boy!
It is not this column's inclination –much less its desire – to frighten you unduly. Quite the reverse; its mission is to apply a dollop of soothing balm to the fractious soul in these wickedly alarming times. Yet, every now and again, when a threat l
The Oldie3 min read
Right Royal Tragedies
The Lives and Deaths of the Princesses of Hesse Frances Welch Short Books £25 In 2011, I was employed to comment for an American outlet on Prince William's wedding to Catherine Middleton. I envisaged being stuck in a van in the compound opposite West

Related Books & Audiobooks