Sitting in a remote cabin earlier this year on the Hebridean isle of Harris, watching the fishing boats come and go in the little harbour, I felt the fog of the previous months finally beginning to clear. I kept thinking back to a cold November night, returning from Leeds to south London, when I finally admitted to myself that something needed to change.

I was exhausted from the long, frequent and often unrewarding round trips to visit my mum. At her care home in Leeds that autumn day, I had tried the usual tricks to summon a reaction from her – news of the grandkids, or re-reading poems and songs she’d written in her days as a primary school headteacher. But for the most part, she remained still and silent.

A nurse at the care home had asked me to remove Mum’s wedding rings before her fingers swelled further. “This doesn’t mean you’re not still married,” I whispered as I eased them off. “Don’t say it so loudly,” she shot back under her breath. Those small glimpses of her sparky old self would remind me she was still listening to every word.

Last July my dad passed away, soon after being diagnosed with liver cancer. As my sisters and I arranged the funeral and tried to set Mum up in the hope she could remain at home, she suddenly lost the ability to walk. We thought at........

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