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My dad had died. My mother had mobility problems and was getting more and more isolated and depressed. So I asked her if she wanted to come and live with me. She was 78. I thought, ‘It’s only for a few years.’ She’s 92 now!
'To start with, she just lived with me and I was still working. Then in 2001 she had to have her leg amputated. Suddenly she was in a wheelchair, which changed life dramatically. I tried to carry on working until 2004, when I just keeled over one day. It took a year to get my health back.
'After I stopped work our finances nosedived, so I used up all my savings. We went from having a good income to living on benefits. It certainly wounded my pride to go onto benefits. Going to the Jobcentre was totally humiliating. In the end that just played on my health.
'I didn’t have a life of my own. If I could have got a break, I would just have gone for a swim or something like that – be me, do what I want. When it got to crisis point they gave me four hours a week help, which is better than nothing. Carers are entitled to a life of their own.'
Photography by Sam Mellish.
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