Author Archives: Ruth Bright

Anyone who has been at home all day with a toddler and a pre-schooler knows how tough that can be. Some days are good – you enchant the little so-and-sos with colouring and sing-songs. Other days feel like Guantanamo with nappies. I remember once as a stay-at-home Mum realising the only adult company I had “seen” all day was Jeremy Paxman when I switched on Newsnight at 10.30pm. That’s bad!

It is a million times tougher now – no playgrounds and no chance to let little ones play outside for long. The young children have almost completely disappeared from the small estate where I live and I have the distinct impression that young mums are doing most of the work and they are doing an amazing job. I am lucky to be shut up with two teenagers where the only worry is the Netflix subscription and will it work on two devices at once.

I go for a walk to the park and the Co-op about every three days at about quarter to seven. I went down the whole length of Derby Road, a major road in Eastleigh, and saw no-one. Then a young man cut across me smoking. Social distance? Nah! The other day a youngish guy at the end of an aisle in the Co-op was cheerfully sniffing “at” me 50cm away.  A week ago, shopping at Sainsbury’s, a guy beckoned to me to use the automatic till he was just vacating. Not an inviting prospect as he had been coughing over it without putting his hand up!

Queen Victoria and her nine children. Princess Alice is on the left

In 1878 Queen Victoria’s daughter Alice was 35. In the lead up to Christmas most of her family in Darmstadt, Germany became ill as the brutal disease diphtheria raged through them. Alice was scrupulous about infection control. She was a nursing pioneer and Liberal thinker. Way ahead of her time. But she buckled when telling her little son Ernest that his young sister Marie had died and, against all of the rules, she held him close. Inevitably she succumbed to the disease and died a few days later.

Every Victorian would have known this sad tale and identified with it. But just a short month ago it would have sounded a bit mawkish and medieval to 21^st century Western ears.

Unbelievably this story is now topical with the (rare) but tragic death of a young teenager at Kings’ College. His family, through no fault of their own, unable to be with him because of the infection risk to them and to others.

A Welsh GP’s surgery has been pilloried for asking people about end of life choices. This is wrong. Ventilation, intubation, resuscitation and even “simple” catheterisation are all invasive and potentially traumatic. Any or all of them are well worth the candle in many circumstances for many people. But not in all circumstances for all people. Most of us would want the medical “kitchen sink” thrown at the young but we have to face up now to difficult conversations about where dignity trumps longevity and whether death at home with loved ones might be better than death in a field hospital surrounded by busy strangers in spacesuits.