A line in Rivals helped me understand my mother’s dementia

As a longtime Jilly Cooper fan, I devoured the TV adaptation of Rivals. There were so many extravagant moments — Maud O’Hara arriving at her own party on a camel, David Tennant as Tony Baddingham smashing up the Corinium Studios set — yet the scene I remember most had nothing to do with shoulder pads or parties.

My mother had been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s in January 2025, after a bowel illness brought on a rapid decline: she sounded confused on the phone, stopped calling as often, and her WhatsApp messages became so erratic my cousin offered to check her phone for a virus.

When the family completed questionnaires for a memory-clinic assessment, we were asked about her orientation to time, place and person. My brother said she ate “with no off-switch” and my sister-in-law noticed her struggle to add up Scrabble scores. I cried in the shower, on my cycle to work and while unloading the dishwasher at night.

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