Care homes can work well for all, argues Elisa Segrave

People from disparate backgrounds, some struggling with their memory, some losing their mind... they all make for a warm and welcome refuge, says Elisa Segrave

‘I’ll happily go into a home when my daughter thinks I’m ready’

‘Would you like to go in there?’ my daughter asked – too eagerly, I thought – referring to the care home where my mother had died, suffering from Alzheimer’s, in August 2003.

I am 67 and do not show signs of dementia – although she may think otherwise. Still, I surprised myself by saying ‘Yes’, though I didn’t mean right away.

I had just revisited St Raphael’s in East Sussex for the first time since my mother’s death. It is run by an order of Augustinian nuns, started in 1842 by the progressive Canon Peter Maes in Bruges, for the care of the mentally ill. In 1866, the Sisters of St Augustine was reformed, here in Sussex.

A writer friend, eighty-plus, elegant, lively and compos mentis, had just put herself into St Raphael’s. She had then sent me a disconcerting postcard – ‘Change and decay in all around I see,’ she wrote – adding that she was the wrong age for the place.

Widowed in 2014, she’d had panic attacks in the flat she’d moved to from the ancient cottage where she’d lived for decades with her author husband, four children, assorted collies, and books up to the ceiling.

A young Irish nun went to fetch her and I waited in the parlour. It reminded me of the parlour at my convent school, where I had boarded from eleven to sixteen. Despite being naughty, I had been happy there, and I found this parlour, with its view of a valley, polished tables and illustrated books – one featuring a Celtic church – calming. The idea of being looked after in this peaceful environment appealed to me.

My mother was usually seated in a large, light room with other old ladies, all nicely turned out by the three nuns and their young staff. Sister Carmel, now retired, then in charge with Sister Basil, had appreciated my mother’s personality, despite her talking gibberish. Once, she had suggested I feed my mother lunch with a spoon – before, private carers had done this. I had become closer to my mother while she was in St Raphael’s, and she seemed to prefer it to being isolated in her large house. When she died, Sister Carmel broke the news, adding she already missed her chatter.

Not like the American lawyer I’d met who’d boasted of tearing old ladies off their life-support machines. With one, he’d rushed to the hospital and ordered the doctor: ‘Take that machine away or I’ll cut off both your hands!’

No, the nuns seemed able to deal with both life and death. I remembered the kindly way Sister Basil patted a patient the day I first visited the home, a woman I later would see plucking obsessively at the hem of her skirt.

My friend arrived and we walked in the grounds. An entertainment had been planned for that afternoon, she explained, but the entertainer had cancelled. Two kind Filipino male staff had done a spontaneous show instead, delighting the residents.

Music featured, too, at the other care home I visited recently, near the sea. Here, my friend was a widowed poet who also had entered voluntarily. I think she felt safe there.

My Asperger’s son came with me, saying he found old people soothing. He had once worked in a care home in Bexhill, but had to leave after finding the ‘ladette’ co-workers too forward.

I could see some rather mad-looking folk in the main room and one, coming towards us with a helper, seemed a bit out of control. My poet friend was in a wheelchair, in a silver jacket. She seemed pleased to see me.

My son politely said he was sorry about her husband, told a flattering anecdote about him, and then asked where his ashes were. Nearby, old songs were being sung and some of the demented people were singing along or kicking their legs to the music.

A very thin woman with huge eyes was walking about and came up very close. The poet strictly told her to do up her trousers. She and I then chatted about our cousin she’d known as a teenager. She even recalled her mother’s 1950s boarding house on the Costa Brava.

My son sat happily with the demented, listening to the songs. I was moved by the old favourite: ‘We’ll meet again, don’t know where, don’t know when…’

The singer, too, was elderly, with white hair, in a maroon jacket. Soon he left, packing his two bags. A quiz started up. I was impressed by the home having all these entertainments. When young, I had felt cut off in hospital private rooms, when my father paid for Bupa cover. I am happier with others around; I like to find out about them. Nor would I like a care home where everyone is of a similar background.

I remember the soft-spoken old man who hovered beside us on Christmas Eve 2001 at St Raphael’s, when my son and I were with my mother. He had recognised my surname as that of a famous racing motorist. A young helper, who’d brought us tea and chocolate cake, spoke pleasantly to him. Sister Carmel told us he’d been a doctor and wore his learning lightly. Such pleasant company.

Care homes are full of women – they live longer. I would miss men, and one woman I know of was ejected for stalking a male patient. But unrequited love can happen anywhere. Is there such a strict line between us, and those who have lost their minds?

I’ll happily go into a home when my daughter thinks I’m ready.