Handled with care
Her documentary about her husband Derek’s battle with Covid moved a nation to tears. Now, GMB host Kate Garraway has invited the cameras back into her home for a follow-up
The past two years have been lifechanging for Good Morning Britain presenter Kate Garraway after her husband Derek Draper contracted one of the UK’s worst cases of Covid-19 – leaving him a shadow of the person he once was.
He spent months in intensive care, including time in an induced coma, after his liver, kidneys and heart failed.
And last year, she offered an intimate insight into his battle in a one-off programme called Finding Derek, which documented how she and her family had coped and adjusted to a new way of life.
Now, Kate has opened her doors once again for a moving follow-up film, Caring For Derek, and the opening scenes are particularly emotional. The couple’s two children Darcey, 15, and Billy, 12, are seen throwing their arms around their dad as he is wheeled through the front door, arriving home after over a year in hospital.
Caring For Derek picks up where the last documentary left off and shows Kate and her family from the point of Derek’s return in April and concludes at Christmas 2021. It was their first festive season at home together since 2019, which Kate recently described as “the biggest gift”. On Boxing Day, they even managed a visit to the panto.
But the film doesn’t shy away from the challenges of their new normal, either. Kate confronts the hardest truths and asks the most difficult questions, while navigating the myriad complexities of the social care system and showing what day-to-day life as a carer is like. Derek now receives 24/7 assistance in a house transformed to accommodate his needs.
“I’m very protective of Derek and of people seeing him vulnerable,” said the presenter, who married the 54-year-old former lobbyist and political adviser in 2005, after they were introduced by a mutual friend.
I’ve talked to him a lot about this and I think he understands that we have to make it real because this is the reality of life for people who are caring and it’s the reality of recovering from a life-changing event. It’s not pretty.”
The film shows the support Kate receives from family and friends, including Derek’s sister, Di, who helps her with some of her daily duties and believes they’ve just got to “celebrate the good days”. Kate also catches up with old friends Bobby and Julie, whose situation has parallels with her own, to find out how they are coping.
While Finding Derek – which won a National Television Award for Best Authored Documentary last year – reflected on Derek’s absence from the family home, this new show captures his return and the ways in which it has restored hope for Kate and their kids. Above all, it shows the TV star embarking on a different chapter in her marriage and family life.
Kate said: “Obviously, he still has extraordinary problems with communication, his mobility is very limited and he has massive problems with fatigue. It’s hard to get your head around. We still have fears and still have a long, long way to go. I’m hugely grateful for everyone that has saved his life thus far.”
PILLAR OF STRENGTH...
Kate, who married Derek in 2005, has been his rock throughout his ordeal